Scrambled United States

Have I mentioned before how much I love teaching social studies? It is pretty much my favorite! I love teaching about our country, the world and our history. This year I have been teaching science and social studies which has been a pretty fun job. I funded the garden that I blogged about in my last post and have been working hard to bring more authentic projects and resources for my classes. Social studies also lends itself to dressing up for the lesson. This is one of my favorite things to do since I read Dave Burgess' Teach Like a Pirate.

My Uncle Sam Outfit for the Day.

This week we visited all 50 states by having our own version of the Scrambled United State.

 This lesson was great but took some pre-planning. About a month ago we reached out to the tourism offices for each state. It was a bunch of emailing but so many states sent travel information to us. We received brochures, magazines, lesson plans and maps from 35 states.  I filled the other states up with information that I already had. Each state ended up with a large envelope full of information about it. I finished the envelope with a map of each state.

We started our lesson by watching the video for the book.

After the video each student was given the task to travel to three different states. They looked through the state envelopes (This was a lesson for my first and second graders who I have for 50 minutes.) They were to answer the following questions:

Which states did you travel to?

1._______________________
2._______________________
3._______________________

What new information did you learn?


Which of these states would you like to visit and why?


My students were all over the room reading maps and planning their future trips. I think that this was a fun and hands on way to learn about the states. The students were able to self guide their learning through choosing their own states. The cost of the lesson was pretty low because I used youtube and the travel brochures that were sent to us.