The N States
These last 2 weeks we studied the N states. I can’t believe 2 months has gone by already, and we’re SO close to the end of our states study and the beginning of election day! I planned on wrapping up close to the election and talking a bit about the presidential campaigns. The kids always go with us to vote, and we’ve read some books early in the study, as well as talked about commercials, news, and going to the poll to vote. Needless to say, it’s been quite a humbling experience learning a bit about each state all over again and noticing trends no one pointed out to me as a kid!
We started off week 8 with the sailboat races in their club! Both kids won their ‘best looking boat’ classes and the 5 yr got 2nd in racing! As you can see, they did sand their own boats-sawdust on the chair, and painted them, too. They did their regular schoolwork as well, in a rare moment I caught the 2 year old at the table coloring with them as they did their math!
What day is it again?
I titled this ‘Columbus day at the library’.. but now, really, I’m not so sure. We did go several days, and we found a lot to do, but it may not have been Columbus day after all. Probably story time, instead. All the same, they found hiding places, squashy pillows, dinosaurs, and lots and LOTS of books! We go at least once a week, and usually more.
Be still my heart. My husband took a rare day off Friday to fix his vehicle and then got it done fairly quickly. After that we hit Target (and had to order these pj’s for the toddler because they weren’t in stock in her size (5T, same as the 5 year old!). We were totally adult-like and grabbed a $5 pizza for a snack and let the kids eat it in the back of the car. It was hilarious in so many ways! Witness the bonding time daddy got with the little one after the big kids went to bed, exhausted. Turns out, you learn a lot, even when you’re not in class!
Meanwhile, the kids learned about Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, and New Jersey! We’re still using the same couple of resource books and the build a bundle freebie (listed below and on all the US States and Geography pages!) We ate a lot of candy corn, discussed Native American settlements, timeline of how states were added to the union, and how people can live in one state and work in another!
…and then there was week 9 with more N states
I think Columbus day was actually THIS WEEK. Since we didn’t celebrate it per se, and these are the correct photos, I’m going to laugh at myself for trying to do 2 weeks at once. Laugh with me. Ha! So besides soccer games at 5 pm, we had kind of a chill Monday. We did more ‘fun’ than ‘stress’ about homework and it was really freeing. This is what I WANT to do! I love this style of learning!
We went through their spelling words, but didn’t do anything other than look at them. We picked those up the rest of the week. What we did do was grab a Tblspn of alphabet pasta and sorted it out in order. Then we wrote the alphabet in our preferred style (cursive or print), and circled the ones we didn’t find! Great for the 5 year old! We also used parade candy (thanks local homecoming parade!) for math manipulatives, quick thinking what (orange + yellow) skittles = ??, read a bunch of books, hit the library, AND did some DIY bookmark making for our church’s visiting crew. Some Halloween joke bookmarks* are heading to shut-ins this month!
The Rest of the week….
We counted# with the 5 year old and started MULTIPLICATION! Woo! for the oldest! Excitement reigned! Look at our old school abacus type of thing from when I was learning the times tables (see 2 year old playing with this colorful toy, above!) which makes it a lot of fun!
We took more time reading, enjoying the fall weather and sitting/laying, playing, digging in the dirt. So went the last half of the N states, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, and North Dakota. We talked a lot about weather, hurricanes, how territories get divided, and how you can think a place is only a city (like New York) but it has things like dairies, too!
Resources Used:
Scrambled States of America BOARD GAME! I can’t recommend this enough!
Name that state flash cards from Teachers pay teachers, Kindergarten Princess
*resource Little Red’s Schoolhouse (Happy Happy Halloween Coloring Joke Bookmarks from Teachers Pay Teachers)
#resource Domino Numbers Freebie (probably from teachers pay teachers, name on it is Glynn)
First 2 pages of ‘mystery19’ from Build A Bundle sale mystery package this year. It features state ‘fact’ info and a bit of history.
Topical Books in particular we’re reading the info out of THIS ONE that shows topography and THIS ONE that shows fun facts.
Books the kids are reading on their own, see their Good Reads Lists: K-1st / 2nd-3rd
Linking up with Weird Unsocialized Home Schoolers for their Weekly Wrap up. Click HERE for info/to join!
