in which we’re studying the states

 

With Games

 

We love love love our Scrambled States card game!  I’ll own up to not being much of a gamer…but even I have fun with this one!

 

The kids loved my homemade game.  I wrote the capitals on sticky notes and hid them around the house.  They then dashed to find them one at a time and match the correct capital to state.  If they made a match they could dash off to find another!

 

 

With Puzzles

 

We’ve had a giant USA Melissa & Doug floor puzzle forever.  Actually, it’s been shipped to Tanzania and back with us too!  Which means it smells kinda funky…but the kiddos have fun working on it together.  I love floor puzzles because all three of the kids can do them together!

 

 

With our iStuff

 

I created a USA folder on the iPad and filled it with fun stuff like:

 

Wood Puzzle USA Map ($1.99) – I think it’s worth the money!  It’s easy enough that even beginning readers can play and challenging enough that even my 6th Grader has fun with it.

Stack the States (.99) – one of our faves BUT it’s too difficult for my 2nd Grader to play alone.  Soooo…I fix that by scheduling time for them to play together.

License Plate Bingo (.99) – a great app to play while running errands or road tripping. 

U.S. State Capitals! (FREE) – super simple and fun.  They give you the state and the capital is covered with a question mark.  Click the question mark to see if your answer was correct. 

 

The iPad is awesome for just snuggling up on the couch and hunting YouTube for various clips of whichever state we’re investigating.

 

**be sure to like Raising Little Rhodies on FaceBook because I post educational apps I find when they’re free or super discounted.  All of our fave apps up there I got when they were free!**

 

With Music

 

Wakko’s 50 States song is our all time fave!

 

 

Tour the States is a close second!

 

 

With Writing

We were SO excited to join a 50 State postcard swap over the summer! As the postcards came in we would fill out the coordinating info in our USA coloring books (Target $1 bins).

We made our own postcards to mail out. Staples was running a 50% off postcard sale so it was super cheap too!

I decided to hole punch our postcards and keep them filed in an index card binder. Then I printed up these handy dandy flashcards. Just the front sides which I pasted onto the index cards. Once the kids have finished their workbooks I’m going to have them go through and add important info to the back of the index cards.

 

The postcard swap was great except…

 

sadly, some of the people who joined didn’t send out their postcards in return.  We’re missing a handful and would love your help completing our 50 State postcard set!  We’ll send a RI one in return!  If you live in one of the following states and would like to help us out please leave your email in the comments and I’ll touch base with you. 

 

States still needed:

Alaska

Arizona

Illinois

Indiana

Mississippi

Oregon

Pennsylvania

Texas

 

 

…danielle