We had a fun year with USA Geography in our homeschool and I thought I’d do a wrap-up post to share what we thought about how our year of learning went. When we began I wondered if we would make it through all 50 states and I am thrilled to say we DID!
My goal for my 4th grader was mastery of state locations and capitals with exposure to all of the other fun details. The goal for my 1st grader was entirely exposure. She will go through this again in 3rd or 4th grade with me.
We had lots of fun together usually about 2 days per week. Here’s a reference list with links to all materials we used this year with our 1st and 4th grader…
- USA PowerPoint
- State by State U.S.A. Activity Pack
- USA States and Capitals Worksheets
- Sticker USA & Magnets — birds, flowers, abbreviations
- Readeez 50 States Song/Video
- Sequence States Game
- Stack the States App
- Scrambled States Game
- A Review in Photos & Videos…
Each photo below is linked to the blog post it came from, so be sure to click if you want to read more!
- First, here is the video I made at the beginning of the year with
- . We mostly stuck to this plan, and added a few things in.
The State by State Activity Pack pages from Crafty Classroom were perfect for my kids. They both love to color so this was usually a relaxed and fun activity.
We used these books for our reference guides as we learned about each state and filled in our sheets!
Near the end of the year I added in a new set of States and Capitals worksheets that I created for review. We will continue to use those to reinforce state locations and capitals.
The Readeez 50 States song comes HIGHLY recommended by my kids, they love it and can both sing their states in ABC order thanks to the awesome tune and video! Here’s a peek of a video clip when we were listening to the Readeez song!
We continue to use our USA PowerPoint for review. As we got into the later states, we wouldn’t go all the way back to review, but would pick up where I felt they needed to.
Here are a few videos of the PowerPoint in action!
Our magnets from Barker Creek were awesome and we added them to our magnetic board all year. These were especially great to review abbreviations.
Our games were loads of fun and great for review. They loved game day and we had them often. Our 2 favorites are Sequence States and Capitals and Scrambled States.
Krash enjoyed the Stack the States app a lot for review. He loved that the work we did made him better at the game!
Final Thoughts…
I am SUPER pleased with how USA Geography went this year and if you are looking for a simple low-prep {prepare before the school year begins and then you are ready for the year} I recommend looking into the resources we used!
Here’s a visual version for those of you who want to see these items online! Click on the image to see the resource or the post!