As always we started with the cover of our books. We found Indiana on the
state map that hangs in our room and then we colored the state name (Indiana) and
the state.
Then we found Indiana on the US map and colored it, traced the state capital, and did a
dot to dot of the outline of the state of Indiana.
We then discussed and colored the state flag.
We either traced and printed the state name (older children) or we did a
pre-writing activity in which we traced over the dotted line from the state
flag to the state (younger children).
We talked about the state flower being the peony. In our books we matched flowers that
were cut in half. We also waterpainted a peony.
We then learned about the state bird... the cardinal. We did a six piece puzzle
putting together the bird. For the younger children I put a grayscale copy of
the puzzle down so they could match pieces.
We then made two different cardinals. We water and chalked one. By putting the
chalk into water prior to coloring the chalk turns out much darker and fills in the area
a lot better without the chalk dust.
We also made these paper plate versions of a cardinal. We put the cardinal together and colored with crayon the eyes, beak, wing feathers and feet and then fingerpainted all of the red.
We talked about the Marengo Cave in Indiana and we put together a number order puzzle... older children did a 11-20 and younger children did a 1-5. I forgot to take pictures of this activity. :(
We watched several videos on u-tube about the Marengo Cave.
We also colored and dictated what we might see inside this cave.
Basketball is big in Indiana so we colored a picture of a basketball hoop and talked about
the Hoosiers.
We then made our own basketball hoops with a paper plate cut like a backboard and a red solo
cup with the bottom cut out and stapled to the paper plate backboard. We stapled our backboards to our bulletin board. We crumpled up a piece ofaluminum foil for the ball. Lots of fun with this as the pictures will show!!!
Did you know there was a Santa Claus, Indiana? We learned about how this city in
Indiana got its name and some of the attractions of the city. We all decided we would
like to go there... especially to go to the water park!
So we colored a Santa Claus... who the city was named after, and we matched the
attractions name to the pictures and then talked about what you might do at the
attraction.
And we made Santa Claus... my family thought I was nuts and completely losing my
mind having Santa's drying on the kitchen counter where all my daycare projects dry... so
they had to be educated as well!
And last on our journey of Indiana we talked about the Indianapolis Motor Speedway... a fav. with
the boys! We colored a race car, did a maze, and watched a quick clip of a few races.
The highlight of the lesson was making these fancy cars out of toilet paper tubes, construction
paper, and markers. How fun and did they have fun using them for dramatic play!!! Love when
you make an art project and it doubles up for a toy they can play with.
And there was our Indiana unit! Hope you had as much fun looking at what we did as we did
doing it!!!
Best,
Rose
