Trekking across The States - Colorado (finally)

Hi Everyone, it has definitely been a while! We are so far behind in our State study that it's not funny! We have just had so much sickness in our house over the last 2 months it's not funny...........anyway, we finally made it to Colorado and learned some pretty interesting things:

First off, we did our little introductory page where we touched on the state shape, the state flower and the ski slopes.

We made our own Colorado state flag.

We learned that billions of coins are made at the U.S. Mont in Denver each year so we did a little coin counting activity.

We discovered many interesting things about the Rocky Mountains like the fact that there are more than 1000 Rocky Mountain peaks that are over 10, 000 feet high and 54 peaks that are over 14,000 feet high! We also found out that in 1893, Katherine Lee Bates wrote "America the beautiful" after looking at the view from Pikes Peak.

we also learned a little bit about some of the animals that live in the Rocky Mountains.

There seems to be a lot of debate about where the "cheeseburger" was officially thought up.........we went with Colorado as Louis Ballast (Humpty Dumpty drive thru) was awarded the trademark name for "cheeseburger".

In the 1970's, two of the biggest dinosaur skeletons were dug up near Grand Junction. Since Dinosaurs are a HUGE hit in our house, we spent most of the week doing a dinosaur theme. I have LOTS to share with you about that (in another post).

Some other things you can do with this state:

Coin rubbings

PowerPoint from 1+1+1=1 (members only section)

Don't forget to check out Get Down and Get Your Hands Dirty (Kristalyn did an amazing little ski race with her little guys) and Montessori Tidbits (Leann made a super cook skiing dice game for her son) for some other neat ideas!

The cute graphics you see in the "Trekking" button are from Scrappin Doodles. Thanks, Denyse for allowing us to use them!

I am going to link this to:

Trekking across The States - California

This week we headed off to California (I wish it was in real life!!). There is so much to learn about this vast state! We fit in what we could but there are so many other things we could have done. Don't forget to get some other great ideas from Montessori Tidbits and Get Down and Get Your Hands Dirty.

We completed our cut, color and paste page with a few facts about California. Just noticed a typo on this page.....it's fixed in the download!

After looking at some pictures of giant Redwoods, I made some for Channing to measure with unifix cubes. He then filled out the "How does it measure up" page.

Aren't Golden Poppies beautiful?! We made one using coffee filters, a pipe cleaner and some yellow foam. You can find a link here which will show you how to make red poppies. We pretty much made ours the same way but added the yellow foam inside instead of the black pom pom.

Here is a great poem by Paul Perro about the California Goldrush. I read it a number of times to Channing during the week. I love that it tells the story in such a kid friendly way! If Channing was a little older, I would have done some more study on what it was like trying to find gold.....maybe in a few years.
We painted a coloring page of someone panning for gold.

We also learned a little about the Golden Gate bridge. We made this picture and stuck our little fact book about the bridge at the top. I had high hopes of using toothpicks but it didn't really work out (maybe with older kids?). We found some great info from this site.

Who can learn about California without learning a few things about the beach! We did a land and sea animal sort. I didn't want to do too many beachy things as I want to do a beach unit later in the year and will do LOTS more activities then.

We also read "A house for Hermit Crab" by Eric Carle and then made these adorable fact books about hermit crabs. You'll find the shell and the facts on the download but there is no pattern for the body of the hermit crab, I just free handed it on scrapbook paper. Trust me, I can't draw at all so if I can make one up, you can too :-)

Apparently Caesar Salad was first made by an Italian Restaurant named Caesar Cardini in Tijuana, Mexico in 1924. Hollywood stars travelling there fell in love with it and brought it back to LA with them. It became very popular there and eventually it' popularity spread across the States. It's one of my favorites too.

We made some on Friday night with pizza for the boys and then did this simple sequencing activity.

Some other things we did but I didn't get photos of:

California quarter rubbing

PowerPoint from the members section on 1+1+1=1

Looked at shells and played with them in a little tub with water and sand.

Used the same sand bucket, got some rocks from the yard (gold) put them in the sand and used a sieve to try to find it.

Read LOTS of books.

The cute graphics you see in the "Trekking" button are from Scrappin Doodles. Thank you Denyse for allowing us to use them!

I am going to link this to:

Trekking across The States - Arizona

Welcome to our adventure in Arizona. If you need your own passport to join us on our adventure, please click here. It was a bit of a higilty pigilty week this week as we had to travel to attend "Tractor Pap's" funeral....we didn't get everything done that I had planned - there was so much to cover and so many interesting things to learn about Arizona.

First of all we did a cut and paste activity that had a map of Arizona, the ridge-nosed rattlesnake and a cactus. I let Channing watercolor them this time since he does not enjoy coloring at all!

We then did a counting activity with rattlesnakes.

Here is a matching activity that we did.

I decided to focus on 2 native American Tribes from Arizona (although there are a lot more).....we studies the Apache tribe and the Navajo tribe. I don't have pictures of all the worksheets and activities that we did but we looked at their daily life, the clothes they wore, the houses they lived in and the foods they ate/hunted.

We learned that Apache woman gathered nuts, berries, corn and other fruits and vegetables.

We also learned that the Navajo tribe were farmers, hunters and gatherers. They hunted on horseback and grew beans, pumpkins, squash and other fruits and vegetable's. Sheep were very important to them because they used the wool for clothes and meat. Corn was also very important to them and they believed that supernatural beings called "corn people" protected they corn. They held special ceremonies to honor the "corn people".

An Apache legend says that a boy needs to race to the top of a mountain and down again before the sun rises to be fit enough to enter manhood. Based on this, I made a little game for Channing to play. The Apache boy starts at the red circle and the sun starts at the bottom of the squares. You need a dice (preferably a dice with only 1-3 on it). If Channing rolled a 2, the sun moved up 1 space, if he rolled a 1 or a 3, the Apache boy got to move that many spaces up the mountain....the aim is to get the boy up and down the mountain before the sun gets to the top of the squares! Channing had a blast with this game and it was great because he could play it by himself while I worked on dinner!

We also played some Apache games......... Toe Toss Stick and Foot Toss Ball (you can find the instructions of the download).

The Navajo tribe were known for their beautiful weaving. We tried our hand at weaving - Channing found this VERY hard........I think we'll do some more practice - I noticed that counting coconuts has a great weaving activity this month that we'll have to try.

We completed a mapping exercise where we had to look at a map of Arizona and find where all the places were and stick them in the correct place on the map....it was a little squashy, but we got hem all on.

We also did a bit of a study on the Sonoran Desert and the Saguaro Cactus. You'll find a page of facts about the Saguaro Cactus in the download but 2 interesting things we found out is that this particular cactus grows VERY slowly when it is young....it takes about 10 years for them to grow to be almost an inch tall......another interesting fact is that this cactus can hold a lot of water - 4/5th's of it's weight! I found a great website with lots of great facts!

We also studies some animals that live in the dessert like Bobcats, Collard Lizards, tarantulas, Gila Monsters, Western Diamond Back rattlesnakes and Kangaroo Rats...........we found out how each animal has something special about them them helps them survive in the dessert. We actually made a book out of our facts but I didn't take any pictures. You can find the information we used about each animal on the download. I found a lot of informations (along with pictures of each aniamls here.

The cute graphics for the "trekking" button are from Scrappin Doodles. Thank you Denyse for allowing me to use them!

Don't forget to check out Montessori Tidbits and Get down and get your hands dirty for some other awesome ideas on Arizona.

We're gearing up for our trek to Arkansas next week :-)

Trekking across The States - Alaska

With our passports in our hand, we boarded our little (pretend) plane again and headed to Alaska! My husband and I had the privilege of going to Alaska a few years ago (it was a VERY quick visit) and I was fascinated by this beautiful, cold, state. Here's what Channing and I discovered this week (hold your hats because there is a LOT).

We found out that the State flower is a Forget-me-not and that there are MANY polar animals that live there. AS you can see, Channing was not in the mood for "coloring").

We looked at the shape of Alaska and drew an igloo (the big circle).
This was one of my favorite projects that I had done with Kindergarten many times. We read "Mama do you love me?" by and then made this picture and stuck the words in order at the bottom (Channing loves doing this).

We talked about dog sleds in Alaska and then played "race to the igloo"

We used some counting mats to practice more/less than numbers. We put a number card on each mat and counted the correct number of polar bears and then add the "more" or "less" word to the correct mat.

We did another counting mat activity, this time with an Eskimo and King Salmon.

We read "Living in the Arctic" by Allan Fowler and learned that while Inuit people do build igloos, they mostly build homes made of stone or covered with animal skin (these days, many Inuit people live in the town in houses too).

We played an Igloo game where you roll the dice and cover each square on the igloo with a mini marshmallow - whoever covers theirs first wins! I let Channing have 5 little marshmallows when he was done :-)

We read "The Arctic Habitat" by Bobbie Kalman and then talked about the kids of animals that live in the arctic. We also did a sorting activity and made a special book about arctic animals (You'll find the special animal book we made as part of the download but I won't post about it until next week).

We played a game called "Melt the ice", which I saw over at Little Giraffes and changed it up just a little bit for Channing. Needless to say that this was probably his FAVORITE activity of the week and he (of course) won! I have no hope against that kid :-)

Here's a pic of him "holding the ice" for 5 seconds, trying to melt it.

He played with his Animal Planet "polar animals" set that he got for Christmas.

We read "The Northern Lights" by Susan Canizares and then painted out own picture of this beautiful natural display of color.

We learned some really interesting facts about Polar bears......I'm not sure if you know this or not but a Polar Bears fur is actually translucent - it just looks white because it reflects the color of the snow and ice!

After learning some Polar bear facts, we did a little science experiment..........it didn't really work out too well for us because I didn't have and Crisco (I really thought I had some in the cupboard but upon searching, discovered that I did not!).....anyway, what you do is stick your hand in ice and water to see how cold it is.......brrrrr.



Now pack a glove with Crisco (I used petroleum Jelly which didn't work too well) and stick you hand in there. Dip it in the ice and it won't feel very cold. This shows how the layer of blubber under their fur/skin keeps arctic animals warm..........I got this idea from an old Mailbox magazine that I have. We'll have to try it again after I get some Crisco.

We then drew a picture of 3 things that Polar bears like to do.

Other things we did but I didn't get photos of:

Ate some Salmon

Used our Alaska 3 part cards and See. Trace and Make cards
Built an igloo our of sugar cubes and frosting

Did some coin rubbings of the Alaskan Quarter

Read "Polar Bear, Polar Bear what do you hear?" by Bill Martin and "The Three Snowy Bears" by Jan Brett.

Looked at the PowerPoint from 1+1+1=1 about Alaska

**you'll find it in the members only section.....if you haven't joined, you should consider it because Carisa has TONS of "extra" things - like the PowerPoint's for all the States of America PLUS PowerPoint's for all the letters of the Alphabet too.........right now the cost is 10 dollars to join but in February she'll be putting up the price a little, so get in now!**

Also, don't forget to check out Montessori Tidbits for some additional Alaskan fun :-)

The clip art I used to make these printables is copyright and used with permission. It is designed by:

Dianne. J Hook from DJ Inkers

The cute graphics I used to make the "Trekking" button are from Scrappin Doodles. Thank you Denyse for allowing me to use them!

PS - OH MY WORD!!!!!! I just found this whole unit from Valerie......why had I nor seen this before!! Anyway, this is SUPER and will go along GREAT with Alaska!! Make sure you check it out.

I am going to link this to:

ABC and 123