Arkansas

This was a tough state to teach, because I could not find much at all to study about it.  We did the basics:

The only diamond mine in the entire country is in Arkansas, so we colored a diamond ring.  I could not find any coloring sheets for the Crater of Diamonds park (where you can dig up your own diamonds).  I also could not find any diamond mine coloring sheets. 

Arizona Study

The next state we studied was Arizona.  Here are the pages from our book:

We added some copper colored glitter glue for the star because Arizona is the largest copper producer in America.  The girls enjoyed talking about rattlesnakes, and we read some books about them.

We also read a book about Saguaro Cactus National Park and talked a lot about cacti. We glued small bits of toothpicks on the cactus to indicate the prickli-ness.  The girls really love when we can make their coloring sheets 3-dimensional in some way.

Lastly, we did a coloring page on the Grand Canyon.  I have not figured out a way to really show them what a canyon is so they can understand that.  I may try to find a video on Netflix.  We have been renovating our master bathroom, so that has taken a big chunk of my time lately.

The girls really enjoyed Arizona and are loving making their books.  It is so funny to hear Sabrina say the names of the states we have studied over and over.  I am certain that she has never heard these names before, so this summer activity has been a great way to introduce them to some US geography.

Alabama

Here are our pages for the Alabama study in our Fifty State Book:

The bird is the Yellowhammer, so we included yellow feathers.  The fish is some kind of Silver fish, so we added some silver glitter on it.

The girls actually loved the story about Rosa Parks.  I left out the racial aspect and said "the rule" was that she had to sit in the back of the bus.  She was tired and sat in the front.  They arrested her and put her in jail.  Then no one rode the bus for a year because everyone was mad about the silly rule.  So, the bus company changed the rule and now everyone can sit wherever they want on the bus. 

They also liked the story of Helen Keller.  I don't think they had ever heard the terms "deaf" and "blind" before. 

 We had fun pretending we were Helen Keller and spelling letters out on our palms:

Lastly, we studied cotton, and glued torn up cotton balls on the pages:

We read some books about cotton farming and production:

 And a book about Rosa Parks:

Fifty State Book

I have all these great ideas ... I just hope I can follow through with them!  My newest idea is a Fifty State Book.  We will go through each state, one at a time.  We will read books and do projects for each state.  I will try to find some videos or movies about each state.  I will try to have the projects be something that we can tape onto a sheet of paper, so that the girls can save their work.

I tend to throw out the girls'work within a few days of them doing it, sometimes even the very day they do it.  So, I thought that maybe if they make a book about the Fifty States and can refer back to it, maybe they will retain more of the information.

Here are the pages we have done about Alaska (My intention was to do the states in alphabetical order, but I forgot about Alabama.  We will do Alabama next and then I will improve my alphabetizing skills.)

The cover sheet:

Coloring the state on the US map, and coloring a picture of a dog sled race (we also watched an animated movie about Balto, a dog who raced sleds).

Painting the Northern Lights (with the North Star in the center) and a Snowy Owl covered in white feathers:

A Walrus (I tried to get them to color them brown, but the girls wanted their walruses multi-colored) and a Polar Bear covered in cotton, I mean fur:

 

I also "ordered" 15 picture books from the local library on Alaska, Eskimos, polar bears, etc.  We have read them several times over the last few days.  Next we are doing Alabama.  So far, it has been much harder finding children's books (from the library) and coloring sheets.  Any ideas?