Trekking Across the US -- Connecticut

Welcome to Connecticut, as we trek across the states! Our journey consists of Musings of Me, Montessori Tidbits, and Get Down and Get Your Hands Dirty.

Please pray for my dear friend, Michelle at Musings of Me, as she is dealing with a miscarriage right now. :-( So, she doesn't have anything up yet about Connecticut, and this state study should definitely be the LAST thing on her mind right now.

Here's how we made Connecticut hands-on, with lots of fun activities...

Robins (and other birds too...):

Make a robin's nest:

I saw this idea off of an email from one of my yahoo groups. The recipe we followed was super easy (and didn't call for a double boiler), and this time of year is PERFECT to make these, as the candy eggs are readily available in the seasonal Easter candy section of most stores. (We bought the mini eggs that came in a little milk carton.)

Here's our recipe:

1 bag of butterscotch chips (11 oz.)

3 TBS peanut butter

1/2 package of chow mein noodles (6 oz)

candy eggs

Melt butterscotch chips and peanut butter for approx 2-3 minutes. Stir mixture at each 1 minute interval. After the mixture is melted, add chow mein noodles. Place spoonfuls on wax paper. Add egg(s).

Parts of a bird:

Aikman preferred to write the parts of a bird, so I printed off the sheets from here. One has blanks, and the other is the control.

Make a birdfeeder:

There were so many ideas that I had for this state, but we just didn't get to do them this week. One of these ideas was a birdfeeder. This will definitely be something that we will do this week.

Bird identification checklist:

I'm also planning on making a bird identification checklist for this area, but *sigh* that too hasn't been made for this week. However, I was inspired by my dear friend Karen's blogpost about how her class studied birds, and I think I may just print those bird/egg cards!

Yankee Doodle:

We listened to Yankee Doodle on this youtube video, as it is the state song. We didn't talk about the meaning behind the song, but that is an idea for those of you who have olders and are studing along with us.

General ideas for Connecticut:

Quarter rubbings/quarter hunt: (download here)

Originally, Aikman was very interested in doing quarter rubbings, but no so much anymore. So, instead I am printing off the quarter sheet, and then having him hunt through the quarters to find the one with Connecticut on it.

Locate and label abbreviation: (a favorite work at our house)
Label the state with its abbreviation.

Connect the dot page that form the state (dots go from 1-25)

This is the FIRST activity my son chooses each week, as soon as it is set out! You can download the page from makinglearningfun here.

Trace the state (download from here)

Aikman asked me if he could trace the states. I honored this request, using some leftover tissue paper, tape, and the printed map.

Major cities in Connecticut (download from here)

This is becoming a personal favorite that is repeated several times over the week. Aikman places stars on the major cities in Connecticut. Then he writes the capital city at the bottom of the page. Eventually, I plan on adding more city names, but for now, I don't want him to lose interest in this work by having too many cities to label.

Count the bordering states

We look at the map, find the state, and then count the states that surround it. We've added a graph to keep up with the number of bordering states.

Graph the number of bordering states

After the number of bordering states is counted and written, it can be added to the graph. You can download this graphing sheet here.

Make the state flag

One of our highlights each week is creating the flag. I had to get a little creative this week, as I wasn't sure how we would "create" the shield.

How it was set up:

- 2 sheets of construction paper -- white and blue

- printout of the flag from here

- crayons

What he did:

1. Color printout of the shield, using the flag control (or you can look at pictures, such as this one)

2. Cut out shield and glue to blue construction paper

3. Cut thin strips of white paper for the ribbon at the bottom of the page. (I actually did this part for him, as we were running out of time this day.

4. Write words onto the ribbon.

Other ideas:
- Pinpushing (map found here)

- see, trace, make state name worksheets at Musings of Me.

- Connecticut is the 5th state, so you could do an ordinal number activity, maybe with Colonists.

- study oysters and whales

Oh, and don't forget to be singing the 50 Nifty US states song, found here on youtube! It is helping us remember the states names, in order.

Don't forget to venture over to Musings of Me and Get Down and Get Your Hands Dirty to see what they did for Connecticut too!

I'm linking up to Children Grow, Children Explore, Children Learn for their Geography/History meme.