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Thursday, July 19, 2007

Journey Through the States

We are going to study the U.S. states, learn their capitals, geography and have fun from now (the beginning of 2nd grade) until we're done which I hope is 4th grade. We have everything we need at home to accomplish this, which is a key factor in being able to make it informal.



Pictured: 35 Best Books for Teaching U.S. Regions (will be used more in 3rd/4th grade); Dover Publications' State Bird and Flowers Coloring Book; ABeka's My State Notebook; The Story of America The First 500 Years (poems); Scott Foresman Student Atlas; States Activities Book and Our Fifty States by Miers

Our Fifty States by Miers is an old book with gorgeous old maps and a narrative stories about each state's history. We will read this (editing where necessary) and then proceed to study about each state using HoldThatThought.com's US Geography pages.

Our Fifty States by National Geographic is another gorgeous and well-done book.

These are the HoldThatThought US Geography pages, there are six to be completed for each state. It is the most comprehensive US Geography notebooking pages I could find for the best price.

While we learn about each state we will memorize the states capitals, we are also studying states by region. We have games like Great States Junior and others to help make this fun. We will check out books from the library as we'd like to read more, I would particularly like to read the folktales from each state as we study them.
The goal is to be familiar with our own country when we approach our U.S. studies in our world history studies.
I collected all of these books through Goodwill, library sales and BookMooch. I think the total amount of money invested is between $8-$12.

 

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

we are doing a informal state study as well. We are reading a novel based in each state or reading a book that is written by an author from that state. As far we have read

Forest Gump for alabama
Gentle Ben for Alaska

we are also checking out book and vidoes from the library as we go and plan to try some state themed recipies as we go as well.

Melissa

lisa said...

I love the book from each state idea! Do you have a site where you will be posting the books as you read them? I might take from you this idea for our home. We have our curriculum and state studies for this year as well, and games.. but I think stories like that would add much.

Rhonda said...

I ordered the Miers book from Amazon yesterday. With shipping it was only $4.99, so I thought it worth the risk. It looks like a great "living book" for US geography. Thanks for the suggestion!

Rhonda