Louisiana is a fun state to study, we spent a couple of weeks on it and I feel like there is still so much we could have done.
Going clockwise, starting in the top left:
Louisiana state picture
My plan to save the levies- this is one I never blogged about for some reason, but we talked about how New Orleans is below sea level and the devastation from Hurricane Katrina. Afterwards the kids drew their plans to fix the levies. For whatever reason Princess decided they really needed to rebuild it with stronger bricks.
Down in Louisiana- I seriously love Johnette Downing’s books, and this was one of the first ones we read. We also did a project with Chef Creole, but that has disappeared into the nether
Battle for New Orleans- I mentioned this battle and song when we first learned about Andrew Jackson for Tennessee. This time we talked about it some more and then we drew who they would draft into their army. My kids were so amused by the crocodiles in the song they all decided to draft crocodiles……
Blues invented in Louisiana-Any excuse to play big band and blues music to my kids is always welcome. My kids are going to grow up with very interesting taste in music (as I’m typing this my playlist changed from “Into the Woods” to “Chicago."). They drew all in blues to illustrate what it sounded like. It led to some fun illustrations.
Not shown in the picture because certain 5 year old girls lose things and “forget” to glue them in, I’m not naming any names……..
Mardi Gras masks…… This one has disappeared into their rooms, and has been repaired many many times by me. I might break down and make one out of fabric.
We completed all of our activities for Ohio in one week, but there were several books I wasn’t able to fit in that I wanted to do something with, but I didn’t have quite enough for a full second week, so we moved on. I’ll probably talk about those more in my post at ABC & 123.
What’s included in the lapbook:
My Great Invention- Ohio is the home to the Invention Museum, and I found a great book about inventions taking place in Ohio. The kids designed their Lego creation and then wrote about it in their book.
Covered Wagon- Anything that is a cut and paste is a hit around here. This was no exception. The boys loved figuring out how to best protect people and what they REALLY needed. The girls loved filling their wagon with kitchen stuff.
Neil Armstrong, what I want be when I grow up- After reading about how hard Neil Armstrong worked to become an astronaut we talked about what we need to do to get the job we really want when we grow up. State Symbols pages – another ladybug. I really wanted to do something with the trilobites, but couldn’t think of a good activity. Anyone have a good trilobite activity?
Sequoyah- The man who brought writing to the Cherokee people. You can see our plan for this on the lower left hand side. This activity was really a bit over my kids, but it was a good stretch for them.
Andrew Jackson- I still find this president amusing. I don’t know why. I got to bring him up again when we got to Louisiana, that was fun.
Luck with Potatoes- Another Tennessee tall tale, or maybe this author just made it up, either way it’s a fun story about a farmer who has some bad luck until he plants potatoes. I highly recommend this book if your kid likes silly books.
Casey Jones- This was one I knew the name, but didn’t know too much about this real life hero. That’s always a fun surprise for me to discover something I didn’t know too much about.
Done, but not included in the lapbook, which I guess is really more of a notebook.
Davy Crockett peg dolls- I found a great book for this, and I really wanted to make coon skin caps, but wasn’t sure how to do that in a way that made sense with 6 other kids there, and that could be completed in a timely manner.
So the Davy Crockett peg doll was born. He’s kinda disturbing.
Banjo Granny- the world’s cutest book, and each time we looked at the illustrations we found more in it.
Afterwards we made a banjo for our dolls with a popsicle stick and some brown card stock. Very fun and very popular.
So any suggestions of things I could have added? Or ways to do this better? I always like to add in people’s suggestions for when I write about this over at ABC & 123. There were a few things I didn’t have the right books for, but over all it was a fun idea.
I’m gonna link this over at All Things Beautiful and her geography/history link up.
Kentucky was a fun state, and I enjoyed getting to watch some of the Kentucky Derby videos while we were studying it.
This is what happens when you let the kids be “responsible” for their stuff. Two of the items are lost/missing and one is glued in upside down.
Well, from top right going clockwise:
Young Abraham Lincoln- He was born in Kentucky before moving to Illinois, and there’s a great book about friendship and it’s also a great book to compare truth and fiction in a biography. We wrote what makes a good friend.
Mohammad Ali- I learned so much about him from the books I checked out, and we all wrote catchphrases. Of course ours weren’t really that catchy…….. More on monologues.
Daniel Boone- We had fun observing pictures of the real Daniel Boone and talking about him and making our own surveying equipment.
Yeah…….. That’s the pages I could find, not found:
Night Boat to Freedom- What color would you wear to freedom, or as all the boys there interpreted it that day: “How to arm a rowboat with nuclear missiles.”
State symbols- I love that they have a state motto: “To the stars through difficulty.”
Not included because they weren’t paper products:
Kentucky Derby hats- because making hats out of paper plates and plastic bowls is always fun.
Happy Birthday to You- Ummmm, we read this book about the authors of that song, but for some reason I can find no information on what we did. GROWL………………
Vermont had some really fun books to go with it, and a few that weren’t specifically Vermont, but fit in with things they were known for:
Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream- let me tell you, any book and activity that includes ice cream is quite heartily approved of.
John Deere tractors (which looks to be missing from this page)- if you go to the post there are several suggestions for great books.
Champy- Vermont’s very own version of the Loch Ness Monster, Christy, who is now blogging over at Snacks and Stories, turned me on to the idea of Champy. We used Mysterious Tadpole, which is really about the Loch Ness Monster, but it worked just fine. I also have to add, I LOVE stories like this.
Nora’s Ark- super cute true story, and it gave my kids a lot to think about for what they would save if they had to leave their house.
Tricking the Tally Man- mwa ha ha, bring in math and history all in one well written and illustrated book, SCORE!
This is one of those states where I just didn’t have much to go on. So if you live in the area or have been there I’d love some extra suggestions of what else to tell people about for when I write for ABC & 123.
Don’t you just love all of the empty space on Princess’ pages? She was quite insistent on gluing it all in this way……. Sigh, and she lost her carousel symbols.
Carousels- Rhode Island was the site of the first carousels in America, and was famous for the designs on their carousels. For that alone I want to go there.
Yes, I liked carousels. I’m a complete sucker for them.
Nathaniel Greene- famous general from Revolutionary War, and there was not one book about him specifically at our library. Sigh, so I made something up using Wikipedia.
Finding Providence- I did not write a post on this one because I didn’t have any pictures of the activity.
And now I see why having taken a picture of the end results. The activity was to write down different ways you can know or learn God’s will, because Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode Island, trusted to God’s Providence.
It’s a good activity, just not very photogenic, or exciting.
Seriously, any other suggestions. Christy from Snacks and Stories (she used to blog at Superheroes and Princesses) gave me some good suggestions of making “Cabinets,” which sound a lot like milkshakes, I think Phyllis from All Things Beautiful had a similar suggestion.
As you can see North Carolina was not heavy on printable activities. Actually it wasn’t super busy this time through, most of the books I found were checked out of the library and didn’t straggle in for a while.
This is one of those states that I know we spent several weeks on, but there wasn’t much that was bloggable about it. And yes bloggable is a word.
So…… let’s see what’s in their books:
Norman Rockwell- on the inside is the story written by that kid. My kids only wrote one sentence, but for older guys you could challenge them to come up with more.
Building New York- one of the non-bloggable activities. We read the book, and then put the timeline of activities in order from the page at the back of the book. I liked this one because it does a great job of providing a nice timeline activity to look at.
Under New York- a great story about what is happening underground. I learned some great things from reading it, and was very amused by it.
Tenth Avenue Cowboy- A wonderful story about a boy who dreams of being a cowboy, and how his dream comes true. Everyone wrote how their dream came true, but most of the kids wrote rather silly answers.
My Ideal Park- we tied this into “What to do About Alice,” but it’s not supremely related. Teddy Roosevelt founded our national parks, and so we talked about that a lot.
Franklin Roosevelt and Teddy Roosevelt pages- These are just a simple 2 flap book with their images glued on top. If the boy from the book pictured above had written smaller he would only have one book with something written about each of those presidents written under the flap. But…. he’s six, and has rather messy handwriting.
Statue of Liberty- We measured it out and saw the relative sizes….. link to the printable is there as well as a link to the site that had the measurements.
ARGH! I had this almost 100 percent done and then it disappeared on me! Evil evil computer. Now to reconstruct, but how will I rewrite the brilliant quips?
George Washington- I’m still amused at how much they liked making fake teeth. But I guess any activity with play dough is fun. The piece here is a 3 page book with one fact on each page.
Chincoteague pony- or in the boys’ case, the amazing Technicolor pony
Thomas Jefferson-or design your own house. The boys houses still amuse me, dedicated Halloween room indeed……
Patrick Henry- Two months later my kids still remember that he failed as a farmer and a store keeper but he was good at arguing.
Robert E Lee- I’m still amused and find it interesting that he was actually against slavery, but felt he should help his fellow Southerner. Imagine how much sooner the war would have been over if he had fought on the North’s side. Or maybe he was a child of Rome, and that’s why he fought on that side (okay, who got that reference?). If you want pictures to make your own piece, they can be found here. I just folded half a piece of paper and had them write a fact about him.
Civil War soldiers from Junior General – I also found a copy of the Monitor and the Merrimac, which I was very happy to find. They’re two of the famous battleships from that war, and I was very sad my library didn’t have any good books on the subject.
Promise Quilt- I think this was almost Princess’ favorite activity, cut paper into lots and lots of small pieces and glue it on, yes please.
Now before it crashes on me again, head over to Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns for other books people’s kids are reading. All of these were big hits with my kids!
I have at least two more states to write about, and these help me get organized for my posts over at ABC and 123 that I’m writing once a month on geography.
Yeah……. not a lot. Just no really great books at my library.
Activities: P.T. Barnum and the circus- there’s so much you could do with this, but we limited it to about 30 minutes of activities, and the page I added in after the fact.
Nathan Hale- I have to admit I’ve always admire him, and when I found out he was Connecticut’s state hero, than I HAD to do something with him, and I found the perfect book.
Yankee Doodle- the state song. To the right are my kid’s illustrations of their verses.
Other things to study, which I didn’t get a chance to do: Benedict Arnold and robins
Sigh, so depressing, it feels like there should be so much more I could do with this state……..
Coke library pocket- on the outside is glued an ad from Coke in the inside (in theory, this particular boy’s has walked off) is the ad the kid designed.
State symbols-Another honey bee for state insect. The other thing that interested me is the marine animal. The Right Whale, so called because of whalers.
Peanut butter printable (scroll down the page, it’s one of the images about halfway down or so, I copied the image and pasted into Word)
I have a Dream- someday my kids will dream a dream they can achieve, or that I can achieve. I really have no clue how I’m going to make a working Iron Man costume for Batman.
Jolly Roger- from homeschool share scroll down to the bottom (no blog post on this because well, it wasn’t really interesting and we didn’t do all the fun stuff due to lack of time during our meeting). I also just saw a cute post over at Fantastic Five on pirates she used a preschool pack from Homeschool Creations…… So, lots of options for this one.
Incidentally, Superman says this is his book I took a picture of. I think it’s Batman’s. But, now I’m off to go play Monopoly Jr…… Joy! Be back in a few
As you can see there’s not a lot in the book itself, but there is some stuff (including the Valley Forge page, which I’ve since learned should be in Pennsylvania……).
And my usual state symbol page. The kids were amused at some of the symbols, but mostly they liked the dinosaur.
I need to start a graph of how many different states have bee as their state insect.
Thomas Edison- you have to click on the link to get the full idea, but his lab was here, and he made a LOT of inventions.
The paper with his name on it has a picture of three of his inventions.
Other activities not pictured, or that we didn’t get done:
Dinosaur dig- in honor of the first dinosaur nearly complete dinosaur that was found in New Jersey.
My kids still try to get out their bags of pieces from time to time…….
Blueberries- Wildly popular book series (okay in my house, it’s out of print in reality) about two Polar Bears trying to steal blueberry muffins. One of the things New Jersey is known for.
Diners- New Jersey has the most diners per capita of any other state I found some cute books, one of which called Minnie’s Diner, totally recommend that one, and it was going to be a great math multiplication activity. It just never happened. Seriously, I had to recheck that book about 2 times.
And sigh of accomplishment, Pennyslvania is done. There was a lot there and we barely even scratched the surface even with 2 weeks on it.
Other things you could study that we didn’t even get to: more on the Amish, Crayola, there’s a couple of books on repeating Ben Franklin’s experiments, Gettysburg Address (there is an awesome picture book of this but I couldn’t find it and I don’t know the illustrator, but it’s pen and ink drawings, LOVE it), and I’m sure a whole LOT more.
)
Thomas Edison
Other activities that didn’t have a printable:
