US State Study for Homeschoolers

A couple of years ago I shared how we did a US state study in our homeschool. I wanted to revisited that post, clean it up, and share it with you guys once more!

There’s a lot of golden nuggets in it that will hopefully it will help those of you who are planning for this next year :-). Without further ado…

Our US State Study

There is a fair amount out there to use when studying the US States, but I wanted something simple and easy to do. When, I looked for a plan that had you study a state each week and create a simple notebook along the way, I couldn’t find it.

So, I created my own US State Study for use to use alongside of our history studies.  And, I thought I would share what we did with you, in case someone else is looking for the very same thing :).

How we did our US State Study

All along we have studied one state each day. In the beginning, we did one state each Friday, with the idea that we would complete the study in 2 years.

{My original plan was to study the states in the order below.}

• Year 1 – Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas
• Year 2 – Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Washington, Oregon, California, Alaska, Hawaii

Now, we are studying 3 states each week, so that we will finish the study by the end of the year. We had a lot going on this year and rather than finish Story of the World 4, we took some time off to study the state of Virginia.

So, each day we study a state follow a set routine.

1. We begin by reading the selected pages on the state from National Geographic’s Our Fifty States.
2. Next, we fill out a State Study Notebooking Page for the state.
3. Then, we find the state on our wall map and mark it with the capital, the state abbreviation, and the order of statehood.  We also take a moment to review all of the previous state capitals we have learned.
4. If there’s time, we will play a game of Scrambled States. {This game was well-loved in our house and still is, so it is worth purchasing! There is also an app called Stack the States that we use now to review what we learned about the states.}

It’s been a very simple, but effective way for us to study the US States.

The wonderful thing is that we now have this great notebook full of memories which can be reviewed over and over again! {Three years later, my daughter still pulls this notebook off her shelf.}

I also love that I am not pressured to do a craft or make a meal for each state.

Free Downloads

I made a notebook for my daughter with the cover page on top.  Then for each region, I put the cover page followed by a blank state notebooking page for each state and then the quiz. I also printed out the final quiz and placed it in the back.  Finally, I took the whole thing to be bound so that we would never lose the papers.

Below are the files I used to create our notebook (Note – I created these while living overseas, so they are A4 paper size.  Make sure to select the “Fit to Size” option when you print.)

• State Study Covers
• state notebooking pages
• States Quiz

{Revisited Note – If you don’t want to deal with the printing size and assembling issues, here is a brand new all-in-one notebook I created.}

• US State Study Notebook

I also printed out color pictures for the flags, seals, birds and flowers on sticker paper to use with our notebooking pages.  You can get these from free from Wikipedia.

• State Flags
• State Seals
• State Quarters
• State Birds
• State Flowers

Don’t miss the 50 States website which also has lots of great resources for each state!