State Geography Studies

Posted by HeatherW | 0 comments

When we pulled our oldest son home from public school half way through first grade, we didn’t have a lot of homeschooling materials or fancy curriculum. Our one goal for him at that time was to reestablish his love of learning which had been quickly and efficiently squelched by a traditional classroom setting.

Mostly we read books and adopted a unit study philosophy exploring various subjects that popped out of the stories we were reading. One area of intense interest for him was geography. In the days before we had special resources for geography, I came up with a way to record information about each state using only blank maps and an atlas.

I had a large black and white U.S. wall map which I hung up so that we could chart our progress as we traveled from state to state. As he finished studying a state, he got to color it in on the wall map. For each state, I had him produce three informative maps. The first was a political map, the second was a physical map, and the last was a fun fact map.

Requirements for the Political Map:

• Mark the capital with a red circle or star and label it (the outline map we had already starred the capital but did not label it)
• Locate and label three other cities in the state.
• Color the water blue and label the major bodies of water.
• Color the state
• Color each neighboring state a different color.
• Title the map.

Requirements for the Physical Map:

• Color the water blue.
• Use an atlas physical map to determine the physical features of the state.
• Label the features and use symbols/colors to represent the features. He might use triangles for mountains or yellow for low lying coastal plain areas.
• Produce a key on the back of the map to tell the map reader what the physical features are (while this typically goes on the front of a map, being a 6 year old, I gave him the extra room to accommodate this fine motor skills)
• Title the map.

Requirements for the Fun Fact Map:

• Use an atlas to learn more about the state. What industry is there? What crops are produced? Are there any landmarks there? What is the state famous for?
• Choose five fun facts to represent on the map.
• Choose a symbol for each fun fact and put it on the map in an appropriate location (example: if the state is NY then put the Statue of Liberty where she really is)
• Make a key and put in on the back or where you have room on the front of the map.
• Title the map.

Once my son had finished with these maps, he had a pretty good idea of what that state was like. The Fun Fact map came later as a way to allow him to discover the state on his own. I did not require him to learn or include the official state symbols although that is certainly a reasonable request.

We kept these maps together in a notebook and along with the map on the wall, it was a record of the places we’d been. Sometimes our state maps were part of the unit study we were immersed in at the time and sometimes my son would look at the wall map and decide he wanted to explore a state. In order to meet our goal of reestablishing his love of learning, I let him run with his interests.

We use resources we had on hand, but as we forged on I was able to be more discerning about what we used. We began with Scholastic US Outline maps and a one dollar Scholastic atlas both from a Scholastic Warehouse Sale. Really any map source will do, but I would look for an outline map with bold, clear lines which are spread out so the map uses the whole page. Sometimes free online sources are tempting, but I find they make for a muddled map. It is especially good to be mindful of this for younger elementary children who need space for their labeling. I will also draw a labeling line for them after they place city dots to help facilitate a neat map. My favorite maps are the Uncle Josh’s Outline Maps in the CD format (they have extras not in the book).

My favorite set of atlases right now are the National Geographic Young Explorers U.S. and World Atlases. Each map is a double page affair and there are political and physical maps for each state or country. It is very easy to determine physical features on the physical map and the political map shares a wealth of information for the Fun Fact Map.

While I admit that I have many resources in my repertoire now, our studies started very simply and yielded excellent results. Consistency and enthusiasm were the keys to our success with this survey of United States Geography. Teaching the U.S. with map making is a fun adventure and it teaches plenty of map skills along the way and the best part is you don’t need an expensive geography curriculum- just an atlas and some outline maps. Enjoy the trip!

Heather Woodie is a homeschooling mom of four kids ages 10, 8, 6, 3 and wife to a handsome chemical engineer for 13 years. Before raising a family, she taught middle school science and has a masters degree in curriculum and instruction secondary education. Now teaching at home means the chance to provide the extraordinary for her children. Between family and homeschooling time, she is working as volunteer staff for MOPS International as an Area Coordinator for NY State. She’s been homeschooling four years and you can read about those adventures on her blog, Blog She Wrote.