Monday, October 18, 2010

SMMART STATES
The Teach/Learn Blogging Carnival hosted by Science@home is for anyone, because we are all teachers and learners all the time. This month our theme is "Studies of Society and the Environment" which covers all the humanities, from history to finance, geography, politics and of course the environment. Check out the links at the bottom to find some other great posts on SOSE.


Little sponges is what they are...children are so capable of retaining so much information!


Since daddy travels the United States, becoming familiar with where he travels entertains and teaches the girls where the states are and small facts about them.  "Florida is where I saw little baby sea turtles running on the beach back to the ocean after they hatched."  The girls like to find California where Disneyland is (we still haven't been!)  Virginia is where Grandma and Grandpa live...you get the idea.  It's a fun way for the girls to draw a mental correlation to each state. 

Then you can quiz them by asking them to find the state by their clue..."What state is known for growing potatoes?" (Idaho)


We've posted a map on the wall where the girls eat breakfast.  They like to use a pointing stick to identify the states that they know.  Of course this is a fun activity to learn countries, territories and provinces-whatever applies to where you live.

We're still learning...but it's been a fun learning activity over meals.

Check out this fun online game to practice your knowledge of the United States:

Visit Science@home to find out more about the Teach/Learn Blogging Carnival.
Please take the time to visit the other participants and check out their posts on "Studies of Society and the Environment."

•The Planning Queen has pulled together some of the many great sources that you can use to keep kids up to date with world news.



•SMMART Ideas is writing about how your 2 year old isn't too young to learn the names and locations of the state she lives in and those around her...or even countries of the world!


•For Adventures with Kids, photos can provide a great starting point for telling or discovering history, from family history to world history. Find out some questions to ask about the photos to get you started and where you can find historical images.


•Narelle at A Bunch of Keys has been having lots of fun learning all about volcanoes and how they work.


•Monique at Your Cheeky Monkey knows that kids are fascinated with igloos - how they are built and why they don't melt. We investigate why!


•Deb Chitwood at Living Montessori Now has a fun treat to celebrate the end of a geography unit on land and water forms.


•At Homeage, almost every day they get another piece of the world delivered to their door, helping them learn about where and how other people live.


•Deb's girls at http://science-at-home.org/family-trees/ have been building their family tree and talking about all their relationships.
Thanks for visiting our carnival, have fun reading all the posts.

6 comments:

Your Cheeky Monkey said...

Perfect - making what could be a boring topic fun and interesting for kids. What a great way for them to learn states and cities!

Deb Chitwood said...

Great approach! Your daughters probably know more about the states than many adults in the US!

http://LivingMontessoriNow.com

Catherine said...

We used to play a similar game with the globe when I was a child. My dad would challenge me to find countries. I really enjoyed it.

Birrd said...

We do pretty much the same thing only we use a laser pointer-- that's REALLY popular with my boys!

Valerie said...

Hey, I just saw you in the BYU magazine. How cool is that? Way to go Lisa!

HoodaMath.com said...

Have you heard of our math games and more site, Hooda Math?
Try our featured games at http://hoodamath.com/games/

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