Geography

I can never decide what's important for my kids to learn (academics-wise, not character-wise) and at one point I decided it was geography.  Why?  Because I'm terrible about knowing where things are, often to the point of embarrassment. In college a guy in the ward told me he'd just gotten his mission call to Croatia.  "Oh,"  I said, "are you excited about serving in South America?" 

 So I covered our house with maps for a while and got a couple of geography games for the iPad.  When I was working with him, Zay got pretty good at locating countries.  But, of course, I eventually gave up on it (as I do most of the home- or child-improvement projects I start).  Imagine my delight when we walked past this patched sidewalk on the way to swimming lessons and Zay said, "Look Mom, that sidewalk looks like Louisiana!"  Ok, truthfully, I wasn't delighted until later on when we got home and I googled Louisiana to see what it was shaped like.  A friend once told me she always responds with "Oh, is that so" when her kids tell her a "fact" that she's unsure about.  It's a phrase I use a lot.  Here's hoping the next generation learns more than I did!  (I do like to blame it on the fact that my early elementary years were spent in Canada; I learned all of the provinces when other kids learned the states.  However, I saw a study a while ago that showed that Canadian kids know more US geography than US kids do, so I guess that excuse is gone.)