Last fall, I decided it was time to tackle the study of United States Geography. We have been around most of the world with so many wonderful picture books, but it was time to really tackle the 50 states. I must admit, I was a bit overwhelmed with the idea, but I had a few things I wanted in our study.  

I wanted to include many living children's books that would spark curiousity about each state and to help keep it in line with the spirit of Charlotte Mason. Most importantly, like with most of home school, I wanted to keep it fun and inspiring. I didn't want book work or boring worksheets. That being said though, I did end up make a fun state page for the kids to fill out. BUT, I tried to make it less worksheet like and more like a scrap book, adventure journal page. 

As I was contemplating what to do, I didn't have time to come up with something completely from scratch. I decided I wanted to do each region of the US and then find books from those areas. But, I just didn't have the time or energy to find all of the resources by myself. 

I have followed Beautiful Feet for a while now and have used their teacher guides before. I really love their book lists and teacher guides. Their guides are simple, rich and focused around literature. The books they pick, to go with the guides, are living and well curated. So when I saw their new US Geography for Intermediate Elementary, I was really excited.  The illustrations 

They have a US Geography for younger grades as well, but since I have a 4th grader and a 6th grader, I wanted something that was geared more towards them. On their site they recommend doing the higher level guides for everyone in the family and just include the younger kids too. Which is basically what we do. If the recommended book is too hard for my younger kids to read, or to even sit through a reading of it, I just assign my older boys to read it on their own and then come back and narrate their findings. 

So far, we are really enjoying the guidebook. There are so many different options for activities, simple or complicated. They also geography of the land included with the different lessons. For example, before we started on the states, they did an intro into Geography basics. Which was a great review for my older boys. The suggested activity was to make a clay earth. My kids LOVED this project so much. 

They also include extra book recommendation for further reading as well as curated youtube videos to go with each lesson. As well, they have little rabbit trails that you can choose to go down if it peaks your kids interest. Also for each lesson they have a culinary connection blip to connect food with the states.

 I mostly just love that the curriculum is an "open, read and choose your own adventure" guide. You choose what you do and make it work for your family needs. But, all the suggestions are rich and inspiring. 

To compliment Beautiful Feet, I wanted to make a notebook to keep all their state findings in one book. In the past I've tried to keep track of all their country pages that they made for each country we learned about. But, my lack of preparedness would either mean we didn't always have a country page when we were doing it or I was printing it just before. Then there was the matter of saving them all in one place. Not all survived. So, I decided that I was going to be really proactive and made an actual 50 states research notebook for my three oldest kids. 

I wish there was one great book that I could use as a spine for our study. But after researching and reading some of the books recommended by many Charlotte Mason home schoolers, I decided that those books weren't for my kids. I even tested reading them with my boys and they fell flat. Maybe if I just made them push through they would have liked them in the end, but once I found the Beautiful Feet option, I felt that would work best for our family.

So that we could keep track of each state we're studying, I downloaded a blank map from etsy. The one I bought is no longer available - but HERE is a good alternative. I then had it printed at Office Depot. Beautiful Feet has beautiful physical maps as well, which I wish I would have done instead. 

Here are our main books we keep on hand:

This 50 States book I got a few years ago after finding it at the library. It's colorful and full of fun, interesting things about each state.