Tuesday, August 21, 2007

The Internet is a Wonderful Thing

We got our school work done just in time today to meet friends over at Stone Mountain for a splash in the stream. The forecast called for scattered thundershowers, but the weather was hot and sunny all day. Until we got to the park. When it started raining and thundering.
We met our friends at the ice cream store instead, which wasn't bad (they had Rocky Road today), then we all went back to our house to play for a while. It was nice to sit and drink coffee and chit chat, and the kids had a good time.

One of the many subjects with which I have overloaded T. this year is learning the fifty states. My idea was that, using the Scholastic Atlas of the United States, Kids Learn America!, and The Book of Fifty States, we would learn a little about each state, at a rate of maybe two a week. (Now I've decided that we need to learn them a little faster in order to free up time to start ((or, actually, get back to)) Classical Writing this winter. ) Last night it occurred to me that, what with the wonder that is the internet, it might be possible for me to find the song that I learned in elementary school, way back in the early 70's, that forever cemented in my brain the "fifty nifty United States," in alphabetical order, no less. This evening I checked, and, lo and behold, not only are the words available online, but the site I found includes a cheerful chorus of children to sing the words, just in case one's elderly memory might have forgotten the tune. And there is a free puzzle game for learning where on the map each state goes. It doesn't get much better!

4 comments:

Elisheva Hannah Levin said...

Hi, Melora,

We've been home for four days now and I am just catching up! But the new schoolroom looks great. You can get pretty ch...oops...inexpensive pole lamps at any of the Big Box stores, especially the ones that end in 'mart." That might help when winter comes!

I have often found half-remembered songs and stories and even sit-com opening lyrics on the internet. What a trip down memory lane that can be!

Enjoy the fifty states. One thing N. did was find the address of a school in a small town in each of the states and then he wrote to the kids his age for information. Some of the replies were a blast!

Wisteria said...

I, too, am amazed by the power of the Internet. We made little Passports and added information about each state and then I gave them a flag sticker when they could find it on the map.

hornblower said...

One of the many blessings of living in Canada is that there are only 10 provinces & 3 territories :-)

We will do a quick run through some the states of the US but I highly doubt we'll memorize them all - I only know the coastal ones & then in the middle it's kind of a big blank on my mental map. I'm not proud of that but gosh.... there are just so many of them!

Melora said...

Elisheva,
I really enjoyed the pictures of your trip! They were gorgeous!
We are keeping an eye out for a cheap ceiling fan with lights to put over the school table -- that way there would be one at each end of the room, and it would sort of balance it out. For now we found an old table lamp in the garage which does an unsatisfactory but better-than-nothing sort of job at providing light.

Wisteria,
I like the idea of the passports & the state flags! We are coloring the states in on an outline map as we learn them, but little flags would be cuter.

Hornblower,
I don't think many U.S. citizens learn all the Canadian provinces and territories, so it certainly wouldn't be fair to ask you to learn the states! I am very fuzzy on the location of the middle states too.