Journey to Excellence

This week in our  Road Trip USA  unit study, we traveled to Minnesota and then snuggled right into our home state of Missouri. Minnesota We started out our studies by going through the materials in  Road Trip USA  and coloring our notebooking page. Then we went on to watch the segment about Minnesota from "The States" dvd. We read Minnesota Facts and Symbols by Bill McAuliffe. (I highly recommend  The States and Their Symbols series of books.) While our cinnamon apples were baking, we did a really great Monarch butterfly art project . I thought these turned out so cool! Missouri Again for Missouri we read our Road Trip USA materials, colored our notebooking page, watched the Missouri segment of "The States", and read Missouri Facts and Symbols  by Emily McAuliffe. I learned something new … Missouri was the first place for the Olympics to be held outside of Europe. It coincided with the World's Fair in St. Louis. We w...

We had another great couple of days in the Midwest with our Road Trip USA unit study. We visited Indiana and Michigan. Indiana As always, we started out our studies by going through the materials in Road Trip USA and coloring our notebooking page. Then we went on to watch the segment about Indiana from "The States" dvd. We focused our lessons on the Wright Brothers and the state flower of the peony. The kids watched an Animated Hero Classics video on the Wright Brothers and then the bonus material from Flights of Courage titled "The Wright Brothers' First Flight". We used the book Super Simple Paper Airplanes  by Nick Robinson to make a couple of planes. Finally, we made some coffee filter peonies . Michigan Again for Michigan we read our Road Trip USA materials, colored our notebooking page, watched the Michigan segment of "The States", and read Michigan Facts and Symbols . The kids were very taken with Michi...

When I think of Iowa and Kansas, I do not get excited. However, the kids and I had an exciting trip through both states with our Road Trip USA unit study. Iowa We completed our Iowa notebook page and read   Iowa: Facts and Symbols by Elaine A. Kule We learned that the geode is Iowa's state rock. When we were visiting Jacob's Cave in Missouri with our friends this summer as a part of Lake School , we got to watch a geode get cut open. It was neat to see and we received some great information from the lady who worked there. That led us to the book  Rock On!: A Look at Geology's Groovy Gems by Christine Peterson. We also did the coolest experiment! We used our new science notebooking skills that we have been doing on our study of colors and rainbows. It was a very exciting and enriching experiment! Kansas We completed our notebooking page on Kansas and then moved onto some interesting and fun activities. Amelia Earhart was born in Kansas. ...

Our Road Trip took us to Massachusetts and New Hampshire this week: Massachusetts Looked up Boston on our wall map and atlas Completed the state symbols coloring page from Road Trip USA Read Massachusetts Facts and Symbols by Emily McAuliffe Read A Big Cheese for the White House by Candace Fleming Read The History of Electricity by Elizabeth Lachner, focusing on Benjamin Franklin Interviewed Benjamin Franklin at THIS SITE . Watched Shelley Duvall's "Tall Tales and Legends: Johnny Appleseed" Talked about Paul Revere and listened to a dramatic reading of "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere" Made chocolate chip cookies New Hampshire Looked up Concord on the wall map and atlas Completed the state symbols coloring page from Road Trip USA Read New Hampshire Facts and Symbols by Muriel L. Dubois Watched Youtube videos about Old Man of the Mountain and it's collapse Read poems from Poetry for Young People: Robert Frost Li...

This post is a day late because we have had a busy weekend of hanging out as a family. Here is what the kids and I did this week studying Maine and Maryland with Road Trip USA. Maine: Found capitol on map Colored state sheet with facts Learned about the Portland Head Light Made lighthouse art (it started out as a specific lesson but turned into individual projects) Read: Birdie's Lighthouse and Sea Chest Read 50 States and learned that Main is the toothpick capitol of the world and the largest paper producer The state animal is the moose, so the kids made "antlers" with yard sticks and balloons and then walked around the house, and ran outside, to see how difficult it might be to carry around those heavy, bulky antlers Baked blueberry muffins Maryland: Found capitol on map Colored state sheet with facts Read books about Harriet Tubman: Minty and Moses Read 50 States Looked at scrapbook pages from Rick and my trip to Baltimore and Fort McHen...

Welcome to Study America Saturday where I share with you all we have learned about America this week, as well as any cool deals I find out there related to American History. First, I need to give a shout out to Mary at Winecup Christian Academy and thank her for recommending "The States" dvd series from The History Channel . We received it today and watched the segments on Connecticut and Delaware as a review of what we had learned this week. I love this dvd series and I highly recommend it! Thanks, Mary! Now onto what we studied: We are using Road Trip USA as our spine this year for learning U.S. Geography. This week's states were Connecticut and Delaware. For Connecticut, we: Found it's capitol, Hartford, on our world map Completed and colored the state symbols notebooking page Made a  Praying Mantis craft  (scroll 3/4 of the way down the site to find it) Watched video on the Old State House Baked a Connecticut apple pie from scratch (yum!) Rea...