Teaching U.S. States and Capitals

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Teaching U.S. States and Capitals
By Stacy

I taught the U.S. states and capitals in centers. What I did was divide the country into 4 basic regions (Northeast, Southeast, Midwest, and Westcoast). I then took the map and made an overhead of it. I then blew up
each region on my overhead and traced poster sized copies of each region. With these copies I made puzzles to help the kids learn. These were the basis of my centers. The centers went like this:

Center 1: Kids were given a blank copy of the region map and were asked to fill in the state name and its capital.
Center 2: Kids were given a poster size copy of the region map

and cards with the states name and capital (for a challenge I also had cards with the state names and capitals seperated. Their job was to put the names on the correct spot on the map.

Center 3: Kids were given the states of the region puzzle (this was a region poster board cut up) and were asked to put them in the correct places.

Center 4: Kids were given a cloze activity worksheet of the states and capitals and resource books. They were then asked to find out which states belonged to which capitals.....

I was amazed at how well my kids learned their states and capitals because of this tactile method. I gave this unit to another teacher and she used it this year and was amazed by her students progress as well. I hope this helps....Stacy