We have officially begun our summer learning adventure! I've been planning fun things to share and teach the kids this summer, and I'm very excited to share them with you.
I think I am most excited about our plan to study each of the 50 states. Pinky and Chaos have both always loved looking at maps and love to learn facts about the states we travel through on our road trips.
I searched Pinterest and blogs for the "perfect" lesson plans or state books to use for our study, but didn't find one that was exactly what I wanted, so I made my own! They are a simplified version of
the ones provided at The AnnaMatrix blog. I didn't want to have too much writing detail because Chaos will be joining us for this study, so I created a one page document for the kids to fill in while we read about and explore each state.
The page covers the basics:
- state name
- nickname
- abbreviation
- capital
- state flower
- state bird
- state tree
- state rock
- state insect
- the year the state was founded
- the order in which it was added(first, second, third, etc.)
I've added a picture of the state's quarter and flag for Chaos and Pinky. I also added a map of the United States so the kids can color in where the state is located. When we've finished all 50 states, I plan to bind these pages with a cover to create a book to look back on. I hope to be able to share these pages for you to download and use as we go along. I will share more detail about each study we do as well.
The first state we are studying (and we are going in no particular order other than by when the books are available at the library) is Minnesota. One particular book series that I'm hoping to use throughout the summer is
Discover America State by State. I've found the series to be interesting to my 7 year old right down to my 3 year old. There is a lot of information given without being overwhelming.
We are also using our
National Geographic laminated US map to identify the states we've studied.
Linking up to some of these great parties!
