In our History and Geography, we have been studying the individual countries of the Asian continent. I want my children to both have a good geography background so that when they hear of countries, cities, etc. on the news and in everyday life they have a idea of what area of our world is being discussed. Throughout our study, they have located city/country names like Iraq, Kabul, Iran, Israel, Japan, etc that they can recall hearing about in the recent news stories. This gives them a visual picture of how far away various conflicts or disasters are that are being reported on.
When we began this in depth continent study, I realized how lacking my own geographical knowledge was. I really do not recall a specific "geography" course that I took either in high school or in college. (I am not quite sure how I missed that!) I do, however, remember many of the history courses that I took and remember talking about various countries, but I never really "learned" the countries and their locations. For one thing, I think when I was in school my primary goal was to memorize the facts for the test enough to get a good grade and move on. As an adult, learning has taken on a whole new meaning and interest to me. I actually enjoy taking the time to learn rather than memorize. I find more pleasure in discovering how things work, move, and interrelate.
Because of my lack of geography knowledge, I decided that I would learn as many of the countries and their locations that I could right along with the the kiddos! Right now we are slowly making our way through the largest continent Asia. (There are sure a lot of little countries shoved in that continent!) We have learned many of the larger more common countries and their capitals and are adding more as we go along. We are also studying various mountain ranges, major rivers, and deserts located on the continent.
That brings me to the site that I found. There is a great site that has various quizzes in math, science, vocabulary, and geography. It is called That Quiz. (Here is the link.) We have been using this site to occasionally check our knowledge of the locations of various Asian countries, capitals, and rivers. It gives me a good idea of what exactly the children have really learned and gives them a chance to see their progress as well. There are level adjustments that you can make on each of the quizzes to be able to set it to the age appropriate level for your student. At the end of each completed page you are shown a running total of how many you have answered correctly/incorrectly. When the quiz is finished it gives you a percentage along with the answers that you answered incorrectly. You can then go back through the quiz and have them show the correct answer to see what you missed.
Over the last couple of weeks, I have also used a couple of the other subjects just to check up on some basic knowledge in other areas. I remember now exactly what I missed learning in trigonometry! There is such a wide variety of topics covered in this site that it is a good resource for all ages.
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