Hello! Welcome to Part 1 of my 10 part series Blog Backlog: Playing Catch Up! I'm excited to get started!
Today I'm going to share our state projects. I've said many times how much I enjoy 5th grade social studies. We get to study the history and geography of our United States of America. My team has been trying to figure out how to best fit in the geography portion, which standard wise, isn't huge, but we feel is incredibly important for our kiddos to know. Last year the culminating project was a.....drumroll please...State Poster!!! So exciting - said no student or teacher - EVER. While my students last year did an incredible job on their posters, it just didn't have the novelty and pizzaz I was looking for.
I was inspired by Mr. Hughes NewYear New Me Mobiles. I've had my students create these mobiles two years in a row and I love how they look hanging in my classroom windows. It was time for those to come down and I figured a state mobile would make a beautiful replacement. So, thank you Mr. Hughes for the inspiration!
When I assigned the projects I cut up strips of paper with each state name on it and had students draw one. I took out our own state (which they studied in 4th grade) and other "popular" states that the kids knew quite a bit about already. Some were not thrilled about the state they chose, but once those projects came in, I could tell that they were excited about their project and had a new appreciation for a state they would otherwise not know much, or cared much, about.
Here is the part where I am a bit bummed out, the photos I took did not do their projects justice. I loved grading each one and reading all of the interesting things the discovered about their assigned state and the amazing art they drew.
Don't those look lovely hanging in the window!
Students carefully illustrated the state flag, and on the back the state bird and flower.
Each student had to locate the capital, two highly populated cities, and illustrate some geographical features on the state map. You can see that the title piece at the top also includes the state nickname. The back of the map included information about the state.
I want to visit that beautiful monument - time to travel to Nebraska!
This was one of my favorite illustrations of an important person. I think Gerald Ford looks a bit like Kid President, don't you?
A license plate and important person (I forgot who this is...maybe Margaret Mitchell???) from Georgia!
This student was unexpectedly hospitalized and didn't get to put the mobile together, but he did a fantastic job!
So, that was our state project this year. It was a short, sweet, but meaningful at-home assignment. My class enjoyed completing it, and they loved seeing the projects that their classmates created. I will definitely be doing this again next year!
Interested in having your class complete these state projects as well? I've got the whole project ready to go in my TpT store.
Thanks for joining me for Part 1 of my Blog Backlog! I'll have Part 2 up in a few days!
