California unit study

Well after many tries and travails we have finished our California unit study, and that means it’s time to share some more homeschool geography with you.  We completed the California unit study twice, once when the kids were in preschool, and a second time when they were in 5th grade, so I’m including both versions for you to compare them.

Future Ticia 2022 jumping in to say, everyone lost their past notebook, so I thought we hadn’t studied it in 5th grade, because it wasn’t in our current notebook, so I accidentally had the kids complete our California unit AGAIN with the current United States geography notebooking pages (which you can get a coupon for if you sign up for my newsletter). So, I’ll show the third version, which is more or less the same as the second one, but with my notebooking pages (since the person I bought our original ones from quit selling them).

Future Ticia 2023, I smashed the California booklist into this post because it made no sense for it to be a completely separate post.

{this post contains affiliate links marked with an *}

California resources

California book list

We’re starting to learn about California, for our travel around the states as part of our geography lessons.  I’m going with the states Jeff and I grew up in first after moving out of Texas, so we did Wisconsin first where he grew up.  And now, we’re heading to California with this booklist.  Homeschool geography works great for young kids if you start with what they know, so we’re starting with this great stack of California picture books.

{All Amazon links are affiliate links, the bolded books are the books we used in the first time through our California unit study in preschool, and the others are the ones we used when redoing the study in 5th grade}

ANIMAL CALIFORNIA PICTURE BOOKS

• Humphrey the Lost Whale– the link up there is to a Reading Rainbow episode about the book, because we also watched the episode.  Which I highly recommend if you can find it.  It has some great additional resources about whale watching and other things.  And, this has special meaning to me because it actually happened while I was growing up, and that’s why I got the book.  I still remember it happening cough cough years later.
• A Harbor Seal Grows Up–  This is a book about a harbor seal pup raised by scientists because his mom has disappeared.  It’s really interesting, and I had to read it several times, partially because the name of the first scientist was one of the boys’ names (and then after that, I changed the other names to match my other kids, no need to start a fight).  And as a random fact, the harbor seals are one of the main things I remember from when I was a kid going to the Santa Cruz boardwalk.
• Trapped: a whale rescue– this is a generic story of trying to rescue a whale who got lost.  I find it interesting this happens often enough there are several books on the topic.
• California sea lions– I remember seeing sea lions everywhere growing up in California when we visited the beach and the harbor, they always fascinated me
• Calico Dorsey: mail dog of the mining camps— My daughter loved this story of a dog trained to pick up and deliver the mail every day (I’ll confess I did too)

HISTORICAL CALIFORNIA PICTURE BOOKS

• The Elephant Quilt– It’s about a family’s journey from Missouri to California.  Honestly, I think it’s a little over my kids’ heads.  I’d put it more at a 2nd/3rd-grade level.  But, I found it really interesting to read.  Especially the actual quilt blocks they threw in there.  But, my kids weren’t super interested.
• The Camping Trip that Changed America– Teddy Roosevelt goes camping with a famous naturalist, and on that trip learns something that changes how he governs.
• Smoky Night– This covers the LA riots in the 90s and is a great discussion point for older kids.
• Levi Strauss gets a bright idea– a hilarious retelling of the invention of blue jeans.
• Nine for California– my kids loved this hilarious take on how a family took a stagecoach to California.
• First Day in Grapes– a great look at migrant workers from a kid’s perspective.
• Picture book of Cesar Chavez OR Picture Book of Cesar Chavez– These are both great books about Cesar Chavez, and I have a Picture book of Cesar Chavez written to go with them.
• Rough Tough Charlie– I loved this book, about Charlie the stagecoach driver, and how he grew up, and the big shock at the end of who Charlie really was.
• Tree Lady: the true story of how one tree-loving woman changed a city forever– I never knew it was one lady who imported all of those trees to make Southern California the icon we think it is today.
• Fish for Jimmy: inspired by one family’s experience in a Japanese American internment camp– I loved how this story gently and respectfully shared a dark time of our past in World War 2

Working Cotton– another migrant worker books

MISCELLANEOUS CALIFORNIA PICTURE BOOKS

• The Dog who Walked with God– a native California A Kato creation story, which my daughter found fascinating
• Two Bear Cubs: a Miwok legend from California’s Yosemite Valley– if you have kids who like mischievous animals, then you’ll love this book
• Our California– This does a really good job of highlighting a lot of different areas of California that are famous.  It doesn’t quite cover everything I remember, but it hit most of the things I was going to cover with the kids.  They liked it somewhat, but unlike most of the others we read this week they didn’t request it over and over and over.

California videos

Starting in junior high or high school I started searching videos for our geography lessons, primarily because there are several countries that don’t have any books on them. As a result, my kids love to watch these videos.

Okay, I lied. Any video I find for the United States they make fun of so much because the videos are clearly designed for the algorithm rather than a person, OR they are geared for young kids with a lot of repetition.

Okay, that video is terrible, it repeats its facts several times. Really awkward like they’re saying it for the first time in the video. I’m primarily including it so you can suffer through it as well.

My kids love these videos, and by love I mean love to make fun of them. They request these because they’re so over-the-top silly, but it usually has most of the information needed to fill out our pages.

I found this video after I tormented the kids with the other two, so I haven’t watched all of it, but it looks to be about as decent as the others…

I really wish someone would do a series of videos like Geography Now for the US geography…

California lapbook

In preschool, we did lapbooking and lots of drawing pictures.  They are fairly simple, but I’ll still talk it through with you.

LEFT SIDE:

• Gold coins- Superman’s narrative: “We had to find gold coins, but I couldn’t find them because it was hard.”  His memory of our pretend gold rush.
• One of the animals in California is the sea otter, so that was our animal report (PDF for that is on my subscriber page, again join here).
• Humphrey the Whale summary- “He turned under the little bridge and he got lost.  It got smaller and smaller.  The people banged pipes and Humphrey got mad and he splashed.  Then he got very angry and he said, “Stop banging pipes and let me see if I can duck under the bridge.”  At the end, he got back to his friends.  And he got under the little bridge.”  Batman
  “He went the wrong direction of his friends and he got lost.  He should go the right way to go back to the ocean.  He squeezed through the holes by lifting up one of his fins.”  Superman.
  

Humphrey the Whale side point

I distinctly remember this story when I was a child.

And here is someone reading the picture book:

Now back to our California lapbook

• Symbols of California- printable from the California Museum (which also has some cool craft ideas), sadly it has been taken down.

RIGHT SIDE:

• map with California colored in
• postcards from Natalie over at Planet Smartypants (her blog is now private).  I have to wrestle postcards away from the kids to put these in the envelopes.  They LOVE getting mail!

Our California notebooking pages in elementary school

This time around we found a lot of great history books, and my kids were old enough to tackle some tougher topics, like migrant workers and the Japanese interment of World War 2.

Though I will admit my favorite item from this time around in our California unit study was the Pony Express map, from Interactive 3D US history maps.  I only wish the kids had been more willing to color the map more.

All of our mini-books can be found in our California unit, and you can get the state notebooking pages if you sign up for my newsletter.

Re-using the California notebooking pages in high school

It is more or less the same as in 5th grade, but our United States notebooking pages ask for interesting facts.

California mini-books

• World War 2 Japanese Internment Camps- I have an entire post talking about Japanese Internment Camps
• Stagecoach to California
• How to Rescue a Whale
• California Gold Rush
• Migrant Workers

My interesting facts

• California is 3rd largest state
• the name comes from Mexican myths
• it became a US territory in 1848
• ginormous redwood trees

More learning throughout the years

Since I apparently repeated this unit THREE times, here’s some ideas for each of those ages

• Greensboro Protest Lesson
• Make a Apple Pie and See the World
• Learn about muscles through exercise
• War Horse book club
• Age of Exploration Unit

“golden gate bridge” by paul.wasneski is marked with Public Domain Mark 1.0.