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Learn About the 50 States

When learning about the 50 United States,  a few excellent resources can serve you well.  Too many choices will leave you feeling overwhelmed and lacking a sense of accomplishment.

These are our tried and true resources for learning about the states.

Drill and repetition has always been the foundation for our learning. This, coupled with books, games and activities, will  cement this knowledge for years to come!

Learn About the 50 States

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Memory Work (Apps, Flashcards) for Learning the 50 States

Through our homeschool program we learned  a few states and capitals each week. This constant drill and review cements knowledge of the states. We supplemented with these drill/repetition resources:

GeoMaster: a free app that drills state locations and capitals - much fun!

States & Capitals Flash Cards

Seterra Geography - a great site online for geography!

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Games For Learning The States

The Scrambled States of America This game is such fun!  We've had the book and DVD for years, and the game is such a fun addition to our collection. Learning about the 50 states has never been so easy! 

The 50 States Card Game

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My kids made up their own states and capitals review game at the pool. I'm always the "caller" -- I call a state name as they run off the diving board and they have to say the capital before they hit the water.  Fun! 

Notebooking the 50 States

The last time we learned the states, my children created notebooks.

We used our membership to Notebooking Pages and were able to download notebooking pages for each of the 50 states. This is a great project for your kids to sink their teeth into, and they will have a beautiful finished product when they are done!  

Map Tracing

Map tracing is an integral part of our geography studies. 

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Find maps you like, get some tracing paper and Sharpies, and trace each state as you go. Trace the entire United States, too. You will be amazed at how quickly your child will learn to draw each state and draw the entire United States. 

(Classical Conversations readers: I have used the maps from user heathergwyn on CC Connected.)

We have also found the 50 States Notebooking Pages to be very helpful with maps for tracing!

Fifty Nifty United States - A Song For Learning the States

This is the song I used in my elementary music classes when I was a teacher. It's catchy and your kids will be able to memorize all of the 50 states in alphabetical order in no time! 

 Whatever resources you choose, can I offer one piece of advice?

STAY CONSISTENT!  

I've found that children love it when you repeat things in the same way. Our 50 State study looks like this each week: 

  • introduce the new states (generally 4 or 5 per week) and their capitls -- DRILL THESE daily

  • listen to 50 Nifty United States and sing along

  • trace the entire United States daily and color in the states we are learning about

  • notebook about each of the states during that week

  • make books about the states available (strew around your house on coffee tables, bedside tables, etc...)

  • play games about the states as a family

Devise a plan that works for your children and stick to it. 

Most of all, HAVE FUN!  

Learn the 50 States

Are you studying the 50 United States this year?   Tell me about it! 

 

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Unveiling A Special Unit!



We have begun our study of the "Fifty Nifty United States".   I've been really excited to unveil this unit to the kids!  We began with watching this YouTube video of The Fifty Nifty United States song by Ray Charles... as my son later told me, "Mom, I wish you wouldn't have taught us that song because now it's stuck in my head and I can't concentrate on anything else!"





We love this video - I used it an infinite number of times when I taught elementary music, and my own children love it just as much.  I gave them an alphabetical listing of the states to help them follow along.  Right now Target has great state flash cards and puzzles, too. I also ordered this map of the United States and put it up in our kitchen... we are always looking at the map this way.  
In planning our state study, I found Jimmie's Squidoo lens to be very helpful.   We chose to use a 50 state notebooking set which we downloaded from Currclick.  My oldest will be expected to complete several notebooking pages on her own each week for the assigned state.   For my youngest, we are using the state printables from Crayola, which are perfect for his age.   


Thanks to Christine, at Fruit in Season, we have been receiving lots of postcards from different states.  If you ever have the opportunity to participate in a postcard swap, you should... it's enhanced our learning so much! Of course there are always a few people who don't hold up their end of the bargain in these swaps, but if you go into it realizing that, it's not so bad.  My children and I sent out our postcards in July and had fun learning many facts about our own state to include.  

I plan to choose a different patriotic song to highlight each week with my children.  This week the song is "This Land Is Your Land" by Woodie Guthrie.   They love it when we sit around the piano and mom plays and they sing...I just have to be intentional about doing it.

Our first state was Wisconsin.  I let the children choose which they want to study.  We have a lot of relatives in Wisconsin, and it was also the most recent postcard we had received.  Coincidentally, we read that malted milk was invented by James Horlick in Racine, Wisconsin.   I have an old Horlick's Malted Milk glass container from my mother, so we set the table tonight with that and our postcard.  We planned a dinner with malts for dessert and invited our granddaddy to share it with us.  


Chocolate Peanut Butter Malts with mini Oreos and marshmallows are quite decadent I must say.   Miss B and her dad made them.

I'm not sure if every state will get its own special dessert, but this was a fun way to remember this interesting fact about Wisconsin.


Have you done a 50 states unit with your children?    Do you have any suggestions and/or resources for me?    I love to fly by the seat of my pants, so I'm open to anything!  
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