Welcome to the Eight For Each State US Geography tour. I am so glad you are joining us.
Maryland, the Old Line State. When I think of Maryland I think of Blue Crabs, baseball and the Navy. My girls will now and forever think of horses, and I suppose I will too.
This is part of our Eight for Each State series on U.S. Geography. Subscribe via email for a new state study each week!
1. YouTube introductory videos
We always like to begin our study with a couple of overview videos, if they are available. Our favorites being from the US Embassy in Vienna and the Socratica series.
2. State Notebooking Pages
After we watch these two videos, we begin our notebooking pages. Ruth is using A Quick Look at These United States. So far these are doing a good job of helping her to pick out important information. They have spaces for history, famous people, mapping as well as the usual capital, motto, and state bird.
Sarah Joan is using US State Study of the Week from Enchanted Homeschool Mom. I love these pages so much! They are perfect for a first grader or any young elementary student who is ready to come along on your US Geography tour, but is not ready for quite so much writing.
3. Books for Maryland
I always have a good stack of books for the girls to look at and read as they do their notebooking pages. Usually with the help of the video we have talked about much of the information. However, I feel it is important to our US Geography study for us to practice finding information in books.
We almost never read these books cover to cover but instead page through them, enjoying the pictures, picking up interesting history tidbits, and finding interesting people and places we would like to know more about.
- B is for Blue Crab by Shirley C. Menendez – The Discover America State by State Alphabet books are the only ones we read cover to cover, sometimes twice or three times! They are the fantastic. The pictures and rhymes are always good and we always find places we want to see or people we want to know more about.
- Hello USA Maryland by Joyce Johnston – These are a staple for notebooking pages. They have a political map, a physical map, history, culture, economy, and all the tidbits of information she needs to fill out her pages.
- Maryland Facts and Symbols by Muriel L. Dubois – Sarah Joan loves these books for her notebooking pages. The one page on each of the state’s symbols is just the right size for her. I will read the page on the state bird and she tells me three facts she remembers. Sometimes I write them for her, sometimes she writes them on her own.
4. Assategue Island
Assategue Island is a fascinating topic for kids of all ages. Shared with Virginia, Assategue Island is home to many wild animals, the most famous being a herd of wild horses!
Each year, the ponies are driven through the bay to Chincoteague Island (Also technically Virginia). There they are checked over by vets and some of the foals are auctioned off. Check out these resources for your horse lover during your Maryland US Geography study.
- Misty of Chincoteague by Marguerite Henry – This living book is the best way to get an inside look into the yearly Pony Round Up and Swim. It is a classic that I had never read, but am now getting to enjoy for the first time with my girls.
- Pony Swim 2011 on YouTube – My girls wanted to spend all day watching these ponies. It is just amazing.
- Assateague: Island of Wild Ponies by Andrea Jauck and Larry Points – A beautiful book full of wonderful photos of these magnificent horses.
5. Crab Cakes
The United States Cookbook has been a great addition to our US Geography study. We use it for nearly every state. For Maryland we made the crab cakes using the recipe in the book.
We ate them. We are not seafood people. But we all tried them.
6. Star Spangled Banner
Francis Scott Key was a Washington lawyer at the time of the War of 1812. The book By the Dawn’s Early Light by Steven Kroll tells the story how our national anthem came to be. The pictures are just beautiful and my girls enjoyed the story.
We also took a look at what the American flag looked like in 1812. The Flag Maker by Susan Campbell Bartoletti is a lovely picture book about the sewing of the flag that flew from Fort McHenry. After, we colored our flags and Ruth even taped a small dowel rod to hers to make if fly.
7. Washington Monument
Enchanted Homeschooling Mom’s State notebooking pages continue to add depth and surprises to our US Geography state study. I had no idea there was more than one Washington Monument.
We found a short but thorough history on the Washington Monument State Park website. We also watched this short video showing the monument and surrounding areas.
B is for Blue Crab: A Maryland Alphabet (Discover America State by State)Maryland (Hello U.S.A.)Maryland Facts and Symbols (The States & Their Symbols (Before 2003))Misty of ChincoteagueAssateague: Island of Wild PoniesThe United States Cookbook: Fabulous Foods and Fascinating Facts From All 50 StatesBy the Dawn’s Early Light: The Story of the Star-Spangled BannerThe Flag MakerBabe Ruth: One of Baseball’s Greatest (Childhood of Famous Americans)Home Run: The Story of Babe Ruth
8. Babe Ruth
To change things up a bit I thought it would be fun to choose a famous person from Maryland to learn more about. Ruth chose Babe Ruth.
My Ruth is quite attached to her name, and quite interested in anyone who shares it. It was fun to watch her get so excited about baseball, a sport she had no previous interest in, simply because Babe Ruth shared her name in some way.
We read a few books, drew a picture and Ruth prepared a presentation for co-op. She really enjoyed learning about the life of this very interesting baseball player.
Who is your favorite famous Marylander?
Don’t forget to download your Maryland scrapbooking page. For more ideas on how to use these pages, check out How We Use Our US Geography Scrapbooking Pages.
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