Simple U.S. Geography Notebooks

Rather than using a "formal" geography curriculum, we have been making a "United States" Notebook. It began with a reproducible workbook that I found at the teachers' supply store. Later, we continued the Notebooks without the workbook (It was lost in our move!) The workbook is: Maps of the U.S.A. By Jo Ellen Moore (Evan-Moor Publishing) The link for that book will allow you to look at the pages, so you can decide if the content is worth paying for. Evan-Moor now offers it as an eBook. We also used the Scholastic Pocket U.S. Atlas as an information source.

For FREE? Really?

Now I realize that it could have easily been done for free, by using pertinent sites that I have found in the process. Below, I have listed the sites and the information that I used for the notebooks that we produced. It has been a fun way to study the states. My girls' knowledge of U.S.Geography has increased dramatically!

The Structure is Simple

The states in our notebooks were separated by regions, such as the Pacific Region, Southwest Region, etc. On each state page, we included a topographical map (colored by the child) including main cities, rivers, and any other feature that we thought were important (state flower, state bird, etc. On the flip-side of that page, we glued state flags that we had colored, and and a paragraph that we had written about that state. Of course, you can include as much or as little information as you like.

U.S. Geography Printables & Links
(All FREE!)

STATE UNIT STUDIES Homeschooling.About.com: My FAVORITE SOURCE for State Unit Studies printables, state fact sheets, coloring sheets, word searches, etc. Listed by state. Important: Once you go to the state page, you must scan down the page for the "Printable Pages" link. Then, to print the PDF's, you click on the title under the picture. There is a list of page numbers to click on as well. No need to click on each and every page number (thankfully!) when you hover over the page number with your mouse, a description of the page is visible. For example: Page 7 is the State Bird and Flower Coloring Page. If you cannot find what you are looking for, post a comment or send me (Robin Montoya) a message.

UNITED STATES MAPS AND WORKSHEETS Worksheet Works Customizable maps of every state, region, territory of this nation, as well as a few historical maps. The best source for MAPS.

THE FIFTY STATES InfoPlease.com: LOTS of state info, including census statistics, US History time-lines, and encapsulated state information/history with links. We have used this one a lot.

LEARN ABOUT THE 50 STATES NETSTATE.com: States listed alphabetically, State info summaries, state mottos, state links, etc.

FREE GEOGRAPHY WORKSHEETS TLS Books.com: Map activities, word searches, name the states worksheets, and more!

FREE COLORING PAGES Friends Across America: American landmarks and symbols, famous Americans and state birds and flowers listed alphabetically by state.