Welcome to Delaware, as we trek across the states! Our journey consists of Musings of Me, Montessori Tidbits, and Get Down and Get Your Hands Dirty.
Please note that the week we completed these activities, we spent all 3 of our "school" days at doctors' appointments, so Aikman did all of his schoolwork in waiting rooms. So, there wasn't a lot of time for us to do much hands-on. :-(
Here's how we studied Delaware, in the little bit of time that we did have...
Studying Horsecrabs:
Okay, so the picture above ISN'T a horsecrab, but instead an oyster with a pearl inside. Seems that in my birdbrained-ness, I confused Connecticut and Delaware, and actually meant to do this craft the week before! Oh, well! Sorry any fellow Delawarians... you got shafted on crafty ideas for this week!
However, when you DO study Delaware, you can get additional information about horsecrabs here, including a wonderful printout of the "parts of a horseshoe crab" as well as other activities. This link has a dot-to-dot and puzzle pieces for the horseshoe crab. Into origami? Well, make your own horseshoe crab out of a dollar bill.... here's the video. ... and if that wasn't enough for ya, here's one more link that shows you how to build your own paper 3-D horseshoe crab.
Hopefully that makes up for my mistake this week!
General ideas for Delaware:
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 Delaware on it.
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 Delaware (download from here)
(Note, we didn't get to this one this week, as I had left the stickers at home.) Place stars on the major cities in Delaware. Then he writes the capital city at the bottom of the page.
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. (Note there is more to this flag... primarily the wording at the bottom, which he chose to leave off. So, please don't use our flag as your example.)
How it was set up:
- 2 sheets of construction paper -- blue and orange (diamond already drawn)
- printout of the flag from here
- crayons
- glue
What he did:
1. Color printout of the people in the center of the flag, using the flag control (or you can look at pictures, such as this one)
2. Cut out people/animals and orange diamond.
3. Glue people/animals to orange diamond, and then to blue construction paper.
4. Write words on the bottom.
Other ideas:
- Pinpushing (map found here)
- Pinpushing (map found here)
- see, trace, make state name worksheets at Musings of Me.
- Delaware is the first state -- discuss other firsts!
- Adventures in Mommydom also studied Delaware, and made a horseshoe crab, and she also shared 2 printables -- one for the state symbols and one for the horseshoe crab.
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 Delaware too!
I'm linking up to Children Grow, Children Explore, Children Learn for their Geography/History meme.
