State Studies :: Elementary School (8-10 years old)
Coming Spring 2014: State Studies, a new homeschool guide dedicated to learning about the 50 United States. Like our Seasonal units, this Free Homeschool Curriculum includes art projects, literature, journaling, recipes, picture studies, and more. We are sharing this free homeschool curriculum on a week by week basis. Keep checking in for more information.
Please understand that this is a unit in process. It is a curriculum that I am writing for my own family as we go. I may change things as I go and will share weeks as I am able. Some weeks I may not be able to add a new lesson. My goal is to have everything published by the end of the summer so that others can use it for next school year but I do not have an exact end date.
UNIT 1 Information is listed below.
CLICK HERE for UNIT 2 information including weekly schedule, book lists, project links, and map quizes.
Click here for the State Studies Unit 1 Weekly Schedule. It is a quick overview of the unit. For more information on how to use the unit and for the project directions, check out our weekly links listed below. You can also find the complete book list listed below in the Amazon Box.
- Art Project: Mixed Media Sailboat Painting
- Art Project: Cork Buoys
- Art Project: Salt Glazed Pinch Pot
- Art Project: Barn Stars
- Art Project: Old Time Car Ads
- Art Project: Zen Tangled/Oil Pastel Cows
- Art Project: Corn Husk Dolls
- Art Project: Plaster of Paris Sculpture
Weeks 10-18 are available here.
If you are using any of our Free Homeschool Companion Curriculum guides, we would like invite you to share your photos on our Wee Folk Art Homeschool Flickr page.
I have been enjoying your state study ideas. I thought I would add one wonderful resource called Simply Stated. It has many wonderful book ideas.
I could not get the link to work. Here is it again: http://www.kreativesimplicity.com/frames_index.htm.
Thanks for the suggestion. I will take a look at the book. I always love it when our readers share good resources. It helps build a better curriculum. 🙂
Right now we have all html turned off for comments… we were getting way too much spam when it was on. I’ve been playing with setting permissions to allow some links to work… but I can’t get the filters to work quite right. It is on my to-do list to fix. Thanks for just leaving the address for now.
You are very welcome. The book is just wonderful. They put together so many great picture books for each state (and also some chapter books). Worth every penny.
I’m so excited about starting this! I can see you’ve added a lot since the last time I checked. Thank you, thank you!!! I have looked at many things out there, but nothing has the feel of this…I am all about the books and art! We will start in the fall, although our read-aloud right now is “From the Mixed Up files…”. If by any chance there was another great book you considered using in this spot, please let me know :). I’ve only looked at one of the worksheets, but I saw you were looking for feedback. I looked at the lighthouse one and thought it would be a nice addition to a notebook, but is there anything else that we should be doing to go along with that? I see in the activities you have “Journal: Lighthouse”…does that go along with the worksheet? For now, I’m going back to see if I find anything else about the journal. Back to planning for fall :). Thank you!
I considered using My Side of the Mountain for that area too. It takes place in the Catskill mountains… but I had already read it aloud to my kids. My kids loved it… I remember loving it as a kid too.
Journal entries are meant to be narrations… or basically summations of the reading.
Thanks, that one is on my list, so that’s great :). Anything on the worksheets?
I just looked at the overview… the journal listing on the schedule actually refers to the Activity Page. Those are all included in the weekly posts.
Hi again!
trying to gather my books from the library, etc. What are Fishing Community, Commercial City and Farming Community?
Thanks!
Patty
It is the series “Life in a …. “
Here are the links…
Fishing Community
Farming Community
Commercial City
Me again. I have a question about the journaling pages for the independent reading (the ones with a place for outlines,vocabulary, etc). Are you having your daughter/son complete one per chapter, grouping chapters, etc? I’m probably over analyzing how we’re using them. My daughter reads a lot and fast, so these have been a great tool to teach her how to pull out important events for an outline, accepting that not knowing the meaning of a word may change her interpretation, and just having those few books that we do it with so that hopefully she will take the time to do a little of this on her own at some point is great.
thanks again!
Patty
Hi Michelle,
I asked this below but i think it got lost in the thread.
I have a question about the journaling pages for the independent reading (the ones with a place for outlines,vocabulary, etc). Are you having your daughter/son complete one per chapter, grouping chapters, etc? I’m probably over analyzing how we’re using them. My daughter reads a lot and fast, so these have been a great tool to teach her how to pull out important events for an outline, accepting that not knowing the meaning of a word may change her interpretation, and just having those few books that we do it with so that hopefully she will take the time to do a little of this on her own at some point is great.
I know it can be a fine line between turning a good, enjoyable book into “work”, so I’m just curious about how yu use them.
thanks again!
Patty
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