Brief Description Tons of fun resources for teaching U.S. states names and locations.
U.S. states, U.S. map, geography, states, state location, location, geography games, capitals
About the Lesson
Youve probably heard about speed dating" -- a quick and easy way to meet marriage material. But this might be the first youve heard for speed state-ing." In this lesson, students will learn to identify the names and locations of the 50 U.S. states. Over time, they will be able to do this more quickly, and correctly.
Want ideas to help students learn the names of the 50 U.S. state capitals? See our lesson, Capital Ideas (for Teaching State Capitals)
We doubt that few of your students will qualify for the National Geography Bee, but that is no reason to believe they shouldnt know the names and locations of the 50 U.S. states. Getting to know those names and locations is the purpose of this ongoing activity. This might be a daily activity for a period of time. Once mastered, you might continue to reinforce the skill on a weekly basis.
This lesson provides the resources and games you will need to give your students plenty of practice in identifying the names and location of the 50 states. And practice is the key! Like the multiplication tables and many other skills, repetition is the best way to master the ability to identify all 50 states on a U.S. map. Fun repetition is what this ongoing activity is all about.
This activity includes a handful of online games that you can use to give students a variety of fun ways to reinforce their state-naming skills. See the Online Games section below for a list of games that can be used in the computer lab, as independent practice and fun, or as tools for setting up individual or team classroom competitions. If you have a classroom projector, all the better; that projector is a great way to bring these games into the classroom.
Arrange students into pairs. Provide each pair of students with one of these printable U.S. outline maps.
Have students work together in pairs to identify and mark the names of the 50 states on their map. Students might use atlases, wall maps, and any other resources to complete the task.
The next day: Have the pairs of students (the same pairs as yesterday is ideal) repeat the activity without any resources. Give them 15 minutes or so to fill in their maps. How well do they do? Then give them time to use map resources to correct their maps and/or identify the states they could not name.
In the days ahead, continue to repeat the activity. As the days pass, keep track of the number of states student pairs are able to correctly identify without using map resources. Each day, the student pairs should improve their state-naming results.
Eventually, separate students so they work individually to identify all 50 states on a U.S. map.
These fun games will challenge students to identify the locations of the 50 states. These games can be easily adapted for use as classroom competitions. Or perhaps you make the games available in your classroom computer center and keep charts on which you record class champs" or best scores" for each of the games. Update the charts as new records are set.
Once most students have mastered the locations of the states, you might make practice less frequent. Check in each week or two to make sure they are retaining their state-naming skills.
Once students have mastered the names and locations of the 50 U.S. states, you might want to challenge them to learn the names of the 50 state capitals. You can find fun ideas for doing that in our lesson, Capital Ideas (for Teaching State Capitals).
Students will continue to improve their scores as they learn the locations of states and the names of state capitals. Once they master those skills, occasional reinforcement will help you verify that the skills are sticking."
Lesson Plan Source
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