Road Trip USA ~ Kansas

Welcome to our week on Kansas courtesy my Road Trip USA curriculum!

 

Here are some of the things we learned about this week:

• Located Kansas on our wall map
• Read our National Geographic Atlas and located Topeka, KS using the map coordinates.
• Worked on our 50 States and Capitals song
• State bird: Western Meadowlark
• State fish: Channel Catfish
• State flower: The Sunflower
• Classified the animals of Kansas
• State mammal: The American Bison
• Famous People: Amelia Earhart
• Famous Court Case: Brown vs. Board of Education
• Food: Beef, wheat, corn, BBQ

 

Here are some of the things we enjoyed:

I’ve been putting up a whiteboard review each week. We review the items for each state as we go, then use this board to review the state symbols quickly.

 

We take turns reviewing the state locations for all states learned so far, then end with locating our new state of Kansas.

 

We also add our current state to our United States Bulletin display. We also use this to help review the state, it’s location, and it’s capital.

 

Next the kids colored in their Kansas worksheets while I read through the state facts.

 

We also read through our National Geographic Atlas and use the mapping coordinates to locate the capital and other fun places in Kansas.

 

We learned about the American Bison, the Channel Catfish, and the Western Meadowlark.

 

Then we classified and added them to our Road Trip USA Animal Wall.

 

Amelia Earhart was born July 24, 1897 in Atchison, KS. She was a noted American aviation pioneer and author. She was the first woman to receive the U.S. Distinguished Flying Cross award for becoming the first woman pilot to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. During an attempt to make a flight around the globe in 1937, Earhart disappeared over the central Pacific Ocean near Howland Island.

 

Brown vs. Board of Education: Linda Brown attempted to enroll in the Sumner Elementary School located in Topeka, KS in 1954. The school was closer to her house than the all African American Monroe School she had been attending. Her enrollment was rejected by the Topeka Board of Education. Her father joined a class action lawsuit against the Topeka Board of Education that eventually resulted in the landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court, that declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students, unconstitutional.

 

At the end of each week, we add the state flag to our Travel Journal.

 

We also tried some yummy Kansas style BBQ to close out the week! The BBQ received a thumbs up from all!

 

Since it was a review week, we added the Iowa and Kansas mini-books to our Midwest page.

 

And we played some fun review games, here is Turbo working on matching up the state capitals to the state flashcards.

 

And that wraps up our Kansas study! If you’d like to come along with us on our Road Trip USA journey, click the image below to learn more!