Stateside

Our family loves to roadtrip.  As we get ready for the end of school, we have started talking to the kids about where we are headed this summer and Briana has become fascinated with tracing out the many possible paths we could take on her US states coloring placemat.  Pretty much regardless of where we are mapping, she likes to see if she can make us go north through Michigan so that she and Abigail can laugh uproariously about us having to turn our car into a boat to get across Lake Michigan.  Hey, if Rocket can do it, why can’t we (Little Einstein’s tv show reference for anyone reading without little ones who watch that show)?

While the kids trace out possible routes with their fingers, we talk about whether we are going north, south, east, or west to reinforce that vocabulary.  In addition to reinforcing the names of the directions, I want to take this time to teach the kids more about the states’ names and location within the US, so we start with 2 games – categories and map puzzle creation.

First – Categories Game

Do you remember the categories game?  You alternate tapping your hands to your legs twice and then clapping your hands together and then repeat it over and over.  While you do that you sing, “Categories…names of…states…just like” and take turns naming states until someone pauses too long on their turn and is out.  The last person to keep naming things in the category wins. 

My kids love playing categories with colors and shapes and names so now we have a new category to add – states. 

Sometimes I throw in the towel to let one of the kids win if they have gone a lot of rounds, and right now I do with states as they learn.  Some categories though, like shapes, and hopefully states soon, where they can throw down with things like crescent and triangular prism (both used by Abigail and Briana respectively the last time we did shapes) I really play to win. 

The best thing about categories is that it travels well and varies itself up to stay interesting.  We play after mealtime almost every night now, but we will also play on long car rides, or quietly while we wait for food in a restaurant, etc.  I think it also really helps with their retention of shapes, colors, names, and now states.

Second – Map Puzzle Making

In order to reinforce the shape and location of the states, in addition to the names, I decide that we should make a map.  So that we can use the pieces more than once, we make it into a puzzle.  Abigail has been obsessed with puzzles since birth and she will work on them for hours so I correctly figure that if we make the states into a puzzle the kids will use it more than once. 

First we use the map placemat to trace out all of the states.  The kids work randomly to trace out each state until we have all fifty.  We continually count (because it never hurts to work on counting, especially for Abby, who just turned 3 and is just starting to be able to count to 100) to make sure along the way.  We talk about what state each kid is tracing and anything we know about that state (facts from the placemat, or anecdotes from our previous travels).  Importantly though, we do not write the names on each state.

After we trace all 50 states and I have them cut out, we go back to label the names.  The reason that I did it that way is that the kids have to really look at the shape of the state again to see what name we should put on the puzzle piece, knowing that if we don’t label correctly, the puzzle won’t be right in the end.  The mystery of doing it that way is quite exciting for us all and everyone is thrilled when they can definitively shout out the state name and then write, or watch me write, the name on the state piece.

Here is Abby saying, “Pennsylvania is mine!” and then proceeding to scribble all over it, marking her conquest.

By the time we have our pieces labeled the kids are already fairly well versed in the location of the big or uniquely shaped states, and the ones that we know well (where Grandparents live, Disney is, etc.).  The Northeast with all of the smaller states was more challenging.

The kids work together on the puzzle, and consult the placemat first, rather than consulting Mommy first.  I love that they are starting to find their own sources of information and that they trust themselves to figure things out.

We are roadtrip ready.  Now as we cross the country in our minivan the kids will know where in the US we are.  Hopefully that’s a good thing and they aren’t dismayed by how far we really are from where we are going.  In either case, it should stop the “How much further” questions, and if they get bored we can just play another round of categories.

<3 Pedigreed Housewife