33. Learn all of the countries in the world and the general area of where they are located

This goal is finally done.  I think my students had more fun doing it than I did.

When preparing to complete this goal I didn't know how to decide when it was complete.  It is unrealistic to say that I had them all memorized so I decided to put together a bag with scraps of paper listing all of the countries in the world.  From there I just spent a few minutes a day pulling out scraps from the bag and locating where they were at on my map in my classroom.  I kept a list of all of the countries that I struggled with and made a point to spend extra time those ones each day.  I got much better as I went along and finally decided to include my students into my quest for success in this goal.  I told my kids that they could each grab a piece of paper out of the bag to quiz me.  They could only ask me where the country was if they knew where it was.  I gave myself three seconds to be able to locate the country.  My kids had a lot of fun trying to find countries that they had never heard of to try to stump me.  They really gave me a run for my money and while doing so made both of us learn more about our world. I think my favorite country that was drawn was Djibouti.  Not because I like the sound of it, but because I like the sound of 9 and 10 year olds giggling at the sound of it.  I always felt bad if one of the shy girls drew it out of the bag, but when one of the boisterous boys got it they were more than proud to shout it out!

Here's the bag with all of the scraps that I used. 

In the past couple weeks I have wondered what it would take to consider the goal done. I asked them what they thought it would take.  They came up with a good idea that each student could take two countries out of the bag and quiz me on them.  If I got all of them right from the whole class, I could be done.

I now know where Comoros, Cape Verde, Maldives, Brunei, Burundi, Namibia, and Andorra are! And all of the others. Useless information?  I don't know, but at least when I watch the Olympic opening ceremonies again I will know where the countries are all located!