Europe on my mind
I knew at the beginning of the year, since we’d be studying European history this year in History at Our House, that I’d want to get a good map of Europe to which they could refer. Well, I didn’t find a good map of Europe. I found a fantastic map of Europe. This one. Big and colorful with lots of info packed onto it, but legibly. It’s been a great resource.
Even so, in terms of actually memorizing aspects of it, they were having troubles keeping all the countries in order, and the bodies of water as well. So one morning I sat them down and did what I do for myself: Start looking for connections and analogies. For the countries it was a matter of teaching them where the smaller ones are. I knew they knew where England, Spain, France, and Germany are, so I went from there. Here’s what I told them (click to open this simpler Europe map in another window to follow along, or zoom in on the one linked above) :
- Germany is shaped like Pac Man, facing right. Pac Man Germany is eating the Czech Republic, which makes sense since Germany annexed Czechoslovakia in WWII. And now you know where Slovakia is, because it used to be one country with the Czech Republic.
- Denmark is Pac Man Germany’s hat. It looks a bit like a dunce cap. Denmark’s capitol is Copenhagen: DenC (pronounced “dense.”) Also D.C., like our D.C.: Denmark-Copenhagen.
- The Netherlands and Belgium are Germany’s hair, flowing out from the back, west, of its Pac Man head. The Netherlands is the larger of the two on the map just like the word “Netherlands” is larger than the word “Belgium.” Similarly, for the capitols, Amsterdam is longer and so has to go with the country with the longer name. Brussels goes with the shorter Belgium.
- Switzerland is in between France, Germany, and Italy—just like Switzerland is always in between—neutral, in the middle—in the big wars (in all the wars, for that matter, but that’s not important right now).
- Austria has to be the one next to Switzerland because how else could the Von Trapps have escaped to there from Austria? (Our kids have seen The Sound of Music lots of times.)
- Austria’s capitol is Vienna: “-ria” and “Vie-”. Vienna sausage makes us Hungary—which is next to Austria.
That’s as far as we got on countries. Then we moved on to bodies of water. They knew the Mediterranean, but couldn’t keep the Adriatic, Aegean, Black, and Caspian seas straight. So I pointed this out to them:
- The Mediterranean is the biggest one and it has the biggest name. The rest are in alphabetical order west to east: ADriatic, AEgean, Black, and Caspian.
- At first they were confusing the Black with the Baltic. Well, Italy’s boot kicks the BALtic up in the air, so it’s the one up above, next to Norway, Sweden, and Finland (which we’d looked at first).
(Forgot about Norway, Sweden, and Finland. I taught them those by showing how they’re linked together like fingers of a hand, so they go together. What’s the order? They’re north, and a source of the Norse, so “NorSFin.” Sounds like Norsemen and gets them all in the proper order.)
These actually worked surprisingly well for my kids, especially since it was all off the cuff. A little WWII history helps, but they didn’t know it until I told them, and it still mostly worked as a link. A note on our maps: I spent hours and hours over a few days finding the maps I wanted. I ended up finding all three I had in mind from the same place, maps.com. Great company. I bought this world political and this world physical. Thrilled with all three of them. They’re all mounted on foam core and hanging on nails in our school area. I’ll be doing a separate blog on them at some point as well.
