Learn About the States

Homeschool Review Crew

Recently through the Homeschool Review Crew we were given the chance to review a product from Crafty Classroom.  Our family chose to review the  USA Activity Bundle Pack.  This pack comes with three fun downloads that can be used over and over again.

About the Program

As we learn about the states this summer it’s so fun to be able to just print and go!  Crafty Classroom offers a variety of products for grades pre K-3rd.  

We received the downloadable ebooks for the USA Activity Bundle Pack.  There are three books included.  They are:

1. USA State by State Activity Notebook
2. The USA State Birds Art Cards
3. USA 50 State Mazes

Each book is a download of its own.  The reusable pages and bright and colorful while the activities print in black and white.  A fun tip that I like to use is to laminate the pages that can be used over again.  This way they don’t all get torn up with use.  Saves you having to print them over and over.

This downloadable can be used for the entire family.  You have a license to print for everyone in your household.  As a large family mom, I love finding things like this because it means I save money.  That’s always a plus for me!

These are great summer activities.  This summer our goal is to work on learning about the states.  Where each one is on a map, what their capitals are, state flowers, and state birds.  All of these things are being accomplished with this program. 

USA 50 State Mazes

This one is pretty self-explanatory.  You’re going to get a maze to figure out that is on the state.  Basically, you get the outline of the state with a fun maze inside.  Great way to remember what state is what by the outline.

I printed the whole packet off in black and white.  Partly on accident honestly, as that’s our default setting.  But then I went back and printed the cover in color.

These are cute and fun.  My kids love doing mazes and I love knowing that they’re actually learning something while doing the fun mazes. I don’t find them super easy or super hard.  Most are definitely not going to be something my Kindergarten daughter can do well though.  

While they are geared to ages PreK through third grade my older kids have really enjoyed them as well.  There is really no age cap I would say. 

USA State Bird Art Cards

These are definitely a hit in our house!  My kids love to color.  There are 27 different birds to be studied in this pack.  I did not realize that so many states shared the same bird!  Shows you how much I still have to learn too!

Each bird has a coloring card, fact card that the child can fill in if they’re able, and memory matching cards.  I love the matching cards.  Such fun.  My younger set of girls love to do memory games and this is perfect for them.

All my kids love birds and can identify a great deal of them at our bird feeder so I knew this one would be a hit.

USA Activity Pack

This is the largest of the three downloads and features several different activities.  There are two games included.  These are USA Bingo and Roll Across America.

For each state, there is included lots of information and activities to make it fun to learn all about the state.  Each state has them map the location, capitol, landmarks, abbreviations, nickname, state flower, and state bird.  Guys I have to be honest and say I can’t even regurgitate all these facts anymore.

There are printouts to color the state flag, state flower, and state bird for each state as well.  Lots of room left over for adding your own interesting facts or thoughts on states as well.

Our Thoughts

We have really enjoyed using this program and I can see us pulling these out to work within the years to come.  While summer is over I don’t think we’ve learned all we can from these downloads.  There is just that much information packed into them!

I remember studying our state in school and I remember learning all of the state capitols.  But I don’t remember really doing much about state birds and flowers except in passing.  It was not a major point of study for us.  I’ve wanted it to be for my kids though and I’m so glad we found this program.

The mazes are amazing for taking in the van.  I have decided I’m going to laminate the mazes and buy some dry erase fine point markers.  Much less paper waste since we can use them over and over again.  I’m also looking into where I can get them compiled into a spiral-bound book once I’ve laminated them all.  I think this would be amazing!

Obviously, the coloring pages aren’t ones that I’m going to laminate. I’m on a bit of a laminating kick lately.  It’s fun and saves me a lot of printing!  I will also be reprinting the games and then laminating those as the originals that I printed out didn’t last more than a week from being played with so much.

I’m not thinking of anything about the three downloads I dislike.  They’re amazing and we love them!  Highly recommend them to everyone.  We previously have reviewed their ABC Bible Memory Verse set and loved it as much as we have this one.  The only hard part is deciding which one you want to use first.

Our ages using this have been age three toddler boy up to age 14 going into ninth grade this year daughter.  Umm and me.  I’ve been coloring along with the kids and learning along with them too.  That’s why though the curriculum says it’s fro PreK through 3rd grade I say don’t put a cap on that age range.  Adults like them too!

One issue we did have is that these can be used way too quickly if you don’t pace yourself or the kids.  So what we’re going to do now since the summer is over is going to help with this.  Really we used the whole thing in less than a month.  That’s too fast to actually learn everything and be able to remember.

Year Plan:

Here is how I plan to use this for an entire year.

We are going to take one state per week.  This will take 50 weeks.  I’m planning a break week for Christmas and a break week for Thanksgiving.  I may have to double up and do two states per week at some point but I know certain states are going to need the whole week.  Maybe we’ll just end up taking a year and a half to do it.  I don’t see a problem with this.

I plan on fleshing it out by getting books on the state that we’re studying that week from the library for a free read.  My kids love to read and I’ve seen some good state books lately at the library.  We will definitely try to take two weeks for our state just so we can really work on it and maybe visit some fun places while we do it. 

Now I just have to figure which state to start with!

Learn More

Learn more about the Crafty Classroom products that the Crew were able to review by reading all the reviews linked up on the Main Blog Post found on the Homeschool Review Crew blog.  You can also find Crafty Classroom on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. 

CREW reviewers have been testing out:

• R.E.A.D. Curriculum Notebook K
• R.E.A.D. Curriculum Notebook Gr. 1
• Interactive Math Curriculum Notebook K
• Alphabet Letter of the Week Curriculum Notebook
• Bible Letter of the Week Curriculum Notebook
• Sight Word of the Week Program
• Pattern Block Activity Bundle
• Fables & Tales
• USA Activity Bundle Pack