Allied Women VT

Few young children can visualize a map of the United Kingdom, let alone the location of other countries in the world. Here’s a way to use television news to help your children learn about geography here and abroad.
Keep an atlas or globe next to the television. When you turn on the evening news, hand your children pencils and paper and ask them to write down the names of every place mentioned by the newscasters; They might also want to jot down the context in which these places were mentioned.
Following the news, help your children look up each place in the atlas, and, if possible, pinpoint it on a globe. Does location have anything to do with the news story? For example is there a border dispute or does an unfriendly neighbor nation pose a threat? Is geography a factor? Has an earthquake shattered a region, or has drought produced a famine?
If your children enjoy record keeping, they might like one of these related activities:
Colour-in Mao. While listening to the news, your children can have handy a box of crayons and a map of the United Kingdom. They can make the map by tracing a map from a reference book. When a city, county or country is mentioned, they colour in that area on the map.
This activity will help your children define geographic regions and learn the locations of different counties and cities. They may be surprised to see how long it takes some places to make the
news.

• Record Number of Places. Your children can keep a running count of the different cities, counties, countries, or famous people mentioned in a single news programme. They’ll listen more closely and become more familiar with these names in the news if they’re trying to establish a new record.