Biome Pin Flag Map

I chose to add a global geography element to Will's Girl Scout Animal Habitats badge; the badge teaches children quite a lot about environments specific to specific animals, and it's well-suited to such an expansion.

To complete my requirements, Will had to memorize the biomes and a brief definition of each; locate them on a world map; and conduct in-depth research into each biome (the books that I asked her to read for that were all pretty long, so I had her discuss each informally with me rather than write about them).

I set up the mapwork as a pin flag map project, using these biome pin flags from The Homeschool Den:

I also added pin flags for the states that the kids had covered back when we were studying each US state in depth. Will's job was to research the locations of each biome and then correctly place each pin flag. I had also wanted her to color each biome the correct color, based on the map's legend, but she didn't want to and I didn't push her. I wish I had done now, though, because I didn't provide enough pin flags of each biome to completely cover all its locations on the earth, so I think she came away from the project with an incomplete knowledge of these locations. Make YOUR kids color the map!

Here's how I store our pin flags, in case you're curious.

Here are some of the resources that Will used as part of the Animal Habitats badge:


Looking again at this project (which Will actually completed at the beginning of the summer--how time flies!), I think that after the kids finish memorizing the states and capitals, I'll do this unit again, but with both kids; Will can review, and Syd can learn it for the first-ish time. The kids love mapping enough that perhaps our geography curriculum this year will primarily consist of identifying and labeling--it's a good spine for further study, if nothing else.