Connecticut... Part 2

We finished Connecticut this week and as promised this is the last four pages.

Before starting our books this week we made some delicious homemade Connecticut Clam
Chowder which I got out of Confession of a Homeschooler Road Trip USA Geography & History Curriculum which you can find by clicking here.  Only one child really liked it... but everyone tried it since they all had a part in cutting potatoes, tasting and smelling ingredients we put in, and watching the changes as we made it.  I actually loved it and will make it again!
You can find a very comparable recipe here.

Here is the first two of the last pages of our book.

We talked about the fishing industry in Connecticut.  They learned that Connecticut

is next to the Atlantic Ocean.  We traced the names of some of the fish and we

colored the fish.  We also fished... an activity from here. Below you can see close-ups

of both pages and the fishing activity.

Here are the last two pages of the book.

We talked about why Connecticut is called the Constitution State and then read

a story about the Constitution.  I made the story using this website. And we

talked about PT Barnum and Ringling Bros. Circus.  We did an elephant counting

activity and a roll and graph activity that I had in my files but don't know who

the creator is so I can't share (sorry).  Below are close-ups of the two pages.

You can download the whole book here.

Next week we will start our regular preschool lessons but we will be doing one state a month... so stay tuned!  Look for the Trekking Across the US after the last week of the month.

Obstacle Course

Wow did we have fun running, jumping, crawling through an obstacle course. I love when we do this activity outdoors vs. indoors because we can make a much longer and more challenging course for the kids but it is a great activity indoors when you can't get outdoors.

Here are some pics of our exciting course...

And as hot as it was... they kept running!

Trekking Across the US ~Connecticut...Part 1

We started Connecticut this week... but we didn't finish!  So this is part one of our Connecticut study and I will post more once we finish.  I also added links to our Colorado unit for those looking for our book and other printables to go along with the unit.

Next week is our last week of summer vacation... my children along with my school-aged daycare children will be headed off to school on Wednesday.  So next week will be our last week that we will be studying a state on a weekly basis.  I will continue but I have choosen to do our regular preschool curriculum and compliment each month with one state study.  It will probably fall the last week of each month. 

So here goes the beginning of our Connecticut unit.  You can download part 1 of my book here.
Here is a picture of the cover.

As always we talked about the state, traced the name of the state, and colored

the state.

Our next two pages looked like this.

We found the state of Connecticut on the US map and colored it pink, we pieced

together the eight counties of Connecticut to form the state (my younger ones needed

a lot of support on this one), we talked about and colored the state flag, and we

traced/printed the state name.  Below you will find close-ups of these pages.

Here are the next two pages.

We talked about the state bird and insect on these two pages.  Since we spent a lot of time

learning about the Robin in the spring I opted not to do another robin craft.  Instead we spent

a lot of time on the praying mantis in which the children found this insect very interesting. 

Below you can see close-ups of these two pages.

We then made a really cute craft of the praying mantis.  The directions and

printable can be found here.  We fingerpainted the printable and then cut

them out and put them together the next day.  The boys were really intrigued by this

craft!

The two pages looked like this.

On these two pages we talked about the state song and the state mammal.  We sang the

song "Yankee Doodle" and talked about the song.  We then colored the dandy below.  And

we talked about the sperm whale and tried drawing our own.  Below are close-ups of these

two pages and other activities we did.

 Below we made Yankee Doodle hats (newspaper hats) using the directions found here.

We used butcher's paper instead and it worked out great for decorating.

 And we played this Yankee Doodle game in which the children rode horses

(croquet mallets... we had to be creative and use our imaginations) and threw

bean bags at a hanging bell.  Each time they rang the bell they received two

points.  They were very entertained by this activity (like more than 20 mins.)

and didn't want to keep score... just throw those bean bags.  It actually was quite

challanging to ring the bell so they adapted and found ways to get the bean bag

to ring the bell.  We found the game here.

And lastly after talking about the sperm whale we made one.  We used the directions

from here.

That concludes part one of our Connecticut study.  Hope you enjoyed what we did.

Trekking Across the US ~Colorado

We are back!  I took a much needed week off of curriculum and both the children and I benefitted from it greatly.  It is just nice to play once and awhile! 

You can download most of our Colorado book here.
This past week we learned all about Colorado.  Here is the cover of our Colorado book.

As we always do... we traced the word Colorado and colored in the state.  We

also found the state on our large classroom map.

Here are the next two pages of our book.

We found Colorado on a US state map and colored it purple.  We did a dot-to-dot

of the state of Colorado and learned what the capital is.  We talked about the state

flag and colored a picture of one.  And we spelled/traced/printed the state name.

Below are close ups of the activities.

 We also made a paper piecing of the state flag.  See below.

Here are the next two pages of our book.

On these two pages we talked about the state flower and state bird.  We colored

a state flower and we put together a six piece puzzle of the state bird.  See below for

close up of each page.

 Here we are coloring the state flower.

We also fingerpainted the state bird.  Not sure what is going on though...

I pulled black fingerpaint and it used to be black but it turned brown.  Our blue

did the same thing... it went purple.  Strange!!!  So needless to say, we

have brown birds instead of black ones. You can find the printable here.

Here are the next two pages.

We talked about Pikes Peak and some of the attractions that can be found there

since it is one of the most popular mountains to visit in the nation.  We also

talked about the Rocky Mountains.  Skiing was part of our Rocky Mountain

discussion and we traced the skier and colored him in.  Below are close ups

of the two pages.

 We then made our own Rocky Mountains by cutting squares of paper and

filling in the snowcapped mountains.

And we had fun making a ski jumper.

Here are the next two pages.

We talked about the animals in the Rocky Mountains from Musings of Me
 and discussed how Colorado

is the Stegosaurus state and how they have found many dinosaur bones and

skeletons in Colorado.  See below for close ups of these pages.

 We made a dinosaur skeleton using penne noodles.

And the last two pages.

We did a dinosaur letter match from Two Teaching Mommies which you can
find here and we learned about the US Mint in Colorado.

We matched coins and talked about how much they are worth.  Below are

close ups of the two pages.

Hope you enjoyed our Colorado unit!  Next week we will be off to Connecticut!  Hope you will come back and see what we learned.