Sign up below to receive weekly tips & tools for homeschool science and we'll send you a FREE copy of There is a fair amount out there to use when studying the US States, but I wanted something simple and easy to do, so I created my own US State Study for us to use alongside of our Story of the Worlds studies. I thought I’d share what we did with you, in case someone else is looking for the very same thing :).
How we’ve done it:
All along we have studied one state each day. In the beginning we did one state each Friday, with the idea that we would complete the study in 2 years. Now, we are studying 3 states each week so that we will finish the study by the end of the year because we took quite a bit of time off to study the state of Virginia. Each day we follow a set routine…
- We begin by reading the selected pages on the state from National Geographic’s Our Fifty States
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- Next, we fill out a State Study Notebooking Page for the state.
- Then, we find the state on our wall map and mark it with the capital, the state abbreviation and the order of statehood. We also review all of the previous state capitals we have learned.
- If there’s time, we will play a game of Scrambled States
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It’s been a very simple, but effective way for us to study the US States. Plus we have this great notebook full of memories and I don’t feel the pressure of having to do a craft or make a meal for each state :).
Things to share:
I made a notebook for my daughter with the cover page on top. Then, for each region I put the cover page followed by a blank state notebooking page for each state and then the quiz. I also printed out the final quiz and placed it in the back. Finally, I took the whole thing to be bound so that we would never lose the papers. Below are the files I used to create our notebook (Note: I created these while living overseas, so they are A4 paper size. Make sure to select the “Fit to Size” option when you print)…
I also printed out color pictures for the flags, seals, birds and flowers on sticker paper to use with our notebooking pages. You can get these from free from Wikipedia or 50 States. If you visit the Elemental Science Yahoo Group and look under the Files for the “Other Homeschooling Helps” folder, you will find the “State Study” file folder. The file with the pictures can be found in there.
I am using a great book called Wish You Were Here Emily’s Guide to the 50 States. It is a fiction book about a girl that spends the summer traveling the 50 states with her grandma. She writes letters to her parents telling them everything she learns. There is one letter for each state.
It may be out of print, but you can purchase a used copy online for about $7.
Thanks for the great book suggestion, I’ll have to check it out!