Great Lake States

How many great lakes can you name? Can you name all of them? Here is trick that I taught the kids this week while we studied the great lake states...HOMES. H = Huron O= Ontario M= Michigan E= Erie and S = Superior.

This past week the kids and I traveled to Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois.

Here are some ideas and photos to share...


Michigan is shaped like a mitten. That is why it is often referred to as the mitten state. There are over a thousand islands near and around Michigan to explore. It is the birthplace of the affordable first car invented by Henry Ford. Who also gets the credit of his invention of the assembly line.
Ihad the kids construct their own assembly line. I took a roll of foil, a car from my Cowboy son and all my child labor hands in my home. The car that my son had came apart in piece so this worked great for our demonstration. I also showed them a video on Utube of a real assembly line from the 50's and one of today. The kids were amazed by the video from today's era. Robots have replaced people. Robots in Japan assemble cars. I guess job security in the auto assembly line is a term of the past now.
The cheesehead state is the state of Wisconsin. The kids memorized the great lakes.

In Ohio we had fun making and eating homemade ice cream while learning about dairy cows. We also went on a local farm tour for our little cowboy.
We had the joy of seeing a two day old horse. He was so cute and still wobbly on his long legs. The kids will never forget this one. They talked about it all the way home.

They also learned about Neil Armstrong. I didn't realize that so many presidents and astronauts were born in Ohio.

On Friday we learned about Indiana and Illinois. Sport did a notebook page on the baseball teams found in Illinois and my Dancer did one on Lincoln. We also learned out the Chicago fire.

Here is a list of books that we read this week:

-B is for Badger: Wisconsin Alphabet by Kathy Jo Wargin
- The Great Lakes by James Barry
- Welcome to the USA Wisconsin by Ann Heinrichs
- Welcome to the USA Michigan by Ann Heinrichs
-Along Came the Model T! by Robert Quakenbush
-B is for Buckeye: Ohio Alphabet by MArcia Schonberg
- One Giant Leap: Story of Neil Armstrong by Don Brown
- My Dad Works on a Farm by Sarah Hughes
- Cows in the Parlor by Cynthis McFarland
- L is for Lincoln: Illinois Alphabet by Kathy jo Wargin
- Welcome to the USA Illinois by Ann Heinrichs
- H is for Hoosier : Indiana Alphabet by Ann Heinrichs
- Welcome to the USA Indiana by Ann Heinrichs