North America Unit Study

Objectives

 •  Develop ability to print letters and copy words.
 •  Form upper and lower case letters.
 •  Follow directions.
 • Compare length and weight of objects by comparing to reference objects, and
use terms such as shorter, longer, taller, lighter, heavier.
 • Compare two or more objects by length, weight and capacity, e.g., which is
shorter, longer, taller?
• Recognize rhyming words.

Math

 
•  Find measurements of animals, cut out pieces of string as tall
as each animal.  Compare their sizes to each other and to members
of our family.
 •  write down weights of the animals.  See which is heavier, which is lighter.
 •  Make patterns with animal paw prints

Science

  • Prairie Dogs at the bottom of the page is a link to a video of them Coloring Page
 • Roadrunner Coloring Page
 • Duck  Coloring Page
 • Coyote  Coloring Page   Nat'l Geographic Coyote
 • Bear  Bear sounds Coloring Page Coloring Page2
 • ice/heat demonstration

 • Water flows downhill.
Use wooden blocks to raise one end of a plastic tub. Pour water into
the tub at the high end. Observe how it flows. Have her try to figure
out how to get the water to move uphill.  Talk about:

• Which way did your water move?
• Did you find a way to get the water to move uphill?
• Did the water stay up?
• Why do you think water always moves downward?

(day
or two before) Make a mountain out of clay, let it harden.   
After water experiment, take some snow and place on top of
mountain.  Watch where the water goes as the snow melts.  If
no snow available, pour a little water on top of mountain.

• Sink or Float.  Have various items and have her guess whether they will sink or float in water.  Put in water and see what happens.
•  Print off images of animals, let them color.  Match the animals to their environment.

Reading

• Do worksheet 
• write the names of each animal

Geography

  • Desert - printables   more printables
  • Mountains
  • Rivers
  • Great Lakes

Make a map: blank map of north america

Take a plastic tablecloth and spread it out.  Draw an outline of
the United States onto the cloth.  Make some salt dough and use
the dough to make the physical features onto the map.  Use paint
to draw in the main rivers and lakes.

Art

  •Make a desert diorama OR just print off, color, and glue images onto background without the shoebox.
 • Sandpaper Rubbing Cut out sandpaper in cactus shape.
Tape it to the table. Give each child a piece of paper and a crayon.
The child will place the paper over the sandpaper and rub the crayon
over the paper to make the shape appear on their paper.

Books

  •  Shanna's Animal Riddles
  •  Scorpion book
  • A living desert / by Guy J. Spencer J 574.5 S
  • Alpine meadow / Paul Fleisher J 577.538 F
  • America's magnificent mountains 917.3 N
  • What's inside lakes? Jane Kelly Kosek J 577.63 K
  • Coyote / by Jalma Barrett J 599.77 B
  • Bears J 599.78
  • The friendly prairie dog / Denise Casey J 599.32 C
  • North America / Cass R. Sandak J 970 S

Links

 • DesertUSA
 • Great Lakes-Big Rivers
 •  Activity Pages
 • North American Wildlife (on the individual animal pages, you can hear their sounds)