I Love My Country The United States!

One of my top priorities in our HS is to teach a love of Family, God and Country. Not only do we say the pledge and pray each morning, but we also sing a song from the Wee Sing America CD.



It has taken us WEEKS...but we have finally mastered song 17 on the CD which sings the 50 states in alphabetical order (mostly alphabetical).

This is not my daughter singing (although I also have a 4yo who successfully learned this song). But it's the same song we learned. Our version is slightly snappier.




Thanks Youtube.

To help us learn this song, and a little geography, I printed out a blank political map of the USA for each child. We worked on memorizing 4-6 statesin the song each day. Sometimes it worked out to do the states that all start with the same letter. (Ex: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas). We colored in the states on our maps that we were trying to memorize in the song that day.

The kids like doing that and I do think it helped with a bit of geography at the same time.

The only downside is that our whole family can NOT get this song out of our heads. We sing it in our sleep, at meals, while driving, at the store, during school, on the trampoline, at the pool...you get the idea. So, if you plan to learn this song...don't say I didn't warn you.

Post Card Kids

So, after being absent from my blog for a goooood long while, here I am again. Like most homeschooling moms, I've been very busy rearranging, organizing, decluttering, planning, and generally trying to get my ducks in a row for the coming school year which is ever so quickly approaching.

I had envisioned homeschooling over the summer. And while we did do a few things (unit studies on bees, the orchestra, lots of reading) my brain and my body just needed a break from the day-to-day grind. And I wanted my kids to enjoy summer to its fullest. So we put the books aside for most of the summer and just enjoyed being immersed in summer time activity.

However, I continued my never ending research on possible projects and materials. In the process I came across a great yahoo group called Postcard kids. You can join it here.

This is a great way to have fun while learning US geography. We just started this month and have been taking a nice easy pace so as not to get overwhelmed with all the sending and receiving of postcards. Here's a look at our map and our cards:



I used rubber cement to adhere the map to the foam board. I got the map from a dollar bin at Target while visiting family in Idaho. The board is then hanging from 2 clothespins that I hot glued right to the wall. YEP! you can do it and it will come off without damaging the wall.

My kids are loving this little "club" they're in. After we've got them all, or perhaps as we go along, it would be a great opportunity to use our postcards for further unit studies on each state or for notebooking/lapbooking.