Learning by State: Maryland

My son was very interested in learning more about the states so I decided to set up a summer learning program for a few of the states near us that we were going to visit and start from there.  We started with Maryland.  The great thing about learning is that you can expand on anything that your child is interested in and make it appropriate for their age or learning level.  My son is 6 years old so I am aiming this at something he would be interested and learn something from including some interesting facts about states we are going to visit.

I downloaded and printed the great resource from Enchanted Homeschooling Mom (found here).  It is very detailed and includes the following:

• Creative Writing (Make a Travel Brochure)
• Door Hanger (Completion Certificate)
• Handwriting Practice
• Puzzles
• Research Project
• State Bird
• State Capital
• State Flag
• State Flag Wall Card
• State Flower
• State Location
• State Landmarks
• State Wall Card

You can use the things that are helpful for your children's learning and leave out the ones that you might not want to use.  If you are looking for a different state, here is the page with all the states here.

There was another Maryland worksheet (found here) which is nice and simple if you want to print in black and white and just want an easier sheet to fill in with some details on the state.

That same website also had some great word searches which is something my son enjoys and it helps him to slow down and take his time (which is something we are constantly working on).  If you would like to download the Maryland word search, click here.

I also checked out all the books about the state from the library and found them to be mostly boring.  The best ones that I kept were these two.  They didn't have the one that I was looking for so I settled for one with boring pictures and one that might be a little too long.

Then I went to another library and found one of the series that I like.  It is a good length for kids to find the information themselves and not have too much.

Then, I looked at a list of books that were set in the state that gave you a different look at the states from the NEA.  (You can find the list here).  We checked the books out of the library and read one in between some of our worksheets and other learning.

Since we are doing a lot of different things to deal with the states (and tons of other summer things like going to library programs, playgrounds and pool), we are stretching this out to a few weeks for each state depending on how much we get done.  I think that we had a lot of fun doing the worksheets and starting our state binder which we are excited to add information to as we learn about more states. I am aiming for Maryland, Delaware and Virginia for our summer states.  We might do a few through the school year to keep is going but not sure if there is going to be time.  If we only finish three states a summer then we might get through all the states before college!