World maps

So, we started the book last night. We started out by talking about the world and that 'hemi' means half and 'sphere' (means ball, which J already knew!) And how when you flatten out a ball, it messes up perspective. We looked at more traditional world maps, then polar views, to figure out where the perspective was most messed up.
(The edges of a flat map)

Then I explained about latitude and longitude and how they can be used to find where you are, no matter what map you are looking at. (I'm going to look into Geocaching and borrowing my friend's equipment to take them out, using these exact pieces of data, to look for something, I think.) I also taught them about looking at the title and index of a map to determine what information it is showing us. and how some maps show height or climate (and other things) instead of political boundaries.

Then, we talked about needing passports to go to another country (I need to take my passport to show them the next time I go over)

Then, we started on talking about Europe. First, in general, the countries that it consists of. (the map we are using has the U.S.S.R and East and West Germany on it.)
We covered the British Isles last night. And the different words used to mean them. Great Britain is ONLY the big island of the British Isles, with Scotland, Wales, and England on it. United Kingdom is all the countries on the British Isles put together (ie including Ireland.)

Next time, we start with the English legend of King Arthur. (and I am going to go through After the Flood and see if I can find him on the geneaologies of early Britain they have there.)