Review of Drawing Around the World:USA

There are so many fabulous homeschool curriculum products on the market today that it is hard to decide which to choose and many you may not have even heard of. That is the case for me with today's product. I had never heard of Brookdale House publishing company before signing up to review one of their products. The company was birthed to meet the need of the primary author's family. She could not find anything that contained copywork, narration, and dictation to teach elementary writing so she created her own! The company now offers many homeschool products including elementary writing, elementary Spanish, Geography, Bible memorization, and so much more!

The product I chose to review is from the The Geography Drawing Series called Drawing Around the World: USA. It is available in a printed book for $25.95 or ebook format for $22.95. We reviewed the ebook format which I think is perfect if you plan to use it with multiple children. Since we were already studying the United States and memorizing capitals as well, I thought this would be the perfect companion to complement our current curriculum.



The course is extremely simple to implement and has been a fun addition for my daughter who loves to draw!  I really think it has helped her to memorize more about the states we are learning as well. We were studying the states in order of statehood and we were on state 30 already before picking up this course.  It has served as a great review for some of the states we've already learned about.  This course teaches states starting with the top of the east coast then going south and working throughout the midwest and west- perfect when you are learning to draw the states and seeing how they connect.
There is a suggested weekly schedule to follow and that is how we approached the course. The schedule included daily tasks for different states and took less than 15 minutes to complete each day. There was also an option and instructions on how to add in timed drills to your schedule. We did not include this as the child I was working with stresses out with any sort of timed activity but I did try it out with my 9th grader who already has all the states and capitals mastered. He is also my competitive child so the drills were right up his alley!

The course is set up to complete in 27 weeks and covers anywhere from 1-4 states per week with the majority being 1 state per week.

Day 1: Students are introduced to the new state/states and complete the State Fact Table sheet. They suggest a couple of websites where you find the facts needed to complete the sheets and we also had some of the information on our previous state study sheets. Students will locate and label each new state onto the dashed, black and white map and draw all states studied so far.

Day 2 & Day 3: Students repeat the process of locating and labeling each new state onto the dashed, black and white map and drawing the states from memory. This is pretty easy at first but as states continue to be added, it becomes more difficult so the daily practice and repetition really helps!  I allowed Sarah to look back at the map if she became stuck at any point but most of the time she did great from memory!

Day 4: Students list the states studied so far from memory and use a blank text box to draw all of the states they have learned so far from memory.

The process is so simple but works so efficiently in helping students memorize the states and capitals plus Washington, DC. I am so glad to have been introduced to this curriculum and would highly recommend it if you are studying the USA. There is also a Drawing Around the World: Europe edition.

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