Every time I type the word Connecticut I think, “Connect I cut.” I know this is silly, but it’s helped me remember how to spell the state every time I start writing. We first studied Connecticut way back when the kids were little, but somehow I never wrote about our Connecticut Unit then, so now after my kids are graduated I’m including both our original from their early elementary days of our United States Geography and then what we did during our more boring but more focused high school geography lessons.
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Connecticut Unit resources
First, let’s look and see what all I found on the internet about Connecticut:
- 98 Connecticut Facts
- 50 Connecticut Facts
- Famous people from Connecticut– I hate that these lists are so heavily skewed toward celebrities and athletes, and I’m realizing there are several new minibooks I need to add. So I’ll be updating my notebooking pages in just a minute. And that’s done!
- National Geographic Kids: Connecticut
And because Connecticut is at the beginning of the alphabet there are several YouTubers that have videos, I let you decide which you will inflict on yourself.
I’ll start with the birds from Nat Geo Kids (you know abbreviating it makes it hip and cool, how do you do fellow kids?)
Hopefully that embedded… (thanks to Maryanne for letting me know it did not, so I just went with the picture version)
Okay, but now I give you the one that causes damage but gives you almost every answer on the United States notebooking pages (which you get a coupon for as part of the welcome series when you JOIN MY NEWSLETTER).
This is so much less annoying, and I wish I’d found it back when I was watching these videos with the kids all the time.
That’s a good number of videos, now on to Connecticut books…
Connecticut booklist
This booklist is on my Subscriber page, which you get access to in the first email of the welcome series.
- Connecticut– A good overview book, but not one you’re going to sit down and read out loud, perfect if you want your kids to write a state report.
- The Connecticut Colony– This looks like it might be out of print, but if you’re planning on studying states as they enter the union, this could be a great resource (or if you’re studying Colonial America)
- Testing the Ice: A True Story about Jackie Robinson– I love finding stories like this about famous people, it helps humanize them and gives kids more to hang on than “he broke the race barrier”.
- The taxing case of the cows: a true story about suffrage– it’s small stories like this that lead to big change. Which reminds me I should adds this to a women’s suffrage booklist that I’ll write someday…
- Snowflakes fall– combining an author I enjoy with an illustrator I enjoy means I get a delightful cute story, and while this is written in honor of the children killed in the Sandy Hook shooting, it’s an homage to childhood innocence and playing in the snow. Parents knowing the background of why it’s written might cry, but kids won’t get that.
- Astro: the Steller sea lion– I’m going to admit I don’t super remember this book, but it’s the type of story I love, friendships between man and animal, and a true story.
- Tractor Mac Saves Christmas– there are a whole series of Tractor Mac books. The author lives in Connecticut, so bases his stories there.
- Sadly my library no longer has the Nathan Hale book we read when the kids were little, so if you can find one I would include that
Connecticut Unit notebooking pages
I don’t have the mini-books in the pictures, because I forgot to print and add them and I do not use them with my high school students. Or, I should say, I didn’t at the point we finished Connecticut.
Some of my favorite things from this unit:
- I’d previously heard the Constitution State nickname, but hadn’t heard the Nutmeg state, which amuses me because of a YouTube channel I follow, Nutmeg Tavern
- There’s a steam-powered cider mill (or there I was, I don’t know if it’s still there)
- The first ever telephone book was made there, I wonder if they still make telephone books? I don’t think Austin does.
Minibooks that you don’t see, but exist and are in the Subscriber Section:
- Nathan Hale
- Prudence Crandall
- Jackie Robinson
- Noah Webster
- P.T. Barnum, I even have a post on P.T. Barnum and the Brooklyn Bridge
- Harriet Beecher Stow
- J.P. Morgan
More learning fun
I’m going to pick some random other geography posts from around the world
By accident, I was only picking letters from early in the alphabet, and then I decided to just go with it. So there you go.
Ragesoss, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
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