Last term Farm Kid1 learned all 50 states and their capitals. I thought he would learn & remember them better if we focused only on 10 at a time. I designed worksheets and flashcards to help him learn all 50 in 5 weeks.

Here’s a peek at the weekly worksheets:

MATCHING THE STATE TO ITS CAPITAL
One worksheet for the current week’s list of 10 Capitals & another worksheet for all the Capitals from previous weeks.

CROSSWORD & WORD SEARCH

LABEL THE MAP WITH THE STATE AND ITS CAPITAL

FLASHCARDS
State on one side, Capital on the other

TESTS
There are 2 versions of the weekly test. One test with the current week’s list & one test with all Capitals learned so far. You can choose to do one or both of the tests.

There is also a completion certificate to celebrate learning all 50 State Capitals.

Follow these links to access the worksheet files:
Week 1 Worksheets
Week 2 Worksheets
Week 3 Worksheets
Week 4 Worksheets
Week 5 Worksheets

I hope your students enjoy learning with these worksheets as much as Farm Kid1 did!

Note: Because these are large files, the files are zipped. You will need unzipping software to access the worksheets. This works best from a computer, as opposed to a phone or tablet.

These worksheets are free for you to use with your students and classroom. However, please credit Ridgetop Digital Shop and/or Ridgetop Farm & Garden when appropriate and don’t sell or share these files as your own.

These worksheets were created by me. I am not only a farm person, I am also a graphic designer and entrepreneur. Check out my photo prop website. It is full of printable photo booth props and free party printables!

The post Learning State Capitals – 10 each week appeared first on .

We’ve made it! We’re ready to learn the final 10 capitals!

Since this is the last week it comes with a finisher’s certificate.

Click here or the image below to download all the practice worksheets, flash cards, test & answer sheet for free.

Follow these links to access previous worksheet files:
Week 1 Worksheets
Week 2 Worksheets
Week 3 Worksheets
Week 4 Worksheets

Note: Because these are large files, the files are zipped. You will need unzipping software to access the worksheets. This works best from a computer, as opposed to a phone or tablet.

These worksheets are free for you to use with your students and classroom. However, please credit Ridgetop Digital Shop and/or Ridgetop Farm & Garden when appropriate and don’t sell or share these files as your own.

These worksheets were created by me. I am not only a farm person, I am also a graphic designer and entrepreneur. Check out my photo prop website. It is full of printable photo booth props and free party printables!

The post Learning State Capitals – Week 5 appeared first on .

Over half way done learning our State Capitals! As exciting as that is, it’s time to move on to Week 4.

It worked well for us to use a report cover to hold the weekly worksheets. Of course, you could also staple them together.

Click here or the image below to download all the practice worksheets, flash cards, test & answer sheet for free.

Follow these links to access the other worksheet files:
Week 1 Worksheets
Week 2 Worksheets
Week 3 Worksheets
Week 5 Worksheets

Note: Because these are large files, the files are zipped. You will need unzipping software to access the worksheets. This works best from a computer, as opposed to a phone or tablet.

These worksheets are free for you to use with your students and classroom. However, please credit Ridgetop Digital Shop and/or Ridgetop Farm & Garden when appropriate and don’t sell or share these files as your own.

These worksheets were created by me. I am not only a farm person, I am also a graphic designer and entrepreneur. Check out my photo prop website. It is full of printable photo booth props and free party printables!

The post Learning State Capitals – Week 4 appeared first on .

Moving right along to Week 3’s State Capitals.

Ten new flashcards are available each week. To use, cut along the solid line. Then fold on the dashed line & glue sides together. One side of the flashcard has the state, the other has its capital. Another optional use for the flashcards is to cut the state from the capital & play a memory game. Instead of searching for two same pieces, you are searching for a state & its capital.

Click here or the image below to download all the practice worksheets, flash cards, test & answer sheet for free.

Follow these links to access other worksheet files:
Week 1 Worksheets
Week 2 Worksheets
Week 4 Worksheets
Week 5 Worksheets

Note: Because these are large files, the files are zipped. You will need unzipping software to access the worksheets. This works best from a computer, as opposed to a phone or tablet.

These worksheets are free for you to use with your students and classroom. However, please credit Ridgetop Digital Shop and/or Ridgetop Farm & Garden when appropriate and don’t sell or share these files as your own.

These worksheets were created by me. I am not only a farm person, I am also a graphic designer and entrepreneur. Check out my photo prop website. It is full of printable photo booth props and free party printables!

The post Learning State Capitals – Week 3 appeared first on .

Continuing to learn our State Capitals, I introduced 10 more this week.

Starting this week, there are two choices for both the Match ‘Em & Test worksheets. You can choose to do the worksheet listing only this weeks 10 capitals or you can choose to do a worksheet that has both this weeks list & the capitals you’ve learned already. We chose to do both sets of worksheets.

Click here or the image below to download all the practice worksheets, flash cards, test & answer sheet for free.

Follow these links to access other worksheet files:
Week 1 Worksheets
Week 3 Worksheets
Week 4 Worksheets
Week 5 Worksheets

I hope you are having as much success with these as we are!

Note: Because these are large files, the files are zipped. You will need unzipping software to access the worksheets. This works best from a computer, as opposed to a phone or tablet.

These worksheets are free for you to use with your students and classroom. However, please credit Ridgetop Digital Shop and/or Ridgetop Farm & Garden when appropriate and don’t sell or share these files as your own.

These worksheets were created by me. I am not only a farm person, I am also a graphic designer and entrepreneur. Check out my photo prop website. It is full of printable photo booth props and free party printables!

The post Learning State Capitals – Week 2 appeared first on .

This year one of my goals was to have Farm Kid1 learn the names of all our 50 states, as well as their capitals. He already knew most of the states, but only knew that Salem was Oregon’s capital. I came up with a series of worksheets & flashcards so he could focus on 10 capitals per week. After 5 weeks he learned all 50 state capitals. The best part was that he actually enjoyed learning them all.

Each week there are 10 different states from a particular region. For example, week 1 focuses on the western states.

There are 5 types of worksheets: Learn ’em, Crossword, Word Search, Match ’em & Label ’em. Also included are test pages, flashcards and an answer sheet. Each week expands on the last. By week 5 you have the option of testing just the 10 new state capitals or all 50. I gave Farm Kid1 both tests, but you certainly don’t have to.

Click here or the image below to download all the practice worksheets, flash cards, test & answer sheet for free.

Follow these links to access the files for the next 4 weeks:
Week 2 Worksheets
Week 3 Worksheets
Week 4 Worksheets
Week 5 Worksheets

I would love to hear how these worksheets worked for your students.

Note: Because these are large files, the files are zipped. You will need unzipping software to access the worksheets. This works best from a computer, as opposed to a phone or tablet.

These worksheets are free for you to use with your students and classroom. However, please credit Ridgetop Digital Shop and/or Ridgetop Farm & Garden when appropriate and don’t sell or share these files as your own.

Check out school themed photo booth props designed exclusively for my shop including these back to school sets:

BACK TO SCHOOL

The post Learning State Capitals – Week 1 appeared first on .

After visiting North America, the next stop on our imaginary world tour was to the Amazon rainforest in South America. This part of the world is a favorite for my kids – as I’m sure it is for many kids. There is such an array of fun plants & animals. They love the big snakes, colorful birds & frogs, monkeys & big cats.

Google defines a tropical rainforest as:

a luxuriant, dense forest rich in biodiversity, found typically in tropical areas with consistently heavy rainfall.

School Room

We used our globe & multiplication to figure out approximately how many miles it is from the temperate rainforest of the Pacific Northwest to the Amazon rainforest. We came up with 5,280 miles and marked it on our map.

Our biome pocket chart filled with info on the rainforest.

Left: Every week Farm Kid1 is “sending” a postcard to his dad who didn’t travel on this trip with us. He decorates the front & writes a little message on the back.

Right: South America stamp in Farm Kid1’s passport.

Left: Rainforest collage made by Farm Kid1.

Right: Farm Kid1 chose to do his rainforest animal report on a toucan. The animal report wheel is from Enchanted Learning.

A few rainforest goodies sitting in our geography center. Toy animals from the boys collection, a Tropical Rainforest leveled reader from scholastic, Afternoon on the Amazon Magic Tree House book & Jan Brett’s The Umbrella.

Field Trip

Our rainforest theme took us to the Oregon Zoo once again. To see my post on our trip through the Amazon Flooded Forest exhibit click here.

More Rainforest Info

Our South American Continent Box
Tina’s Dynamic Homeschool
Kids Do Ecology
Blue Planet Biomes
Enchanted Homeschooling Mom

Links to our Continents & Biomes:
North America – Temperate Rainforest
South America – Tropical Rainforest
Antarctica – Ice Cap
Africa – Sahara Desert
Australia – Coral Reef
Asia – Tundra
Europe – Deciduous Forest

The post Biomes of the World: Tropical Rainforest appeared first on .

The first stop on our world tour was a temperate rainforest in North America. This is very similar to the biome we live in, so it was a great place to start. Although, I think the idea of a temperate rainforest confused Farm Kid1 a little bit. He’s only ever heard about tropical rainforests. I could have also chosen a coniferous forest as our home biome.

Wikipedia‘s basic definition of a temperate rainforest is:

Temperate rainforests are coniferous or broadleaf forests that occur in the temperate zone and receive heavy rainfall.

School Room

This week the pocket chart showed the following information:
• average high temperature around 76°
• average low around 35°
• annual rainfall definitely varies, but averages around 100″
• example plant producers are salmon berry and moss
(Click here for a quick peek of our hike at Munson Creek Falls, with a stop for picking salmon berries)
• example herbivores are deer and elk
• example carnivores are black bear and cougar
• example decomposers are slugs and worms
(Click here for a post on how slugs mate)

Left: I stamped Farm Kid1’s “passport” with evergreen trees.
Right: Farm Kid1 chose to do his temperate rainforest animal report on the coyote.

Front side of his temperate rainforest postcard.

I sent Farm Kid1 on a mission to collect things from his bedroom that are found in the temperate rainforest. These are the things he came back with. They are placed near our world map and continent boxes.

Since we were visiting North America, we rummaged through our North America continent box – even though there wasn’t much on the temperate rainforest.

Field Trips

We had fun visiting both the Tillamook Forest Center and the World Forestry Center.

Around our House

Some maps state we live in a temperate rainforest, some don’t. Either way, we have many of the same plants and animals as Olympic National Park, which is a temperate rainforest. The temperate rainforest is dominated by large trees, but is also home to many mosses, lichens and epiphytes. Right now one of my favorite wildflowers is in bloom, the trillium.

This was a fun week. I actually learned a few things about our environment, as well.

For more information on a temperate rainforest check out this post from Marietta College or this pdf from Nasa.

Links to our Continents & Biomes:
North America – Temperate Rainforest
South America – Tropical Rainforest
Antarctica – Ice Cap
Africa – Sahara Desert
Australia – Coral Reef
Asia – Tundra
Europe – Deciduous Forest

The post Biomes of the World: Temperate Rainforest appeared first on .

When spring break was over, I was conflicted about whether to teach a unit studying the 7 continents or study the biomes of the world. When I saw this post on their virtual voyage, I decided I could do both. So, we are going to travel the world, stopping once on each continent. The main focus during our visit will be to study a biome on each continent that we haven’t studied before. Our travel itinerary is:

The first thing we had to do for our trip was make a map. All three kids helped me with this. I changed things just a tad from the map on se7en’s site.

Making the Background/Ocean

• poster board cut to roughly 26″x16″
• cut little, square-ish shaped pieces from colored tissue paper
• water-down glue & spread a thin layer over entire poster board
• let the kids stick tissue paper pieces all over the poster board

Coloring, Cutting, & Gluing the Map

• Printed a world map, scaled to fit our poster board
• I really liked the randomness of se7en’s map, so I told the kids to color the continents anyway they wanted, just be sure to color the entire continent.
• After the kids colored the map, I cut it out – which was tedious.
• Then we glued all the land pieces to the ocean.

Our Finished Map

The Map on Display

I’m excited to start this unit. It should be fun.

The post World Map Craft appeared first on .