Home Geography for Primary Grades · Lesson XXVI · Unit 6: Maps and forms of land and water
26. Peninsulas, isthmuses, bays, gulfs and straits
Goal: Your child tells an island from a peninsula, and names and builds an isthmus, a bay, a gulf and a strait.
You'll need
- The sand tray with water
- Optional: a free online map or globe
- A geography notebook (any notebook kept just for these lessons) and a pencil
What's in the book
Pictures and small maps of a peninsula ("almost an island"), an isthmus (a neck of land), a bay (named from "bow," like a bay window), a gulf, and a strait (a narrow passage joining two larger bodies of water). The child makes them after a rain, looks for pictures, and copies definitions.
The lesson, step by step
Almost an island
Read about the peninsula and look at the picture and map.
The word peninsula means almost an island.
In the sand tray, build a strip of land that pokes out into the water, joined at one end.
The neck
Read about the isthmus.
SayJust as your neck joins your head to your body, an isthmus is a narrow neck of land that joins a peninsula to the other land.
Ask the book's question: How would you change this peninsula into an island? Let your child cut through the isthmus with a finger.
A bay
Look at the picture of the bay. If you have a bay window, look at it.
SayBay means bow, a bend. A bay is where the water bends into the land.
Push a curved bite into the shore in the sand tray. A long, deep one can be called a gulf.
A strait
Read about the strait.
A strait is a narrow passage of water that joins two larger bodies of water.
In the tray, make two "seas" joined by a narrow channel.
SayAn isthmus joins two pieces of land. A strait joins two bodies of water.
Outside after rain
The book says:
After a rain make little lakes, rivers, bays, etc.
After the next rain, go outside and look for puddle bays and mud peninsulas, or make them.
Write
Your child copies one or two definitions from the book, for example:
A peninsula is land almost surrounded by water.
Afterwards
On a free online map or globe, find Florida (a peninsula), the Isthmus of Panama, the Gulf of Mexico and the Chesapeake Bay. Look for more in magazines and books at home, as the book suggests.
Answers to the book's problems
A peninsula is land that has water on all sides but one. To change a peninsula into an island, cut through the narrow neck (isthmus) so water flows all round it. An island has water all round; a peninsula is joined to other land at one place. An isthmus is a neck of land joining two larger bodies of land. A bay (or a long, narrow one, a gulf) is part of a body of water that reaches into the land. A strait is a narrow passage of water joining two larger bodies of water.
Worked out for this site from the scan. If a number in your copy differs, trust the book.