United States--Wisconsin and Wyoming

The last of the 50 states!  My goals at the beginning of this unit were to follow Braedi's desire, to build familiarity with each state and learn something interesting, to learn the states and their capitals and location on the map, and to have fun.  I think we accomplished all of them.  It's been a fun year and the kids and I are excited to move on to world geography next. 

Wisconsin was home to many pioneers so we made a log cabin.  The logs were made from rolled up newspaper and the frame was a shoe box that I cut to size. 

And because Wisconsin is the known for it's dairy cows, we also made a yummy malted milk shake.

I lived in Wyoming for about 5 years of my childhood and that made the kids a little more excited about this state.  I was able to share some random things I remembered--like the "Rawlins wind Monster", living in the sames city as the state penitentiary, and raising tadpoles.  We learned a little bit about Yellowstone National Park and Old Faithful and made our own geyser using Diet Coke and Mentos. 

Fun Time!

United States--Washington and West Virginia

Washington has a mountain range that runs right down the middle blocking the winds from pushing rain clouds across the state.  This makes the west side of the state wet and the east side dry.  The kids got a kick out of Mount St. Helens exploding and have been talking about volcanoes for days.  We've done so many volcano experiments that I didn't want to do another so we made a yummy apple dessert instead--because apples are what I think of when I think of Washington.

We took the recipe from the side of a cinnamon graham cracker box. 
6 granny smith apples, thinly sliced
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/3 cup flour
2 Tbl. brown sugar
1/4 cup cold butter
10 cinnamon grahams, coarsely chopped

--Heat oven to 350 degrees.
--Combine apples and cinnamon in 9 inch baking dish.  (I added a little lemon juice.)
--Mix flour and sugar in bowl.  Cut in margarine until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.  Stir in chopped grahams; sprinkle over apple mixture.  Cover loosely with foil.
--Bake 40 minutes or until apples are tender.  Cool slightly. 

West Virginia is a coal mining state.  And it is so mountainous that in order to build the airport, workers had to chop off tops of mountains and fill in the surrounding valleys with dirt to make a flat space for airplanes to land.  Virginia makes a lot of glass and glass marbles.  We decided to make our own marbles.  We used oven drying clay instead of glass.  We rolled the clay into balls and after baking them we painted them and plan on playing a game of marbles tomorrow. 

United States--Vermont and Virginia

Vermont has lots of green forests and beautiful mountains.  Vermont also makes more maple syrup than any other state.  Did you know it takes 4 trees to make just one gallon of maple syrup?  Kids in Vermont will make a kind of maple syrup taffy using maple syrup and snow.  Since we don't have snow (thank goodness!) we tried to make snow with ice in our blender.  It wasn't quite the same consistency, but it worked for our needs.  Then we heated real maple syrup to 235 degrees, poured it over the "snow", let it cool a little and then attempted to eat the taffy--it was chewy and sticky, but tasted good. 

Virginia is called the the "mother of presidents" because 8 presidents were born there and it's called "father of states" because 8 other states were made from it.  Virginia was the home of many of the first colonists.  I had a few ideas for activities, but when the kids learned that wild ponies roam free on Assateague Island and that no one knows for sure where they came from, (the most popular belief is that they swam to the island from a wrecked ship) they decided that they wanted to ride wild ponies.  They grabbed their bikes and scooters and went for a short ride. 

United States--Texas and Utah

"Don't mess with Texas!" and "Remember the Alamo" are favorite sayings about this state.  Texas is a big state with all kinds of different climates, but the thing I think of when I think of Texas is cowboys.  I took this idea and we made mini-cowboys. 

The kids felt like they knew about Utah already because it is a place we've visited so many times.  Over the summer we visited the Great Salt Lake and just got our feet wet, but we didn't get to float in it.  We attempted to make a Mini Salt Lake and see what we could get to float in our salt water.  Nothing un-normal floated because the kids wouldn't let me put more salt in--they didn't want me to waste it. 

United States--South Dakota and Tennessee

A few interesting things about South Dakota:

• home of Mount Rushmore--a giant stone carving of 4 American presidents
• many dinosaur bones can be found there
• an area of steep cliffs and spooky rock formations called the  Badlands is a place I would like to see.

The kids colored and labeled a picture of Mount Rushmore for our activity. 

Our favorite thing about Tennessee was that it was the state where Davy Crockett lived.  The kids weren't too impressed with Graceland or "Music City, USA".  We made a Davy Crockett coon skin cap. 

United States--Rhode Island and South Carolina

Rhode Island is so small that you can fit 425 of them inside of Alaska!  It was the 13th state to ratify the constitution.  We made Rhode Island Johnny Cakes for our activity.  It was such an easy recipe and the kids ate them with jam or honey or syrup. 

The kids loved the fact that venus flytraps are only grown in North and South Carolina.  The civil war began in South Carolina and several battles of the Revolutionary War were fought there.  One fort they fought from was built from the logs of palmetto trees.  When the British shot their canon balls at the fort, the balls sank right into the spongy palmetto wood.  The flag of South Carolina has a picture of the palmetto tree.  We made a painting of their flag.  The kids made a stencil of the tree and a crescent moon and glued it to a piece of paper.  Then they painted the paper blue and removed the stencils when the paint was dry.  A white image was left. 

United States--Oregon and Pennsylvania

The neatest thing about Oregon, I thought, was Crater Lake.  It is the deepest lake in America and looks so pretty.  We learned about the Oregon Trail for our activity.  We read some books and then wrote a "round robin" story about traveling on the Trail. 

September 14, 1846



My family traveled the Oregon Trail from Missouri to Oregon.  We traveled by covered wagon.  We took turns walking and riding.  We saw Indians.  They traded furs for blankets.  We also saw bison and prairie dogs.  We had to cross many rivers.  It was hard.  Luckily we made it to Oregon before the snow fell.  Oregon is beautiful. 

 

Pennsylvania had the nation's first library, hospital, art museum and fire department.  It is also the home of the Hershey factory and the Liberty Bell.  We ate Hersey kisses and then learned about the Liberty Bell and made our own version of the bell. 



United States--Ohio and Oklahoma

Ohio is home to the Rock 'N Roll Hall of Fame.  We visited their website and saw a few of their exhibits.  Unfortunately the kids didn't know any of the musicians displayed--I've failed in that area, I guess.  Then they got out the musical instruments and made up a song.  So someday when they are featured in the museum  you can say you "knew them when." 

 

An interesting fact about Oklahoma: there are more languages spoken there than in all of Europe.  This is because Oklahoma is home to at least 55 Indian nations each with their own language/dialect.  Oklahoma also has so much oil underground that people have discovered it in their back yards.  After watching the beginning of Beverly Hillbillies, we did an art project using "black gold".  Using crayons we colored a design on construction paper.  Then painted oil over the picture with a cotton ball.  We let it dry for awhile and the oil soaked into the paper making what was supposed to be a stained glass look.  It mostly looked like shiny paper. 

United States--North Carolina and North Dakota

We started back on our 50 states unit.  Last year I said that if I did one state a week I'd be finished in just over a year.  Well, it's taken me over a year.  One state a week stopped working for us.  We did one state a day for a few weeks, then moved to a different theme and now we are back to the 50 states. 

North Carolina is where the Wright Brothers made their first successful airplane flight.  We learned a little bit about Orville and Wilbur Wright and made paper airplanes then practiced flying them.  We also made cardboard airplanes. 

North Dakota grows more sunflowers than any other state.  We ate sunflower seeds and made sunflowers. 

United States--New Mexico and New York

Smokey the Bear came from New Mexico and the first atomic bomb was tested there.  Many buildings in New Mexico are made from adobe bricks because they stay cool in the heat.  We decided to make some adobe bricks with clay and dried grass.  It was a messy process and they never dried, but we had fun.

final product

New York is home to the nation's largest city--New York City.  Part of Niagara Falls is also in New York.  Ellis Island, the "Gateway to the New World", was the first stop for immigrants entering New York.  One of the first sites they saw was the Statue of Liberty.  The kids cut and colored a giant picture of Lady Liberty.

United States--New Hampshire and New Jersey

New Hampshire is sometimes known as "the state that made the nation" because it was the 9th state to ratify the Constitution, the last one needed to make the United States a nation.  New Hampshire holds the record for the strongest wind ever recorded--231 miles per hour!  It is also famous for its colorful fall leaves and yummy maple syrup.  We decided to make maple sugar candy.  I used this recipe, but cooked it a smidgen too long so the candy was hard. 

New Jersey has lots of factories and more people per square mile than any other state.  It also has beaches and farmland.  Thomas Edison's factory, Menlo Park, is in New Jersey.  We learned a little bit more about Thomas Edison and made a sparkly light bulb.  We also watched the "who's on first" skit by Abbott and Costello.

United States--Nebraska and Nevada

Most of Nebraska's land is used for farming.  It's the only state to take it's nickname from a college--the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers.  The college took the name from the cornhusking contests farmers used to hold.  We decided to have a corn husking contest, too. 

Nevada is famous for it's casinos, live entertainment and weddings, but I couldn't make a pretend casino, so we decided to learn about the Hoover Dam.  We made dams out of popsicle sticks and tested to see which one held back water the best. 

our riverbed

The girls were the only ones home from this project--here they are making a dam.



Here are our dams.

the girls gave up on the popsicle stick dam and made an earthen one instead

United States--Missouri and Montana

Missouri was the "Gateway to the West" for many pioneers.  It was also home to the Pony Express.  "Wanted--young, skinny, wiry fellows not over 18.  Must be expert, riders, willing to risk death daily.  Orphans preferred.  Wages $25 a week."  This was a newspaper ad that recruited many brave riders to deliver mail from Missouri to California before the telegraph lines connected the states.  My 5 kids decided to answer the ad.  The hopped on their "ponies" and went as fast as they could from station to station. 

my brave riders

Corbin making the first pass to Ephram. 
Ephram then went to the next station and passed to Dyllan

Dyllan passing the mail bag to Braedi. 
The first riders continued around the block so as to not be left alone.

Faythe making the last leg of the journey.

Montana is known as the treasure state--it has buried treasure (gold, silver, copper, zinc and sapphires).  Montana has wide open spaces for elk, grizzly bears, mountain lions, and buffalo.  There are also a lot of sheep and cattle ranches.  Cows outnumber people 3 to 1.  We decided to figure out how many cows that would be if we were the only people in Montana.  The kids cut and colored 3 cows for each person in our family. 

looks like we didn't include dad in our count.  :)

United States--Minnesota and Mississippi

I'm WAAAAY behind on posting about our United States unit, so I'm going to combine a few states.

Minnesota is known as the land of 10,000 lakes.  The legend is that each lake is actually a footprint of the tall tale hero Paul Bunyan .  I couldn't find/think of a fun activity for this state so we played some Minnesota fact games on the computer.  I didn't even take a picture.  BORING!

Mississippi is the only state of the 10 that border the Mississippi river to be named after it.  The Choctaw indians of Mississippi played stickball--the oldest game in America.  We decided to learn how to play.  Unfortunately the instructions that we followed weren't for the "real" stickball.  Stickball is a a game where players on teams use sticks to move a ball down field.  They can only use the sticks to move the ball.  A point is scored when the ball hits the opposing goal post.  What we did was practice balancing a ball on a stick. 

United States--Michigan

I haven't blogged for a long time and, unfortunately, I don't remember a lot of what we did and learned.  Maybe if I get caught up I can do a small blog every other day or so. 

The only thing I can remember about Michigan has to do with our activity.  Henry Ford was from Michigan and he perfected the assembly line to mass produce his cars.  For our activity we learned a little more about assembly lines and made edible cars.  I gathered ingrediants from around the house and taught each kid what their job was on the assembly line. 

Faythe had to open the granola bars and put them on a plate (this was the base of the car),

 Braedi attached the bumpers (tootsie rolls),

 Corbin put in the seat (mini-candy bar),

 Dyllan added the wheels (they were supposed to be vanilla wafers, but those were too big so we used cut-up tootsie rolls), 

 and Ephram added the steering wheel (fruit leather on a tooth-pick).

We noticed that if one person fell behind there was a huge back-up in production.  If we do this again I'll have to do it with different food--our car was much too sweet and the kids didn't finish eating them.