The Post Card Project - Oregon!

As one of our homeschool projects, I thought it would be fun to learn about all 50 states, and hopefully some other countries too.  I requested postcards on car-seat.org, and got a lot of people willing to send them to us.

Our first arrived on Saturday, from Boring, Oregon.  Which is not actually Boring, its just named Boring.     We spent today learning all about Oregon, and making a lapbook (our first!).

Here is what we did:

Front: A map of the United States with Oregon colored in, we talked about where Oregon is in comparison to where we live (Florida)
Next is a map of Oregon state, he practiced his handwriting again here and labeled the state capital, Salem.

Inside-
Top: Oregon State Quarter.  We looked at a picture of the quarter (I need to find an actual one!), and then looked online at a video of how Crater Lake was formed.   Levi then re-told me the process, and I wrote it down for him.  He illustrated each step in a mini-book.
     1. It was a volcano with lava under it and stones.
     2. It exploded
     3. Lava drained out
     4. The volcano splatted down
     5. There was a crater and rain filled it up.

Finally, we made our own playdoh (which is a cooking/measuring lesson in itself), and then used that to make a model of a crater and then of a volcano.   Its whole wheat flour, which is why its brown, and Levi is allergic to dye (and vinegar for that matter) so no red food coloring in the baking soda/vinegar volcano.  But it was still fun!  We even added water to the crater, to show how it filled up.

Middle:
On the left is the postcard we received from Boring, Oregon (Thank you Elizabeth!).  Its a picture of Mt. Hood, and Lost Lake - so pretty!    We put it in the lapbook so that you can still flip it over to read the back.  On the back, Elizabeth wrote about having a miniature sheep farm - a miniature farm, with miniature sheep!  Levi thought that was great, and I had to pull up pictures of miniature sheep for him online so he could see what they looked like.   Then he made his own little sheep with cotton circles for the fluff.

Next is the Oregon flag.  Did you know it is the only flag that has a front and a back?  The back has a beaver on it!
We looked at a picture of the flag, and talked about what each symbol on it means.   There are more than this, but these are what Levi included in his mini book:
Ships representing trade
33 stars representing the 33 States in the Union
Wheat/plow representing farming
Covered wagon representing the Oregon trail
Elk representing the abundance of game
Eagle representing the United States.

Bottom -
A picture of a beaver, for "The Beaver State", and with that, we made a model of a dam and discussed how that works:

Based on what Levi seemed to be interested in, we may do more detailed studies on volcano's, and the Oregon Trail.


And as for sewing projects, I finished up a pair of cargo pants style sweat pants that I will take pics of tomorrow!