Trail Guide to U. S. Geography

This is an easy-to-follow resource to teach essential geographical facts and features of each of the 50 U.S. states. Includes 5-minute daily drills, mapping, building a geography notebook, and a wide variety of additional project choices. Students study the 50 states at the rate of about two states each week. The literature unit on the Lewis and Clark Expedition (using The Captain's Dog by Roland Smith) provides a thrilling way to drive home the relevance of knowing geography.

Students complete assignments by using atlases, outline maps, and other research materials. Incorporating the five themes of geography, students learn capitals, place location, climate, physical geography, and much more. These simple—yet thorough—assignment choices include:

Daily trails for an overview of geography

Interesting digging deeper activities

Geography through Literature

There are a variety of ways to use the three-part manual. Teachers simply select which parts of the book will best meet their needs and objectives. And yes...there are answers in the back of the book!

This interesting approach to teaching makes learning fun and memorable. No student workbook is needed (although Notebook CD-ROMs are available) because students will develop their own personal notebooks full of colorful maps, intriguing facts, and surprisingly pertinent information.

Students WILL need outline maps of each state (see Uncle Josh's Outline Map Book and a U.S. Atlas. Upper grades (8th and up) will also need a world almanac to perform the daily drills. Art projects use Visual Manna's Teaching Geography Through Art. The Geography Terms Chart is a helpful resource to understand and answer the geography terms questions.