Are you ready to explore the world?
Get ready to learn about the world’s geography and cultures in this absolutely FREE book! Why do are we offering a free book? Have a look at our About Us page, and you’ll get a sense of who we are and why we care about homeschoolers like we do. Having said that, please consider using Guest Hollow as your source for other curriculums and materials. Despite being a tiny mom-and-pop, our company has a lot to offer, and it’s growing all the time. Please explore our site as well as our social media presence and let us know what you think!
This FREE book is designed to be used with Guest Hollow’s Geography & Cultures Curriculum, but anyone is free to use it. 🙂 ***IMPORTANT*** This book is but one of MANY books called for in the curriculum. It is not in and of itself enough to teach this subject. It should be used with the curriculum. It is NOT a curriculum on its own and should not be thought of as such.
Thank You,
The Guest Family
© Guest Hollow, LLC
Tip: When reading the online textbook, you can click on most of the images to see them larger. This may be useful when you want to see the details on maps and photos! Also, don’t forget that most browsers will allow you to increase the font size of the page you are reading (if that’s something you need to make the reading more comfortable). 🙂
Teachers and adults please note: The following textbook contains a variety of videos that represent different cultures and customs. Everyone is different in what they find offensive. We’ve put notes/warnings with some videos WE would deem potentially controversial in our curricula and textbooks, but our sensitivities may be different from yours. If this is a concern for you, preview videos before your students watch them.
- Chapter 1: Introduction to Geography
- Chapter 2: Antarctica
- Chapter 3: North America
- Chapter 4: Middle America
- Chapter 5: South America
- Chapter 6: Europe
- Chapter 7: Russia
- Chapter 8: Asia
- Chapter 9: Africa
- Chapter 10: Australia and New Zealand
- Chapter 11: The Pacific
This text was adapted (with permission) from both World Regional Geography: People, Places, and Globalization and World Regional Geography by Caitlin Finlayson. You can visit Caitlin’s website here!
I’ve taken excerpts from both of the above-mentioned resources and heavily edited and added to them for my intended audience. While I’ve received permission to use/adapt both books, neither licensor endorses Guest Hollow or our use of their materials.
Information was also taken from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License and other resources (listed in the page credits).
This online book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted. Some text ©Guest Hollow, LLC
The book is still being developed. 🙂 It’s a rough draft and isn’t finished yet. The current geography schedules uses the book The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Geography as a spine.
So on Week 12 the workbook has the child take notes on Germany & France. My child watched the video linked in resources, in the curriculum and loved it, and found it very useful not only for the one workbook page, but for the rest of the book as well. She only wishes that she would have had this at the beginning of the school year. Is is possible you would be able to move it to Week 1?
I added it to the beginning of the weekly schedule (right before week 1)! Thank you for the request!
The book is finished. I’m now working on updating the workbook questions for it. I hope to have them proofread in a week or two…I’m not committing to a release date for the whole update (since crazy things can happen), but I’m hoping it will be soon. 😉 I’ll be posting on the Geography Facebook group about it soon if you want to keep an eye on things: https://www.facebook.com/groups/GuestHollow.Geography.homeschool/
You guys are awesome!
Thanks for all the free books and resources!
You are very welcome! 🙂 Thank you so much for commenting. Comments like yours are such an encouragement!
Is there a way to download and save the online textbook to a flash drive for safe keeping? I downloaded and saved the schedule and workbook already.
The only way to do that would be to save each webpage as a PDF (or as html pages). Then you could save them to a flash drive. It would be tedious, but you can do it. Just note that if you do so, the videos in the text will NOT show up unless you are connected to the internet. 🙂
What grade is to this for?
This book is intended to be used with Guest Hollow’s High School Geography and Cultures Curriculum:
https://guesthollow.com/store/guest-hollows-high-school-geography-cultures-curriculum/
Guest Hollow’s High School Geography & Cultures Curriculum is suggested for:
● Grades 9-12 (adaptable for
grades 7-8)
● Approximate ages
12-18
This curriculum can be used for grades 9 through 12, although it’s adaptable for middle schoolers. The beginning of the printable schedule contains a section with tips on how to use the schedule with a middle schooler including alternate book suggestions. Some video selections and/or assignments may not be appropriate for younger students. Use at your discretion. Middle school students will likely need more parental involvement.
We strongly suggest that you view every item linked or used in this curriculum to make sure it meets with your approval.
If you’d like to learn family-style, we also have a Jr. Geography and Cultures Curriculum for grades 1-6!
Hi,
I was wondering, when I went to do the lesson (former Yugoslavia) I couldn’t find it in my textbook. I didn’t know if it was just an online lesson or my page was missing?
Thank you, Jack
Hi Jack! Thanks for writing and asking about the Former Yugoslavia section in the textbook. Here is the direct link:
https://guesthollow.com/guest-hollows-geography-cultures-online-textbook/former-yugoslavia/
Maybe the site was down for just a second or the internet was misbehaving, but everything looks good on my end! Let me know if you still have issues accessing it or if you need more assistance!