Course Overview
People & Planet is an activity based geography program about the natural world and the continents and oceans. This method teaches about places, landscapes, and people from all over the earth by means of hands-on activities. The best part is the family-style design that allows you to teach all ages at once.
Learn more about how Layers of Learning works.
What’s In This PDF Set?
People & Planet includes nine individual month long units including:
- Maps & Globes – Geography basics about how to use a map and globe and the locations of the continents and oceans
- Africa – Learn about landforms and the continent and people of Africa
- Asia – Study natural disasters and Asian landscapes and people.
- South America – Explore rocks and soil on earth plus South American landscapes and people.
- Oceania – Learn about the fragility and resilience of our planet and Australia and the islands of Oceania.
- North America – Investigate climates and the landscapes and people of North America.
- Europe – Learn about water’s role on earth and about European landscapes and people.
- Polar Regions – Study ecosystems, Antarctica, the Arctic region, and the people who live there.
- Oceans – Dive into natural resources and the oceans around the world.
A Layers of Learning Geography Lesson
Each Exploration in the units is written as a complete lesson plan. It will direct you in books to read, videos to watch, projects to craft, and discussions to have. The units are clear full of Explorations to choose from and you won’t have time for them all. This is a pick-and-choose curriculum.
Besides the geography lesson for the day the units are lined with sidebars that direct you to discussions, books, famous people, interesting facts, writing ideas, and more.
You will also see a Library List at the beginning and a Show What You Know section at the end that will help you create assessments or tests based on your individual learning.
Reusable and for All Ages
These units books are for the mentor, not to hand to the student. They are supposed to be used repeatedly. Since this is a pick-and-choose curriculum, you do some of the explorations and save others for later on. If you follow the four year cycle, you will progress through People & Planet, Mapping Our World, World Cultures, and then People & Place. Then you will cycle back to People & Planet in the fifth year when your kids are older and learning at a higher level. In all you may use this book three times with your child.
The People & Planet units contain lessons ranging from “what are the seven continents” up to plotting cities on a map by global coordinates. There are plenty of concepts for little kids and plenty to challenge high schoolers. Most lessons are meant to be taught to many ages from 6-year-olds clear up to seniors in high school. Each age group gets the same Exploration and principles, but they learn on the level they are ready for. Books from your library and video from the YouTube playlists customize the learning for each age.
Extra Resources
YouTube playlists, Pinterest boards, links to helpful websites are all assembled and ready for you to access on the People & Planet Resources for Layers of Learning page.
You can get a printable People & Planet PDF Cover to put in the front of a binder if you plan on printing the units.
Printable Packs
People & Planet also includes printables for every unit. These are worksheets or paper crafts for the students. The Printable Packs are available as a digital PDF download and come with your purchase on your receipt.
Also Sold As Individual PDFs
The People & Planet course also comes as individual PDF units you can purchase one-by-one as you go. The individual PDFs are exactly the same content as the units that are included within the paperback or PDF People & Planet book. It’s like buying the course chapter by chapter.
Molly Impola –
Covers so many topics in such a fun way! Great for all ages and just what I was looking for!
Margarita D. –
We already done a few projects and having so much fun. So many cool options to choose from from reading to hands on stuff. Stuff for every type of learner.
Krista Biggs –
I went back and forth over this for curriculum for a couple years now, and I regret waiting! This is exactly what I have been looking for, I love the set up, the activities, the suggestions, everything! I can’t wait to get started!
katemichelle07 –
This year was the first time that we have really studied geography on purpose and it was all because of layers of learning. Each unit has a portion that is devoted to things about the physical landscape and also the placement on the glodbe and people who inhabit them. I have thoroughly enjoyed geography this year and we could have gone so much deeper I look forward to using this the next time we come around to year 1