Mail from...New Mexico

Here is a state that our family knows A LOT about.  And we absolutely love it.  Every October we make the 9+ hour drive to the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta.  And while we're there we cram in as many amazing sites and attractions as possible!  Some of our favorites are, of course, the Balloon Fiesta itself...

but also White Sands National Monument...

and Tent Rocks National Monument...

In New Mexico it's impossible to ignore the history of the Native American people, so for our lesson we looked at examples of Native American artwork. We looked at the patterns in Navajo rugs, the different shades of turquoise, and horsehair pottery (my favorite, crafted by burning horse hairs onto the finished piece).

We attempted making Indian hieroglyphics and learned a valuable lesson to scrunch the paper before you do the drawing.  By the time Beck got done scrunching his drawing 20 times it had all but disappeared (which did drive home the point of erosion and aging, but made him pretty mad).  

 And, of course, Beck got excited learning about New Mexico's state bird, the road runner.  Raise your hand if you had no idea that the road runner was more than just an over-intelligent animated character.  I certainly didn't.  But here's a random fact for you:  The commuter train between Albuquerque and Santa Fe is called the Road Runner after their unique feathered friend.

Sadly, my kids had never seen a Road Runner cartoon, so we watched a few of those, too.  In case you've deprived your children, like I had mine, here's a little taste to whet their whistle...

Can you tell we really, really love New Mexico?  

Mail from...New York

Now this (the eastern blue bird) is a beautiful state bird!

New York state is such a diverse place!  We could have studied about the Catskills, or Niagara Falls, or a somewhat famous underground rodent that made an appearance earlier this week.  In desperate need of some hands-on creativity, we decided, instead, to recreate New York City...

 Using every block set we own, the boys and their dad worked on building skyscrapers, a zoo, a farm (okay, maybe not exactly from NYC), bridges and other landmarks.  

I especially love that my husband told them all about King Kong climbing the Empire State building and so that had to become part of their skyline.  Do you see him in the photo above?

Beck was adamant about leaving road space for his trucks to drive through when they finished.  His dad has driven a motorcoach in NYC and HIGHLY advised Beck against ever driving there, but he had his mind set!

Bonus for Mom after all the building was complete?  So easy to separate all those blocks into their own bins and put them away.  It's the cleanest I've seen their bedroom in weeks!

Mail from...Alaska

I LOVE when I have an idea for an okay lesson that Beck gets carried away with and pretty soon we've come up with something pretty cool!  That's what's happening right now-I had animal flash cards to divide into groups by number of legs or stripes/no stripes.  He, of course, took it a step farther and is now busily drawing an 11x14 "habitat" where all those animals can live.  He's amazing!

That's exactly what happened a few weeks ago when we pulled out our Alaska postcard!  (Oddly enough, the topic was animal related that day, too).  The postcard itself had no extra information written on it, but did have a cute cartoon of Alaska's baby animals.  I tested myself a minute, trying to remember the Alaska state bird and then was transported back to my time living there.  It really is a place where everything you hear about or see on tv is 100% real.

Alaska State Bird: Ptarmigan

We decided to use google images to find pictures of baby animals that live in Alaska.  We came up with photos for wolves, caribous, marmots, puffins, beluga whales, lynx, grizzly bears, salmon, mountain goats, and polar bears.

For an activity I found a simple tutorial to make a pop-up greeting card on Enchanted Learning.  I was excited to finally figure out how to do something as easy as that.  Beck's mind was running way ahead of mine and before I knew it we'd printed out all our baby animal images for him to put into his greeting card.

What was the last activity your children took eons farther than you had planned for?

Mail from...Massachusetts (Happy Thanksgiving)

My first job away from home was on Cape Cod in Massachusetts, south of Boston.  While there I fell in love with New England.  Fortunately I still have all my photos from then because we haven't received our Massachusetts postcard.  It was fun this week looking through them with Beck.  And, of course he wanted to know if I saw a Black-Headed Chickadee (the Massachusetts State Bird) while I was there.  I can't say that I remember specifically that I did...

Sorry I'm not posting my own photos here,
 my scanner is being temperamental

Plymouth Rock
Have you been there?
 It's one of the most disappointing landmarks I've been to,
but still a cool part of history.

Since the 1st Thanksgiving took place in this great New England state, I decided to go ahead and study it without a postcard to go along with it.  Somehow I am always too slow to get the fun popular seasonal books at the library, but this time it worked out okay.  Instead of silly picture books, we ended up with three non-fiction books that tell the real story of Thanksgiving.  Beck & Peyton have been so quiet and patient while we look through them, and I've caught them pretending to be Indians that help the Pilgrims find fish and food and arguing over whether there was turkey at the 1st Thanksgiving.  This time being to slow at the library has worked out for me.

To go along with our stories, I printed out some Thanksgiving printable crafts at artistshelpingchildren.org.  I've provided the links to each one below...

Pilgrim Boy Foldable Paper Craft

(They also had a pilgrim girl)

Indian Boy (and Girl)

Turkey

(This one was not worth the stress, 

and now I can't find the link, so I think it must be a sign)

Hope you have a Happy Thanksgiving!!

Mail from...North Dakota & Kansas

My family does a lot of traveling.  It's a blessing we have and something I'm grateful for.  My kids love pulling out our photo albums and looking at the places they've been.  So, last week when we pulled out the postcards for North Dakota and Kansas, it seemed like a great time to remind them of some of the fun things we've done in those states.  In addition, we were learning last week about the Grand Canyon, which Beck can remember hiking around not so long ago.  All together, these three places made for a fun week of learning!

North Dakota
Years ago on a drive from Utah to Iowa via Yellowstone, we made a stop in Medora, ND.  It's the location of Theodore Roosevelt National Park, and one of the coolest lodging accomodations we've ever stayed in...

Custer's Cottage & Wooly Wagon

That's right, we stayed in a real covered wagon!

Kansas

My boys love Kansas, I didn't need to remind them of that.  Every year we go to a 4-day flea market in Sparks, KS with their cousins.  It's hot and smelly camping in a field and it's the most fun ever!  

The Grand Canyon

On a spur-of-the-moment decision two years ago, we met family in Arizona for 3 days of hiking.  Beck and Peyton did amazing!

Where are the places your children love to go?

Side-note:  I had no idea North Dakota and Kansas were so the same,

 but they share the same state bird (the western meadowlark),

 and while Kansas is the Sunflower State, 

North Dakota is the nation's largest producer of agricultural sunflowers. 

 Interesting.  

Mail from...North Carolina (Part 2: Flying Machines)

See that cardinal in there?
 Apparently 7 states claim the cardinal as their state bird.
Did you know only the males are bright red?

We haven't received a postcard from the official postcard swap participant living in North Carolina, so it was perfect timing for Beck's friend to mail us this one as soon as he arrived there.  We used it to spend two days studying Orville and Wilbur Wright and their flying machines.

There are a couple things I had no idea about when I started preparing for this lesson.  First, the Wright brothers did not live in North Carolina.  They grew up and lived in Ohio.  They had their bicycle shop there and that's where they created their flying machines.  So how did they end up on the beaches of Kitty Hawk?  Three reasons:  

 

1. They needed wind and Kitty Hawk was the sixth windiest place they could find
2. They wanted to be away from the public until they knew what they were doing
3. The sand made for a little bit softer way to land

It makes me wonder if Ohioans hold a grudge about all the recognition North Carolina gets when 5+ years of the work was done up north and 12 seconds of flying happened when they travelled down south.

Wright Glider  Source

Notice above that I said "flying machines"? That's the other thing I didn't know.  There wasn't just one airplane that miraculously took flight.  Coming up with one rendition a year for 5 years, the brothers tested different body styles, power options, and turning mechanisms.  The first machine was merely a kite that they controlled from ropes on the ground. 

There is an undending amount of information online to put together a lesson on the Wright Brothers, the history of flight, and the evolution of aviation.  These are the resources I drew from to intrigue my kindergartner and keep it interesting.  Click the images to be taken directly to the credited website.

U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission Sights and Sounds
8 short videos explaining each year/machine and the progress that was made

Downloadable Power Point directed towards 1st graders.  Great!!

My favorite!
Link is to a PDF of worksheets that accompanied the video series.
We chose out 6 that were on Beck's level, could easily be used for a range of grade levels.

The end of the Power Point listed above leads your child to create their own flying machine.  Here's a look at the new way Beck has for Santa to deliver his toys...

New to Eating the Nibbly Bibs? 

 Check out the story behind "Mail from..." here

A few other links I liked but didn't use in my lesson:

Instructions for making 10 different paper airplanes

Original Video of Wright Brothers Flights

Random interesting facts about the Wright Brothers

Mail from...New Hampshire

New Hampshire is a beautiful state!  Who could argue that when this is their state bird...

Purple Finch

I visited there in a long ago October when the granite mountains were on fire with changing autumn colors.  On that trip, I got to see the Old Man of the Mountain.  I'm so glad I did, because in 2003 the profile collapsed and changed the face of the mountain forever.

Before and After 

Much to my surprise, this pile of crumbled rocks held very little appeal to my boys, so, thinking on my feet, I pulled out the paints to create our own representations of the New Hampshire autumn leaves.  We used Q-tips instead of brushes and I demonstrated how to carefully dot the paint onto the paper.  It did not make any sense to my kids today.  Surprising myself again, I didn't over-react and try to correct them.  I just let them be and worked on my own dotted painting...

So, New Hampshire did not bring about a super-memorable postcard lesson.  I'll have to put "visit New Hampshire" on our to-do list and see if that doesn't turn out to be more inspiring.

Mail from...Hawaii

Coming up with a craft or activity that I can relate to each of the 50 states is turning out to not be as easy as I'd expected it to be!  For Hawaii it seemed like the Internet-gods only wanted me to make paper leis.  While the options were plenty and very cute, I thought for sure there was something more boy-centric that we could use to make Hawaii exciting.  We fell back on a little experiment with exploding volcanoes...

 Obviously, Beck loved this activity.  The bonus for me was ticking off the Teaching Your Children Joy activity that has been hanging me up since January!  That's right-it's been that long since we got way-layed in the chapter on curiosity.  I just could not find the motivation to prepare, so I never did.  The closest I came was finding Science Sparks, a great website full of child-friendly experiments, which I do look at from time, if only to remind myself of the guilt I feel in falling off the teaching bandwagon.  With volcanoes now cleanly under our belts, I'm checking the box and moving on...to magic tricks...aye, aye!

My 2-year-old's volcanoes turned out vibrantly tropical colors, didn't they?

And because I promised a bird picture, here you go...the Hawaiian Goose, an extraordinarily un-tropical looking bird...

Mail from...Arizona

The "Mail from..." series was part of our participation in a a postcard swap hosted by Beth at Living Life Intentionally.  The idea was to send out 50 postcards of your state-one to every state in the Union-and then receive back the same.  Being a travel junkie, I thought it was an exciting way to add a little geography into this year's kindergarten lessons.  Besides, what kid doesn't LOVE to get mail?

Well, the postcards have started to trickle in.  While most of them have included fairly generic tidbits of information, my kids seem to be most fascinated with learning each state's official bird.  They get confused with senders who didn't understand that was vital information.  And because that's what they're intrigued with, I've started printing out the official state birds and attaching them to the map as we study each new postcard.

The Arizona Cactus Wren

To get us started, let's take a look at Arizona...

The postcard we received showed an enormous Saguaro Cactus.  

I adapted this cute cactus craft from one I saw at Creative Jewish Mom.

To make:

~Cut apart the square parts of a cardboard egg container 

(This part was unexpectedly messy and probably should be done by mom)

~Paint the squares.

~Send your kids outside to collect pebbles and rocks while the paint dries.

~Glue the squares into whatever shape your child thinks a cactus looks like.

~Glue the rocks onto the cardboard  (we used the side of a cereal box) 
so your landscape looks like a desert.

~Crumple tissue paper and glue to your cactus for "blossoms" 

What fun tidbits can you share with us about Arizona?