Hello everyone and welcome to Connecticut, the first stop on our Road Trip USA journey across the U.S.! We were so excited to start this trip after the fun time we had last year with our Expedition Earth World Geography!
Of course I had to take some of the fun stuff from our Expedition Earth studies that went over so well. So we started off with a brand new Travel Log ready for lots of state stickers to be added! uhem…50 to be exact.
Next we found our state and capital on our U.S. Wall Map. Last week in our Intro to US Geography week, we learned where the different regions are that we’ll be going through, so each state we talk about I review the region it is located in.
Here are some of the things we learned about this week:
- Located Connecticut and Hartford on our Wall Map
- Connecticut was named the 5th State
- Connecticut Nickname: The Constitution State
- Read the National Geographic US Atlas for Kids and mapped Hartford, CT
- Connecticut is home to Dinosaur State Park
- State Fish: The American Shad
- State Bird: The American Robin
- State Flower: The Mountain Laurel
- Read If You Were There When They Signed the Constitution by Elizabeth Levy
- Started working on our 50 States and Capitals song from Mrs. Jones Room
- Learned about some of CT’s famous people: Harriet Beecher Stowe, Benedict Arnold, and Jackie Robinson
- Learned about the State Insect: The Praying Mantis and did a paper craft.
- Had hamburgers in respect for CT which is known for the first hamburger!
- Learned about some of CT’s famous history: Old State House, Hartford Convention and the Amistad trial
- Added our state animals to our US Animal Wall
Since we had song’s all last year, the kids were asking for some this year! We’re going to start off learning the 50 states and Capital’s song this year, so we’re practicing with music and lyrics from Mrs. Jones Room. (Later in the year we’ll work on the US Presidents Song!)
Next the kids colored their state worksheets as I read the facts for that day. The cat likes to be involved, so he makes himself right at home on our new Ikea clad school setup.
Here’s an up close on this week’s worksheet:
On the first day, my kids immediately started asking where our animal wall was…if you didn’t follow our Expedition Earth trip last year, you can check out our World Animal Wall here. Anyway, I sat down and made up an animal set for our Road Trip USA study! You can download it free from my Road Trip USA Animals post.
We also added our state cutout to the mini-wall map:
Once we were done with all of our work related stuff, we sat down to learn a little bit about the history of our USA! Strawberry Shortcake read the first section of If You Were There When They Signed the Constitution to the other kiddos.
That was it for the first state of Delaware, since we’re doing 2 states per week this year, we’ll be going through fairly fast! I’ll do my best to take pics and post our journey!
If you’d like to come along with us on our Road Trip USA journey, click the image below to learn more!
I bought your Roadtrip USA curriculum and we absolutely LOVE it! We are on New Jersey and New York. My favorite part is how well it is all put together. My kids (ages 6 and 8) favorite part is the food! LOL! They still talk about eating crab cakes! 🙂
Hi Erica,
I have been with you for the last 3 years, but recently I have not been getting daily updates from your blog.
I was just wondering if I can get back on the list please. We like to follow your family as we’re working on the Roadtrip curriculum.
Thanks so much.
Gretchen
Erica,
We are also studying the USA this year. I love your map where you velcro the states on. I was thinking to create one like yours? Did you buy two maps and then cut out the states and add the velcro? This would be much more hands on. Also where did you find your pointer? I keep looking for one, but find mostly plastic ones.
I have been enjoying your blog for a long time. Thank you for sharing so many great insights and helpful aides!
Kristen
I was trying to order the USA Roadtrip. For some reason I couldn’t get past the screen where I put in my credit card info??? Can you help? I would love this resource ASAP!
Thanks,
Annette
So, where are you gluing the lap books? Im confused about that. The lapbooks from the first few lessons. where do they go?
You can either glue them to a divider page (we put a divider between each region of the US, and glued the state books to that. OR you can create a US lapbook, a double lapbook, so two file folders glued together, then put them all in there. It’s totally up to you. Some people prefer to do the divider page since all of the state pages are kept in a binder, but you can do it either way.
Love this curriculum so much! I purchased it in 2012, but I was wondering if there has been update since then? A lot of the bird pictures on the state pages are not the correct birds! Thank you for your help!
Hi Katherine, yes it’s been updated! If you email me we’ll reset your downloads so you can get the updates.
We are just starting Road Trip USA. What paper craft did you do for CT? I didn’t see it in the curriculum.