Posted in 50 States Project
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Last winter my daughter, who is now 8 ½, received a subscription to Highlights Magazine Which Way USA. About once a month, a puzzle book and map for two different states arrives in the mail. As we were going through the books and maps, I thought it might be exciting to find at least one child in each of the 50 states, who could tell us a little about his or her state. Who knew this would give birth to an amazing and enormous unit study that’s sure to span a couple of years?
First we made a list of all the kids we knew in other states and put together a packet to send to each one. The packet contained a picture of our daughter, Skyler, a few pictures of interesting things in our area, a blank questionnaire for the recipient to fill out and return, Skyler’s answers to the questionnaire, something from nature here in New Jersey, a piece of Salt Water Taffy (first made and sold in Atlantic City, NJ), a NJ postcard, two word puzzles with interesting NJ facts and famous NJ natives, and a welcome letter and page for referrals of other kids in other states. Meanwhile, I found some wonderful resources on the notebooking message board to augment our study. I wish I knew who put this together so I could give her credit, but someone offered a robust package of state flags, craft projects and recipes for each state, blackline maps and images of state postcards – all for free! From this, I put together a checklist for each state: q Finish Which Way USA Book q Read about and color in state flag q Fill in blackline state map with major rivers, highways, state parks, and so on q Cook a food from the state q Fill in state information sheet (this includes all the major facts such as state bird, motto, song, when the state entered the Union, etc.) q Do craft or activity for the state q Listen to the state song q Request and receive literature from Chamber of Commerce q Receive a completed package from a child in the state My beloved husband, who is a far more talent drawer than I, hand drew a blackline map of the U.S. on a large posterboard. And what an amazing job he did! We hung it up in the living room, and each time we complete a checklist for a state, Skyler colors in the state. We’d been going along well, until we reached the end of our list of friends and family. Even with the referral pages, we just were not getting the response we’d hoped for. A few families got excited about the project and sent us some amazing things, but many never returned the packets at all. Last week I decided to put it out in cyberspace. I logged on to a few of my favorite message boards – HandsofaChildTalk, LiveandLearnPress, Notebooking -- and requested that anyone who might be interested in helping us reach our goal of finding at least one child in each of the 50 states, send me their address and contact information. Can I tell you, I was FLOORED by the overwhelming outpouring of enthusiasm from around the nation! We received well over 200 responses (so many that I lost count!)!!! Somehow, amidst the excitement, I forgot to send a request to another of my favorite boards (Lapbooking_Made_Simple). I still have a small handful of states without a contact, so perhaps I’ll check with that group. Originally, I had hoped that I’d be able to get all the packages out by this weekend to those who were interested, but given the response, it looks like this may take a few weeks to put together! The postage alone is going to be costly, but it’s so worth it! I can just imagine the excitement that will fill our home over then next couple of months as the return packages start pouring in. We decided that since we had the contacts, we’d send a few packages to each state. For one thing, we know that unexpected things arise and confuse even the best-laid plans. So if we send more than one package to each state, we’ll stand a better chance of getting each state covered. And if we do receive multiple packages from various states, we’ll get to see those states through the eyes of different families and different experiences. What a great blessing to be able to connect with others like this! The study has incorporated so many different facets as we’ve gone along. When we studied New York, we put together a series of survey questions, each with multiple-choice responses (What is Your Favorite Thing to do in New York City? What is the Most Famous Site in New York State? What is Your Favorite NYC Museum?). We also threw in one fill-in-the-blank question: Name a Famous New Yorker in History. We tracked responses for men and women, New Yorkers and Non New Yorkers, and made predictions about what we thought the outcomes would be. Then Skyler set out with clipboard in hand to survey friends, family and neighbors. Once the results are all in (we still have a few left to ask), she will learn a few ways to graph the results. The survey results, along with the pages she completes, a scrapbooking page with the items she received from the state native, photos of our cooking and craft projects, and highlights from the Chamber of Commerce package are all being stored in a giant 4” binder (we will surely have a few of these when this project finally wraps up). And just when I thought I had it all figured out, along came some GREAT resources from NotebookingPages.com. To augment our study, we’ll also include an introductory section to our project that looks at the U.S. as a whole (national anthem, symbols, flag, bird, and so on), plus we’ll take a brief look at national monuments, parks, and memorials. In the midst of all this excitement, someone on the message boards referred me a postcard exchange. My five-year-old is very excited to begin receiving his own mail! And I found a homeschool exchange board that offers a variety of opportunities, one of which is a Flat Stanley network. My older son is going to work on that. Moreover, one insightful mom recognized the enormous trend in 50 states studies, and she founded a message board based solely on the sharing of information and resources related to this subject! Wow!!! Who knew one little subscription would launch such a journey? I’ll be sure to keep you posted on our progress and evolution. By the way, following is a list of the states we are still missing. If you're interested in participating, please send me an email. Thanks again to everyone who has reached out with such amazing grace and enthusiasm! Alaska, Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, Washington DC, Minnesota, Nebraska, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, Wyoming |
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