Arizona

This state proved to be more of a challenge than we thought it would be - there were lots of interesting facts, but not enough to fill out Hayden's word poem. Ah well, we made due.

A - Apache Trail

R - Ruby (ghost town)
I - Independent

Z - Zinc (mining)

O - OK Corral

N - National Parks (Grand Canyon, Petrified Forest, Saguaro)

A - Arizona

The boys are already looking forward to Texas and The Alamo (with all the talk about Wyatt Earp & Tombstone & The OK Corral, the couldn't believe we couldn't use Alamo as one of our A's)

Bayley is really pushing for a field trip that corresponds to the state of the week. I wish we could have flown the family down to the Grand Canyon for this one...but Bayley said it would be OK if we did it when we hit Nevada. Gee, thanks. I'll work on that.

ALASKA

Have you ever tried to draw a template for a state that has a long chain of islands? And lots of curves? Alaska's pillow is definitely an intermediate skill level!

The boys picked gray for all the snow when it melts (apparently they do remember something of Uncle Gabe's complaints about break-up when all the snow melts).

The best part of our Alaska week was Bayley telling us fables he'd read about native peoples and polar bears and glaciers. I was equally proud and impressed by his impromptu recall.



Aurora Borealis
Largest State
Amatignak Island (westernmost point in the US)
Seward's Folly (the purchase of Alaska from Russia)
Kodiak
Aleutian Islands

We tried a new recipe in honor of our state of the week - Baked Alaska. But, we did it with cupcakes...does that make it Baked Aleutians?

Grace & Jeff gobbled them up. The boys and I made a valiant effort at the meringue...then ripped it off and ate our ice cream stuffed cupcakes.

ALABAMA

Each week brings a new state into the Burke casa, beginning (alphabetically) with Alabama. Since there are 52 weeks in a year, we'll do the 50 states, Washington DC...and probably Puerto Rico.

We started with a little reading about the state and a worksheet about the state quarter. Each boy did a state facts worksheet, and Hayden wrote a poem to highlight what we learned ::

A - Alonso Alvarez de Pineda (first Western explorer)
L - Long leaf pine (state tree)
A - Activist (Rosa Parks)
B - Braille (Helen Keller)
A - Airmen (Tuskagee)
M - Mobile
A - Astronauts (space camp)

Then we started our annual craft project - state pillows!

I got this idea from my friend Nicole, who's boys like to create characters with whatever scaps of stuff they find lying about. Felt pillows are the easiest way I know of to teach the sewing basics, so we opted for that.

Who knows, myabe by summer my boys will be turning pillow scraps into imaginary creatures!