Learning about America

As a start of our Build Your Library Trip around the World, we started with USA

We signed up for a postcard exchange to send and receive postcards from every state in USA 

• Made USA puzzle stick-up board. 
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• We put the puzzle together on top of paper in a glass-less frame, and then we traced each state piece as we took them puzzle apart. Then I covered it with sticky-side-up clear contact paper.
• As we have received postcards from different states, we read about them and stick the coordinating puzzle piece up on the frame. 

• We read about the USA children in Children Just Like Me- Montana, Ohio, New Jersey, South Carolina and in old Children Just Like Me Alaska

Chapter Books We Read: 

• Sign of the Beaver Sign of the Beaver 

• The Birchbark House The Birchbark House 
• Craft: "tanned hides" crumpled and wrinkled Manila envelopes up until they got soft and fabric-y. Sewed Native American Barbie doll dress. 
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• Little House in the Big Woods 
• Science tie-in: baked bread from scratch and made homemade butter (similarly to how to did it when we studied the Oregon Trail. 
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• For more science, while waiting for it to bake, we watched The Magic School Bus get baked into a cake 
• Craft: did clove apples 
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Science: Animal Studies: 

• Polar Bear: 
• Read books looked at pictures. 
• National Geographic animal poetry book: "Polar Bear Rap" and "Polar Bear." 
• Craft: painted polar bears (i just found clipart and printed it on blue paper and provided white paint.)
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Worksheet: Penny did animal profile. 

• California Condor:
• Ellie watched videos and learned why they're endangered. 
• Drew a Condor. 
• Worksheet: Ellie did condor coloring pages and animal profile.
• When we went to the zoo a few weeks later, we spent extra time watching the condor: 

Landmarks: Statue of Liberty 

We watched a reading of The Story of the Statue of Liberty  (because I could not find our copy of the book?) 

and watched This video  and a few others about Statue of Liberty. And we colored a picture of the Statue of Liberty for our world map. I attached it to a pipecleaner and taped the pipe cleaner to both France and New York so the statue could slide from France to New York. 

We also read Our Liberty Bell

Music: 

Listened to patriotic music. 

We Read America A Patriotic Primer 

We also chose books depicting a variety of life across USA: 

•  Welcome to Our Neighborhood - A Barrio alphabet.
• Roxaboxen - Arizona
• The Prairie That Nature Built 
• One Morning in Maine  (which is a great tooth-loss story)
• Summertime book about the song Summertime From Opera   Porgy And Bess -South Carolina
• Maxie - apartment living in a city
• Alaska's Inside Passage 
• Akiak - Alaskan iditarod story 
• Salmon Princess (Alaskan Cinderella story) 
• Over in the Meadow 
• Babies in the Bayou 
• When I was Young in the Mountains  
• The Mud Pony - Skidi Paynee Tale
• Kiki's Journey - Tiwa Indian heritage story 
• The Eagle's Song - Pacific Northwest tale

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