How to Teach Elementary Geography like Charlotte Mason {2025}

Let’s talk about the most exciting and engaging way, that I have found, to teach elementary geography to my children.

In my homeschool, our geography lessons became so much more fun and enjoyable when we implemented the Charlotte Mason way of learning.

Let me show you how I structure my lessons and why my children love it so much!

Charlotte Mason geography lessons are short, sweet, and to the point. While also being a beautiful and fulfilling experience.

Charlotte Mason on the Study of Geography

Charlotte Mason quote about geography study

As educator Charlotte Mason stated in her book, Home Education:

“Geography is, to my mind, a subject of high educational value. The peculiar value of geography lies in its fitness to nourish the mind with ideas and furnish the imagination with pictures.” -Charlotte Mason

I absolutely love how she describes the importance of teaching geography. It should feel like an exciting adventure and encourage your children to truly imagine the places that they are learning about as if they are actually there.

Geography really is so important, after all, it is a study of their world, of real places. And it really is so enjoyable learning geographical concepts through looking at maps and reading geographical readers.

Maps, Maps, Maps

Using maps is one of the key components of learning physical geography.

In the words of Charlotte Mason:

“Geography should be learned chiefly from maps, and the child should begin the study by learning ‘the meaning of a map’ and how to use it.” -Charlotte Mason

After all, if your children aren’t looking at maps they will never know where places are located, as well as where they are located in relation to other significant places.

The Charlotte Mason method for teaching geography begins with map work, at the very start of the lesson and then she encourages a feast of beautiful living books and plenty of picture books for younger children.

Then of course, staying with Charlotte’s educational philosophy there is also plenty of narration, that occurs within the short 15-minute lessons, that she recommends twice per week.

How I Teach Geography

As I mentioned, geography has become such a fun subject for me to teach and my children really look forward to our bi-weekly geography lessons.

As per Miss Mason’s principles, our geography lessons are a combination of short map drills, reading living books, and working out of a few different Charlotte Mason and Charlotte Mason adjacent geography books (which I will talk about a little later in this post).

A basic overview looks like this: about 5 minutes of map work and then reading from either a living book or a lesson from one of our Charlotte Mason geography books. It’s really that simple and my boys have learned so much.

By choosing to do geography this way, it is the perfect solution for homeschooling a large family, with children who are multiple ages and at various levels. We are able to do our geography lessons together as a family.

Maps are used all of the time. Not just during our geography lessons either. I am constantly pulling our atlas out to look up any location mentioned in anything that we read or come across in our day-to-day living.
Whenever we are traveling, whether we are on road trips around the United States or just local day trips and field trips, we are looking up every location on the map before we leave on our journey. This really helps kids to easily and quickly learn where places are located in relation to where we are located.
The majority of our actual map work involves either coloring in maps or playing fun map games.
My boys love to play the “map find it game” as it has come to be known. Basically, I call out a location: whether it is a state, city, country, ocean, or continent and they see who can find that specific location the fastest. It has helped all of them to learn which region of the world so many different places are located in.
We read from a wide variety of living books that focus on geography, as well as the culture of those areas. All of my children, from ages 13 down to 3 years old listen to the stories and will take turns narrating different parts.
I make sure to include any relevant current events and fun facts when we are discussing different areas and regions as well.
Our geography and map work is included in so many of our different studies:
when we talk about historical events, it is so important to reference an atlas or globe
when we do our nature study, we will look up locations, but we also talk about topographical features, features of our own neighborhood, changing seasons, where the sun rises and sets, and other geographical features (ex: the direction of a little stream or where palm trees are located vs. maple trees)

charlotte mason elementary geography books

Charlotte Mason Geography Books

For the spine of my geography lessons, I use a few different classic geography books. These are some of the best books to use during the elementary years to teach geography in a truly engaging and fun way.

Elementary Geography by Charlotte Mason

Where better to start teaching Charlotte Mason geography lessons than with Charlotte Mason, herself? Elementary Geography was written by Charlotte Mason in 1881 and then updated with footnotes by Blue Sky Daisies. This book is such a classic and is so enjoyable. It is the perfect book to use as an introduction to geography lessons for younger elementary-aged children.

Miss Mason’s conversational tone throughout the book makes learning so easy and enjoyable. In between learning lessons, there are several reviews that I always do orally with my children.

My favorite parts of this book are the poetry selections that Charlotte Mason chose to perfectly complement the lesson’s topic. My favorite one is “Sailor-Boy’s Gossip”.

There is so much learning to be had from this thin little book. Some of the topics include:

planets
the solar system
the Earth’s continents
changing seasons
latitude and longitude
map making
Earth’s topographical features

This book can be purchased on Amazon or downloaded for free here.

Home Geography for Primary Grades by C. C. Long

Another one of my favorite classic geography books to use is Home Geography by C.C. Long. This one was originally written in 1894 and is now published by Classic Living Book. It is very similar to Charlotte Mason’s Geography book using a conversational style and is chock full of beautiful old-fashioned pictures, poetry selections, and plenty of student questions.

This sweet little book covers so many different topics. Some of the topics included are:

compasses and direction
weather
plants and animals
water and water cycle
land formations
and stars

This book can be purchased on Amazon or downloaded for free here.

Outdoor Geography by Herbert Hatch

Outdoor Geography by Herbert Hatch is perfect for older students looking for a lot of hands-on activities and experiments to complement their geography lessons. This is another book published by Classic Living Book.

And here is a fun little fact for you…this book was actually used in Charlotte Mason schools.

This book is quite in-depth and really focuses on going outside and encouraging your student to figure out their local geography.

I think this may have been my oldest’s favorite book that we did in elementary school. It really encouraged a lot of critical thinking and observation through hands-on learning.

Living Books for Teaching Geography

charlotte mason geography books with map

In addition to the main geography books, I love to use beautiful living books in my homeschool as well. They help to make geography even more fun and well-rounded. There are so many different amazing titles to choose from.

The easiest place to start; however, is by choosing a Charlotte Mason-inspired curriculum that already has a set book list and teaching guides to go along with it.

Simply Charlotte Mason Curriculum

Simply Charlotte Mason is my go-to for all things Charlotte Mason learning and the “Visits To…” series is amazing! It works from two different books for a spine, Material World and Hungry Planet: What the World Eats.

There is a study book for the following locations:

Africa
Asia
Europe
North America
South and Central America and Australia
Middle East

We have learned so much from this curriculum and my kids love making their mapbooks so much. All of the narration prompts and discussion questions are built right in, which is so helpful; especially for families newer to the Charlotte Mason way of learning.
I will say that Hungry Planet in particular seems a little dated at times. But still very educational and interesting.

You can learn all about it here.

Beautiful Feet Books Geography Book Study

I love all of the Beautiful Feet Books study packs. They select amazing living books for older students and for younger grades beautiful picture books. All of the curriculums that I have purchased from beautiful feet have been so much fun and my children have truly learned so many things!

Personally, the teacher’s guide is my favorite part because it tells me everything to go over with my children. It gives a list of vocabulary words and review questions as well.

Beautiful Feet has 3 different geography units depending on your children’s ages:

U.S. Geography Through Literature for K-3 and 4-6: Both of these US Geography Units are so thorough and have such amazing classic books. Of course, the map work is a lot of fun as well. Each level includes 11 books, mapwork, and a teacher’s guide.
Around the World for K-3: This is a 2-part geography unit that my kids have loved immensely. The chosen books are so perfect for teaching not only geography but also culture from around the world. This may be one of my favorite geography studies to do with my younger elementary students.
Holling C. Holling Geography Pack Grade 4 through Grade 7: My 7th grader is currently working through this geography pack. The Holling C. Holling books are such excellent educational books, with gorgeous original illustrations. And it includes Paddle-to-the-Sea, which is a beloved book by my whole family.

Check out the Beautiful Feet Geography packs here.

Free Map Printables

Want to get your children started with some fun map work right away?

Then feel free to download these free map printables! There is a Continents coloring packet and a continental United States map worksheet. Choose to use one or both-it is completely up to you, both are included.

Hands-on Activities

The best part about any school lesson will always be the hands-on activities. It’s a great way to make lessons truly come to life.

As I mentioned earlier looking at an atlas is a normal part of our everyday life.

While going on nature hikes my kids all carry a compass and check it regularly to know the direction that we are walking in.
Outdoor Geography by Herbert Hatch has so many different hands-on learning activities to help your children really understand geography and geographical features.
If you are looking for FREE printables to help your children with their map work download my Free Earth’s Continents Coloring Activity and Free United States map to help your students with their map work and to make it more fun.
You could even have your children create their very own map if they enjoy drawing and creating.

Charlotte Mason geography lessons are the best way that I have found to teach my children their geography lessons in a fun and perfectly engaging way. It has become a real blessing to my homeschooling mornings.

How to Teach Elementary Geography like Charlotte Mason

Let’s talk about the most exciting and engaging way, that I have found, to teach elementary geography to my children.