Idaho Day One

After testing today (which went much better than yesterday), we did our unit on Idaho. I talked about where potatoes grew, and why they were so prevalent there, and then we did our sheets from the USA book on Idaho.

For each state I used a mix of the book series in this post, and the worksheets in this post. These are the extra resources I used for Idaho in particular:

Video:
School House Rock - Earth

Books:
Hello USA series - Idaho
Eat Your Way Through the USA (Section on Idaho of course)

Websites:

Incredible Edible Idaho - Potatoes - A PDF file of the life cycle of a potato plant and potato nutrition facts. Even has a coloring sheet.

Idaho Dept of Agriculture Food of the Month - Includes all the different foods that grow well in Idaho and has a PDF file on most of them.

Recipes:

For the Idaho unit we made baked Idaho Russet potatoes for dinner with nitrate free bacon and herbs from the garden on top. We made fresh asparagus, because it is in season in Idaho right this second, which we smothered with the last of the cheese we got from the Tillamook factory (white cheddar pepper corn cheese).

Then Alex made Potato Chip Cookies:

3 cups all-purpose flour

2 cups crushed potato chips

1 cup crushed nuts

1 pound butter

2 cups sugar

1 tsp vanilla

powdered sugar

1) Mix together all ingredients except powdered sugar.

2) Bake at 325* for 15 minutes. Cool.

3) Roll in powdered sugar.

We split the recipe in half (making it a math lesson as well) and then he made them. They are crunchy and VERY sweet... not considering they are made with potato chips, not bad at all.

Logan and Cyan making the asparagus:

Resources for California State unit study

For each state I used a mix of the book series in this post, and the worksheets in this post. These are the extra resources I used for California in particular:

Books:
This Land Called America - California

Videos:
Over California
Homeward Bound - The Incredible Journey

Websites:
Organic California Walnuts - History of the black walnut and the walnuts of California.

Castroville Artichoke Festival - We were ALMOST there for it. We left the day before the festival. But we ate at least 4 artichokes each in honor of the season. (Another quick food fact of CA, I have never paid less than $1.50 for an avocado... there that is SPENDY! lol! I was in avocado heaven!)

Oakland California's Gold Rush

Dairy Council of CA kids games - We saw a LOT of happy California dairy cows. It is amazing how much land they have!

Recipes:

(frankly, you could make just about anything and use ingredients from California. But these are the few we chose because we saw them when we were down there. In fact, we made lemonade down there several times from the Meyer Lemon tree in my mom's back yard.)

ARTICHOKE CRAB DIP

1 c. crab meat
1 c. fresh Parmesan cheese
1 c. Hellman's real mayonnaise
8 oz. can artichoke hearts, diced
1 sm. can water chestnuts
4 oz. sour cream or yogurt

Bake in shallow dish at 400 degrees until cheese bubbles. Serve hot. Toast - to go with dip: Sliced French bread (sliced finely), toasted; or English muffin, toasted in oven on both sides, cut into squares. Serve dip on toasts.

Strawberry Shortcake from All Recipes

Perfect Lemonade: Boil 2 cups of water in a med saucepan. Add 1 cup of sugar while mixing with a whisk. Mix until dissolved. Once you can not see any sugar in the syrup, place ice cubes into the pot to cool it down. Add this to the juice of 4 Meyer lemons (approximately 1 cup of juice) in a pitcher, and fill the pitcher the rest of the way with cold water or ice.

More things we saw growing in the California sun included:

Walnuts

Almonds:

Oranges:

Avocados

Lettuce and Lettuce mixes

Broccoli... you name it. It's there somewhere.

Resources for Oregon State unit study

Oregon is only a little ways off, but we got a lot of information for our sister state. For each state I used a mix of the book series in this post, and the worksheets in this post. These are the extra resources I used for Oregon State in particular:

Books:
Apples to Oregon

Videos:
Oregon, State of Wonder

Dirty Jobs with Mike Roe: Cranberry Farmer - (recap here, you can find it on Netflix or at your local library)

Bill Nye, the Science Guy - Volcanoes (talks about the ring of fire and Crater Lake briefly. Good for all the Pacific States.)

Websites:
Crater Lake National Park teacher resources - This website is for teachers who are close enough to go to Crater Lake. If you can, you should go. It's amazing! But if not, skip down to the Jr Rangers portion at the bottom of the resources.

Tillamook Cheese Factory - We were lucky enough to tour this facility while we were on our trip. What a neat place! And, they have the best ice cream EVER. :) Watching the cheese be made was fascinating.

Oregon's Cranberry Network - Fun recipes and information on how cranberries are grown and harvested. Amazing process! Reminds me a lot of how rice is grown and harvested.

The Story of Henderson Lewelling - The story that is behind the book 'Apples to Oregon' is that of Henderson Lewelling. He is the man that brought apple trees to the West Coast. He and his brother were the pioneers of the now famous Oregon and Washington apple movement. Although WA grows more apples, in Lewelling's day, Washington WAS Oregon. So we won't hold it against him. ;)

Recipes:

Macaroni and Cheese Cheese Cheese

Paula Dean's Pear Crisp

Resources for the USA unit studies

I have found TONS of really amazing resources for these studies that I would love to share with you. Along with the pages that I printed out and turned into a book (See here) I have been collecting and researching books and websites on different states and have found some really amazing gems in the mix!

For each state, my library carries these series:
Scholastic Series - America the Beautiful
Celebrate the States series
Portraits of the States
Weird USA (one for each state)


I have collected a few books for my own personal library on the subject as well:
Smart About the Fifty States
Don't Know Much About the 50 States
My America - A Poetry Atlas
Eat Your Way Through The USA


Games we have collected include:
10 Days In the USA
Scrambled States of America


Websites we have found and LOVED so far include:
Ben's Guide the Place the States (A fun game where you have to place the states on their correct places. Several levels from "Match up the piece with the state shape" to "Place the state where it goes on a lineless map".)

Mr Donn State Unit Studies (This site has tons of different resources. I found lots of broken links, but also many others that were very useful in developing this unit study.)

HIP Pocket Change (Each quarter from the USA quarter collection with a small amount of history and a coloring page.)

Shepard's Software USA Geography (A collection of games about the united states.)

Kids.Gov (a resource page which has each states website that are geared specifically for children. Some broken links here as well, but a lot of really neat sites to visit).

Over all, I have used these resources more than any others. There are hundreds and hundreds out there, and I have reviewed many of them setting up for this unit. As I go through the states I will add specific books, websites, and materials that I found helpful for that particular state's study.

Resources for Washington State Unit Study

For each state I used a mix of the book series in this post, and the worksheets in this post. Here are the extra resources I used for the Washington State unit study:

Videos:
Over Washington
Discoveries American Series - Washington
Washington State - A Scenic Tour
Bill Nye the Science Guy - Volcanoes (Talks about Mt St Helen's, the islands of Hawaii, and even Mt Delani National park in Alaska. Good for all the Pacific States.)

Books:
Weird Washington
E is for Evergreen - A Washington Alphabet

Websites:
All about WA state - a site that has state facts, state symbols, and other resource links.

FEMA for kids - Mt St Helen's safety and information.

About.com/Washington State - Tons of links (have not checked them all) about WA state and activities for kids. Great resource!

Apple Hangman - Just for fun, but each answer is a different kind of apple!

Recipe for WA:
Grandma Ole's Apple Pie
(of course!)

(Because we live here, these were limited. I didn't think we needed to spend a lot of time on WA state. But it was neat to see a few of these things. I learned some facts about our state I never knew before.)

Review of the Pacific States

This is the map I made on the board with the kids help. It has products from each state on it. After I took this picture, we circled the ones that were related to natural resources and then underlined the ones that were 'products'. It made for a messy map, but it was invaluable to see what my kids had actually learned.

This was their Pacific States "test":

1.) What two states have had a “Gold Rush” in their history? (Alaska and California)

2.) If you were to buy apples, you would want them to come from this state. (Washington)

3.) The earth is made up of ______________ layers. List those layers. (4 layers. Inner Core, Outer Core, Mantle, and Crust)

4.) Which is the closest state to Canada? (Trick question! Both Alaska and Washington boarder Canada)

5.) Which state is constantly growing? (Hawaii)

6.) Name three similarities between Hawaii and Alaska. (a mix of: have islands, huge shorelines, both have fish as a natural resource, active volcanoes, in the Pacific Ocean, etc)

7.) If you were to buy artichokes, they would most likely come from here. (California)

8.) Which is the closest state to Russia? (Alaska (at one place, it is just two miles away)

9.) Three states have active volcanoes. List them. (Washington, Hawaii, and Alaska)

10.) Which state has the most shoreline of any state in the USA? (Alaska, but Hawaii is completely surrounded, so that would count too.)

11.) Which state is the ‘Evergreen State’? (Washington)

12.) If you wanted to buy Tillamook cheese you would have to be near this state. (Oregon)

13.) All of the states we have studied so far boarder which ocean? (Pacific Ocean)

14.) Name four differences between Hawaii and Alaska. (A mix of: Latitude, cold and hot, Hawaii is near the equator and Alaska is near a pole, Alaska is connected to a landform and Hawaii is completely islands, different natural resources, etc)

15.) Which is the closest state to Mexico? (California)

16.) Which state is the ‘land of the midnight sun’? (Alaska)

Alaska unit Study ~ Day Two

Today we talked about Alaska's wildlife. Mostly, bears. Foxes came up, as did the growing season, the long days (and long nights) and I read a story called "The Alaskan Cinderella" about a little girl who wears rubber boots to the ball, and a gown tossed down from an eagle that looks like salmon scales. But mostly, we talked about bears.

There are MANY bears in Alaska. We have raccoons getting into the garbage's and bird feeders... they have bears getting into theirs. So much so that the waste disposal companies have had to make special 'bear resistant' garbage cans.

This is a really cool video of the Alaskan Zoo testing out the new garbage cans with all their bears. It it shows nothing else, it shows that the bears try REALLY hard.... and it would probably be a bad idea to disturb one of these babies as they are 'working' on getting their post-hibernation snacks.

Other resources I used for this lesson:

Alaska (The movie)

"Berry Magic" by Teri Sloat

"This Place is COLD" by Vicki Cobb

"The Salmon Princess" by Mindy Dwyer

"The Alaskan Mother Goose" by Shelly Gill

Alaska Unit Study ~ Day One

Ice built, ice bound, and ice bounded,

Such cold seas of silence! Such room!

Such show-light, such sea-light, confounded

with thunders that smite like a doom!

Such grandeur! Such glory! Such gloom!

Hear that boom! Hear that deep distant boom

of an avalanche hurled

down this unfinished world!

(From Alaska by Joaquin Miller)

We made our way from the warm waters of Hawaii to the frigid waters of Alaska today. We started with review of the states we have studied (WA, OR, CA, Hawaii) and then moved on to some interesting facts about Alaska.

• Is twice the size of Texas.
• Has the highest mountain in North America.
• Has the largest National park in the US.
• Has more shoreline than any other state.
• Is dark 20 hrs/day in winter, and light 20 hrs/day in summer.
• Alaska has 17 of the 20 highest mountains in the US.

We spent an hour this afternoon watching Ididarod: The Toughest Race on Earth just before our lessons. We mapped where the Ididarod runs on our rough map on the white board. Then we talked about Alaska's natural resources. We had a long discussion about fishing and the Alaskan fishing trade, and then we talked about the shoreline of Alaska and a few of their native peoples and traditions. We ended with some USA workbook work for Alaska and then went to make an Alaskan dinner. YUM!

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Some Alaska websites/printouts we used:

Where is Alaska? from HomeSchool Share

Alaskan flag, fish, and flower from Crayola Coloring Pages

The Alaskan Quarter from HIP pocket change

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An Alaskan Dinner

The kids were very proud to make an Alaskan meal of wild caught Alaskan fish and green beans from last years harvest at our own farm. I added in some baby carrots so Logan would eat some veggies and we all enjoyed the meal a lot! I am getting the book Eat Your Way Through the USA for the next few lessons and I am excited that some of these states are going to be a bit more mapped out for me... because some state dinners are going to be harder than the Pacific States... Do you know what to eat when we are studying North Dakota? Or Minnesota? Yeah... me either. ;)

Hawaii Unit Study ~ Day Two

Today has been a shorter school day. We made leis and then Cyan got to watch a video from the library called "Be a Hula Girl" and Alex is researching why the volcanic islands of Hawaii exist in the center of a tectonic plate. He will be writing a paper on it and has pretty much taken over my computer to do the writing... but I think he is doing a great job, so I am leaving him to it. :)

Here is the link to tips on how to make leis from backyard flowers like we did this morning.

Hawaii Unit Study ~ Day One

The Continental Pacific States came first on our trip across the USA. It matched perfectly with our vacation and while on that vacation I delighted in hearing "Oh mama! Another California Quail!", "That sign said Sacramento." and "Look! It's more Rhododendrons!"

Now that we are home, and have recovered somewhat, we are moving on to the Pacific States that we didn't get to visit. This week our state is Hawaii.

I started out the day by finding appropriate music on Pandora on my iPhone and then hooking it to our stereo so we had gentle Hawaiian music in the background and then we started reading and talking about the islands of Hawaii.

We started on our United States book work which included two of these pages from Crayola Coloring Sheets and Where in the World is Hawaii? from Homeschool Share. The pages cover where Hawaii is in the world, what the state flag, flower, and bird are, and a couple of other interesting facts (like the fact that Hawaii is still getting bigger, and that most of it's land can not be lived on becuase the islands are active volcanos, etc.)

This is a picture of the Hawaii state flower from the San Diego Zoo that we were just at two weeks ago:

Then I drew a large map on the white board and (after looking up the pronunciations) had the kids repeat after me the island names. Soon after I had them fill in a blank map of the islands from memory. The spellings were humerous, but they got them all correct.

Then we moved on to volcanoes. We learned about the two different types of lava - A a (ah - ah) and Pahoehoe (Pa - Hoy- Hoy), and we learned a little bit about the way the volcanic islands are built.

We talked about how volcanic soil is very fertile soil and thanks to history class, they are well versed in the benefits of fertile soil. Then we moved on to food.

We talked about the crops of Hawaii, and then Pineapples in specific. How and where they grow, what the plants look like and how they are harvested. Alex got to cut up a fresh pineapple, and we each had a slice for a snack.

School activities continued until well into the evening today, and the kids blessed me with making dinner. Pineapple and mango fried rice with Teriyaki chicken, and caramelised pineapple for dessert.

More Hawaii tomorrow!

What we are learning about this week...

I never forgot this song from when I was in middleschool... and now I have my middleschool son learning it for part of our USA study. Funny enough, I also posted an Animaniacs video on my other blog today, talking about food. They were way more educational than I remember! ;)

Have a great Wednesday folks!

United States of America

As homeschoolers, we pull educational opportunities from the oddest things. Everything from roadkill that we pass on the way to a field trip, to a beautiful needle point sent by the inlaws can turn into a full blown unit study.

Last week I realised that my kids may not know where we are going for vacation. We have studied the rivers of Egypt and Ancient Rome, but they may not know the rivers we have to cross to get to California! So I jumped, nose deep, into setting up a unit study for the United States.

For now, we are just doing the Pacific States... as those are the ones we will be visiting next month. But I made the books cover all 50 states in depth. This means that it took an entire ream of paper, and two black ink cartridges before I was done... but it was well worth it. :) Here's how I did it:

For the covers, I googled 'United States of America' under the images search. I chose different images for each of the kids because there are some big differences in the work I am asking of each of them, (although many of their pages will be the same) and I wanted the covers to reflect the level of work I expected.

In Cyan's book I mostly had a set of these three pictures to introduce the states. "Where Is ...?" from Homeschool Share, the State Facts Pages from Crayola Coloring Sheets, and the State Flower and State Bird pages from Homeschool Share Geography Resources. In the beginning of her book there are a few other sheets: the 7 continents, where America is in the world, and where the USA is in North America. I also included copy sheets for our address, pages to draw a picture of her house and common plants of our area (which is great, because we have at least 5 of the 'state flower' blooming in our yard right now), a large color map of the United States, and a couple of pages on our countries flag.

In Alex's book, there are all of these pages and more. There are pages on government, some on famous people from the different states, question and answer sheets on the continents, the countries of North America, and regions of our country as well. The flag sheets along with flag etiquette and how to fold a flag... I even included some sheets to write poetry about America.

On the back of both books, I added a picture of all of the state flags (from Google images) onto card stock and I asked the kids to refer back to this when coloring the flag sheets so they are using the correct colors.

I also went on Enchanted Learning (I have a membership) and picked up a page on the regions of the US. I used this as a guide and divider for the books. I started with the Pacific States, moving from Washington, Oregon, California, and on to Alaska and Hawaii and moving across the country in sections, from top to bottom.

I organized the sections regionally so the kids can remember the states locaion in relation to other state locations. (This has always helped me remember.) It also is helpful because many of the states that are close together, have similar attributes or famous products in common. Such as the apples from Washington and Oregon.

I have been thinking about this unit study for a long time. Not specifically doing anything... but just knowing that something about the geography and history of our country was coming sometime before I was done with 'schooling' them. We have many resources and I borrowed a few more from a friend that I have found to be really helpful.

Games:

The Scrambled States of America game

10 Days in the USA

Books:

Smart About the Fifty States

Apples to Oregon (which, btw, has an AWESOME free unit study from here that goes along with it)

E is for Evergreen

My America: A Poetry Atlas for the United States

This is a page out of the book "Smart About the Fifty States".

It suddenly seems as though everything we are doing revolves around Geography and History. The grains of the world study is going well and we are identifying the continents that these grains are commonly used on. We have a history class that just had a field trip with a real archaeologist this morning and watched him make a spear head out of obsidian. And then this afternoon we spent talking about the birth of professional apple fruit tree production in Washington and Oregon with Henderson Luelling. I think my coolest moment in the day is when I could share that the Gravenstein apple was one of the varieties that Henderson Luelling brought over in his covered wagon 160 years ago, and we have one IN OUR YARD!

Somedays, I just LOVE being a homeschooler. :)