Teaching geography step 1: Find globe

[Crumb]

Can I join if I have a late 40s or early 50s set of The American People's Encyclopedia?

[Ymir's blood]

Maybe, but you'll have to fetch coffee for us.

[godfry n. glad]

Like...I'm rilly jellus.

I only had access to the Brittanica Junior edition, and I knew it was inferior to World Book, even as a preadolescent. But my dad wouldn't spring for the World Book in-house. He sent me to the neighborhood public library, where he noted that they had four different sets of encyclopedias, including, of course, the World Book.

We did have a globe...always. Sometimes multiple globes. National Geographic was the usual source and they tended to appear during the holiday seasons. I went through several.

One fun way to globe out is to get an inflatable beachball globe. Probably available online, relatively inexpensively. (Yep...eBay. starting at $1.99 and up. I selected the one I thought impressive.)

I liked KA's orientation and think that it would appeal to a lot of kids. Go for a flight...see the curve of the earth....watch the rocket...see the earth from outer space...now, we can introduce the globe as a representation of that. I'm glad that the Googlemap approach worked; it sounds like you hurtled some impediments in kiddo's conceptualization.

[Angakuk]

We had two sets of encyclopedias in our home when I was child. We had World Book (including the Childcraft set) and Our Wonderful World (including the Children's Hour set). I am not sure about the publication dates, but I was certainly using both of them in sixth grade which would have been circa 1966. Here is the thing about having the Our Wonderful World set, If I plagiarized from the World Book I was pretty sure to be caught out, because all the teachers had World Book. Seems like nobody else had Our Wonderful World, so I was in like Flynn if wanted to plagiarize from that one. We also had a globe. I think my folks still have that as well as both sets of encylopedias. I have a set of Funk & Wagnall's encyclopedias, but of a more recent vintage. On a related note, when I first encountered Microsoft Encarta the articles seemed oddly familiar. Turns out that they were, word-for-word, identical to my Funk and Wagnalls.

[Janet]

I'm pretty sure we had a globe, but I think it got destroyed in some normal sibling accident when I was fairly young. We had a big, World Book atlas that we kept under the couch because it was so big. Also the World Book dictionary and Bartlett's Familiar Quoatations, the Childcraft and some World Book stories and fairy tales collection that looked like it went with Childcraft. Sometimes I wonder if we wound up with two librarians in the family because my parents were into reference books.

[curses]

Originally Posted by Ymir's blood

I grew up with a 60's set of World Book as well. Demi!

OMG me too! WorldBook Club!

[LadyShea]

I don't know why, but I vividly remember some encyclopedia saleswoman coming to our house in the 70's trying to get my mom to replace our outdated World Book set on an installment plan. Mom was p. much convinced, because I was a good student and had need of good reference materials, until I told her that A) I had a perfectly valid library card that I used regularly, and that I was a crack card catalogger and B) the new set would become outdated quickly and might not even outlive the payments.

[ceptimus]

I have a globe with a lamp inside, and it had a magnifying glass (plastic) that slid up and down on the frame that supports the globe's poles. The magnifier was actually pretty useful as the globe is only about foot in diameter so the names of the countries, towns, rivers are in pretty small print.

But I left it on a table and as the sun moved around it focused through the magnifier and scorched a track north of the Black sea from Odessa to the River Volga. Luckily it didn't catch fire. I removed the magnifier after that.

So if you have a globe with a magnifier, be sure to put it somewhere out of the sun, or at least park the magnifier so that it can't focus the sun's rays onto the globe.

[Ymir's blood]

It's strange in my childhood* that I can remember pouring over the encyclopedia, dictionary and thesaurus but only barely recall children's books. What little of those that I remember were hand me downs from my parents like the ancient edition of Little Lord Fauntleroy (sp?) with curious yellow stain (mustard, vomit?) on the inside face of the front cover.

*but then again, what isn't?

[curses]

That was the best thing about those encyclopedias! You could just think of something, look it up, and find out about it. Pre-google Google! It was what got me interested in learning.

I still hate dictionaries but the thesaurus is my friend.

[Watser?]

Oh yeah, the globe I had, had a little lamp in it too and if you turned it on you could see the national borderlines, which you couldn't see well without it.

[Janet]

My siblings and I spent a lot of time on the dog pages picking out which breeds we wanted if we ever talked my parents into getting us one. We never succeeded in convincing them to get a dog, but my preference for Springer Spaniels still persists from those days.

[Ymir's blood]

Originally Posted by Watser?

Oh yeah, the globe I had, had a little lamp in it too and if you turned it on you could see the national borderlines, which you couldn't see well without it.

What would be cooler would be one that has LEDs showing projected missile paths over the pole.

[But]

..

[But]

Originally Posted by Ymir's blood

What would be cooler would be one that has LEDs showing projected missile paths over the pole.

thank you for the suggestion, done

[erimir]

You should get him one of those upside down Australia globes where all the writing is so that you're supposed to look at it with south pointing up.

Then Kiddo will get all used to seeing the world that way and then when he sees normal maps he'll be like "Why is this map upside down?"

[Demimonde]

I came across this and thought it might be useful for Kiddo.

I seem to remember you posting about him working on figuring out how cities are in states, which are in countries etc. Then liv talked about a cute little Italian girl who said the darnedest thing once or something. Looking back it wasn't this thread, but it seems germane to this topic.

I have a headache though, so my brain might just be broken or something.

[Ensign Steve]

It was this thread! I just reread it!

[Demimonde]

Okay, so I am not crazy then. My skimming feature is just offline.

[LadyShea]

Thanks Demi! It's so simple yet effective seeming!

[Ensign Steve]

Did you find a globe? Someone in the office has an inflatable one, like a beach ball, and I keep being tempted to steal it for you.

Also, let us never forget the most educational cartoon show ever made.

Animaniacs - Yakko's World - HIGH QUALITY -...

Animaniacs - Yakko's Universe - YouTube

Animaniacs: Wakko's 50 States & Capitals Song -...

[Demimonde]

Thanks for linking all of those. I had Yakko's Universe stuck in my head all evening.

[LadyShea]

Whoever wrote those songs is crazy and smart. The rhymes in the countries of the world song are enough to make me go "WTF?" about that process

[erimir]

Wacko doesn't pronounce Raleigh correctly.

[viscousmemories]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

Whoever wrote those songs is crazy and smart.

Umm, it says right on the video that Yakko wrote it.