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Iowa Unit
Through the years we’ve tried many variations on our geography lesson and when the kids were little we did an Iowa Unit with the kids because their aunt was moving to Iowa, and then we did a slightly more formal version when we studied United States Geography as the states entered the union. Then when the kids were in high school we did a quick refresher of the United States geography.
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Iowa Unit resources
As per usual to get started putting my Iowa Unit together I took to the internet looking up various bits and bobs, and these were the helpful sites I found this time:
All of that led me to realize there isn’t a lot that would create some great mini-books. I had Grant Wood and American Gothic, Herbert Hoover, who I don’t think has enough long-term significance to rate a mini-book, and corn.
I didn’t have any particular ideas I’ve done for corn, I do have a popcorn science lesson for another state whose state snack is popcorn, but this is part of why this was a quick geography lesson.
Iowa YouTube Videos
My kids watching a bunch of random videos must have reset some of my video links because I’m getting some different search results when I look up videos. It didn’t immediately bring up Homeschool Pop for me. Congratulations, so my first video is something your older kids will not immediately roll their eyes at.
Next we’ve got what is clearly a former teacher (that first 30 seconds of the video screams lesson plan) then video of kid telling what he’s learned about Iowa):
Sigh, Homeschool Pop, which was about 10-15 down in my search results, so there is that.
Huh, it looks like Nat Geo kids just gave up on their 50 Birds, 50 States plan. Which is crazy because those were some of the better videos we found.
Iowa booklist
My library didn’t have many great books about Iowa, so if you have any suggestions I’d love to hear them.
- Iowa– A generic learn about the state book much like the next one that is great for your 3rd grader if they’re doing a state report
- Iowa– So books like this are useful because they’re a great way to learn about a state in a lot of detail
- Country road ABC– I love alphabet books like this for having unique details and giving fun insights into frequently overlooked little details of who the United States is
- Pumpkin Island– The story of a small town in Iowa where pumpkins slowly take over a small town as they start to grow everywhere
- Ten Beautiful things– Lily and her grandmother search for 10 beautiful things as they drive through Iowa. I love small slice of life moments like this
- Grant Wood– I love this series. It’s like the “Who is” series, but for a slightly older age. If your library has them, I highly recommend picking it up.
Iowa notebooking pages
We completed the United States notebooking pages, if you JOIN MY NEWSLETTER I send out a coupon as part of my welcome series to get them free. There were many jokes as we watched the videos.
Every time we drive up to visit Tara we drive by the American Gothic home, and I keep threatening to go visit it, but it’s also over $20 to visit, and it’s literally just a farmhouse. I haven’t quite been able to justify the cost of that.
As part of our Iowa Unit we did a mini-Grant Wood artist study. The kids had a blast making fun of the project and making their own versions, and then refusing to glue theirs into their notebooks, which I didn’t care. The points was for them to know about the art, not have it glued into their notebooks which they probably won’t look at again five years from now. Some fun facts I wrote down in case you can’t read my handwriting:
- Their motto: Our liberties we prize and our rights we will maintain
- Sliced bread was first created in Iowa
- There are more chickens than the number of people in California and Texas combined
- Iowa means beautiful
And that was our Iowa Unit, nice and quick.
More great learning fun
Since we’ve repeated this a couple of different times, I’ll pick some different ages:
Comments
2 responses to “Iowa Unit”
Not related to Iowa unit (which is quite fun), but I like your site’s new look-and-feel 🙂
Hi Ticia!
I really like your site (just discovered today). We are currently visiting Iowa (I was born and raised) and definitely the best parts of this state are hard to depict in a list of “fast facts” or to notice on a drive-thru. For example, I think it’s one of the kindest places on earth (though I hear Minnesota is nicer ;).
Growing up I thought for sure I lived in the most boring state in the US, except the exciting weather. So yes meteorology is a great tie-in 🙂
But now that I’m older and have seen “exciting” places, I love to come back to my boring roots.
For a classical music tie-in, Dvorak composed two lovely works in rural Iowa while taking a soul retreat from NYC. His music is inspiring and a great background to a landscape painting hour. https://youtu.be/DxtAHpYIXdU?si=r7e6tYFafooaIDKA
Another fact that we’re proud of is that Iowa institutions were among the first to recruit and welcome black scientists to study and research with no race restrictions. (Almost a hundred years before most southern states!) I didn’t realize this significance until as an adult I read GW Carver’s biography. https://collab.cals.iastate.edu/george-washington-carver
Also I’m pretty sure the
Computer was partly invented at ISU… this is trickier to fact-check ??Another of my favorite Iowa short biographies is Kate Shelley. Super-inspiring kids, especially for spunky little girls.
Wow now that I’m listing all this I want to study more Iowa with my kids! We’ll take a closer look at your resources. Thanks, Ticia!!
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