Rebecca M. Burley

This is a book review for “Thinking Like a Geographer: Grade 2” by Rebecca M. Burley.

The book itself might be better titled “Motivation for being a Geographer, and possible Social-Political Concerns for those working in the field of Geography.”

The course flow is laid out in a similar format as current Social Studies courses in so far as it focuses upon student’s community first and then expands outward to regional concerns and then global concerns.

Outside material, in the form of You Tube videos and hard copy books, is required if one is to follow the Lesson Plan as provided. Fortunately, the You Tube videos were still available while I was reviewing this book, but certainly this cannot always be guaranteed. Furthermore, although I was able to find a copy of the book “How People Immigrate” by Sarah De Capua on Amazon it was only available via Third Party sellers which makes me wonder if is currently out of print. The result is that the needed extra source material may or may not be available for use with this book. When purchasing any curriculum, I prefer it to be self-contained so that I can use it later with ease.

Although this book does cover certain useful concepts: Demographics, Cartography, Planning for City Services, and useful tools such as the Venn Diagram, I found this book to personally be a bit scattered and more focused on social relationships than specific geographical knowledge.

My daughter and I though did appreciate the hands on an approach to many of the activities in the Extension Activities section that provided opportunities to go beyond the normal lecture format of some programs and to get creative both artistically and mentally.

This program might be worthwhile considered as a supplement, and certainly is marketed in this way as being “perfect for enrichment programs” and under that standard it works, but as mentioned at the start this is more an exploration of the various socio-economic concerns of a geographer and not classical geographic principles or content knowledge.… (mehr)

I received a print copy of this book from its publisher through a giveaway they had on LibraryThing and the following is my honest opinion.

Schools are great as they teach their students a vast array of knowledge, and one subject matter which is taught is that of Geography; and what better way could there be other than teaching through the eyes and mind of a Geographer; which is what “Thinking Like a Geographer” by Rebecca M. Burley is attempting to do.

Schools themselves have created curriculums which maps out what needs to be taught along with the teaching manner. But, what about after school and private tutors or even more importantly parents who desire to homeschool their children; they’re all left in the “dark” in regards teaching the subject matter at hand. And Ms. Burley’s book happens to fill this void quite adequately.

As an adult, I love the clear-cut manner which the book is presented, for just like my favorite subject in high school, history, where American History II got broken down into time periods like The Depression where it got further broken down into its varied components [Relief, Recovery and Reform], this book is broken down into 7 units [themes]. Each theme is then broken down into an introductory lesson and then followed by additional lessons/exercises designed to have students explore the theme further while at the same time giving the individual presenting each lesson a breakdown for as to what the objective for each lesson and an outlined plan as how to present each lesson, culminating in a review lesson/exercise for students to test the knowledge obtained during the entire lesson theme.

As my inner-child I loved the engaging exercises I needed to do, and found them to be rather engaging and thought-provoking, forcing me to “take a test” of the knowledge I’ve just obtained from each lesson into a test practical use.

As I stated in the title for this book, I found this is the perfect book to teach children at the 2nd grade level [I feel it can also be used for children in other grades as well] about this subject for anyone other than teachers in school [and school teachers to supplement their own teaching materials]; which is why I’ve given this book and its author, Rebecca M. Burley, 5 STARS.

NOTE: There are other books in this series which deals with teaching children to think like a Mathematician [3rd Grade], Engineer [4th Grade] and Scientist [5th Grade]… (mehr)