If my son was in school he would be Year 9 but he is home educated and because he is a bit ahead with some of his subjects his Year 9 is not really looking like a typical Year 9 in terms of school work. For some subjects we are doing Year 9 work, for some we have already started his IGCSE content and for some we are doing a bit of a mix between finishing off KS3 work and starting IGCSE. When it comes to Geography we are spending some time finishing up KS3 content before we launch into starting his IGCSE content a bit early. The reason why we are still working on some KS3 Geography with him is because I wanted to make sure we have a solid foundation before we start looking at the IGCSE content. And I am going to be brutally honest, Geography is not a comfort subject for me (give me Maths, History, Biology even Physics but Geography, I have never really gotten along well with Geography). So knowing I am not the strongest in Geography I wanted to make sure we both have a solid foundation of knowledge and understanding before we progressed.
That being said the way that we are finishing up on KS3 Geography is with the Geog range of books from Oxford University Press (we have already used Geog.1 and Geog.2). We have the Geog.3 student book, the workbook and the answer book. (There is also a teachers guide but I am not using that, if there is something we do not understanding or feel we need more information on we tend to search for YouTube clips).
The way we use this is quite straight forward – we choose a chapter to work through (you can jump around with the order of the chapters in this book, which is what we have done as we have linked the chapters to events that may be happening around us or chapters that are linked to other subjects i.e. looking at Russia in Geography when we did some Russian history). Anyway we do 1 or 2 double pages in the student book at a time and then we complete the corresponding workbook page. Once my son has answered the workbook page he then marks it himself by using the answer book. If he has any questions he comes to ask but most of the time the answer book gives him what he needs and he works independently.
Okay the Student book – the pages are easy to read and they have included lots of colourful pictures and diagrams which makes it engaging. I feel like they have managed to keep the content at the right level – they have not oversimplified anything and at the same time they have explained all the ideas well so I never feel like it is beyond our level of understanding.
The workbook is in black and white and is essentially one page of activities/questions for every double page of the student book. For us, the two work well together. I think if you only had the student book and did not get the workbook you would be doing your kid a disservice. Once the kids have read the pages in the student book it really does help to then follow it up with some questions and activities. And they have included a nice variety of questions. When my oldest first used Geog.1 I did try and use it without the workbook and I tried to find activities on the internet instead. It was very time consuming and I honestly did not always find good quality activities to go with the student book (I ended up getting the workbook). So I think including the workbook is a must and well worth the money that it costs.
The answer book. I am not going to sugar coat it the answer book is a bit pricey when you compare it to the cost of the workbook. But for me it is worth it because it means the kids can work independently and they are not waiting for me to try and mark it.
What topics does Geog.3 cover?
- From rock to soil (types of rocks, weathering, rock cycle)
- Using the Earth’s resources (water, food and energy)
- Earning a living (pattern of employment, globalisation)
- International development (what is development, how is it measured, development gap, poverty)
- Our restless planet (plates, earthquake, tsunami, volcanoes)
- Russia
- The Middle East
Typically speaking you would work through all of this in one academic year but we are doing things a bit differently and we are going to finish this well within 6 months. Now that is just because we have already finished our Year 9 History and we have a bit of time available so we are working through it really quickly. But really it would work well of one academic year.
For us this ticks all our boxes and it suits us. We like the combination of the 3 books together because it means he gets to reinforce what he reads with some questions and then he marks it himself.
You can buy the Geog/3 books directly from the OUP website here is the link – Geog range of books
And for those of you interested here are Amazon links for the books that I mentioned in the post
Admin – We were given the Geog.3 workbook and answer book from OUP, but that was only after I choose to use the Geog.3 range of books. I would have chosen to use these books even if we had been given the workbook and answer book.
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