Fun Geography Review

I wanted to share a fun new station I am using this year to help with social studies review. 

We cover a lot of geography skills in 4th grade and I wanted to get in as much practice with that as I could before our state test. To create this station I started with a cheap shower curtain from the dollar store. I taped the curtain to the wall, projected a map of Virginia on the curtain, and got busy tracing with my Sharpie. 

Next, I went through our standards and created task cards that would help students review all of Virginia's geography SOLs. I also created some labels for states, water features, important cities, etc. I laminated the task cards and put them all on a ring. Then, I labeled large manilla envelopes to match the task cards and put the materials needed for each card inside the envelope. I also added in a Virginia atlas. I stored it all, including the map, in this handy box. 

Here is a picture of the center in action. For this task card students are labeling the states that border Virginia. 

I think this activity has been a big success and the kids love it! However, I would recommend investing in a sturdier shower curtain. This one is still holding up okay, but I have to make sure the kids are very careful with it and we all know that isn't something 4th graders are very good at! 

Do your students have to learn a lot of state specific geography?