US Geography: Twenty-five Cents (& a Contest!)

Well, actually it will cost you more like $12.50.

US Geography using state quarters….what could be more simple?  Or fun?

Several years ago, Big D’s dad, whom my children affectionately call “Pa,” started collecting the state quarters for all of his grandchildren.  At the time, I think he had three.  He now has seven, with one more on the way, so it has turned out to be a more costly venture than he first anticipated.  Last year, he presented all the collections in map binders to each child…

We all ooohed and aaahed over them, and then we put them on a shelf and didn’t think about them much…until last week.

I started a state-by-state geography study with Dirty Harry this year.  We are going alphabetically and making a notebook filled with all of our findings of each state.  When we got to Alaska, I found this sheet on the internet….

As you can see, it shows an illustration of the Alaska’s state quarter and then asks some questions, in which your student can answer inductively just by studying the coin.  I thought the concept was pure genius, and you can find sheets for the other states here.  The whole activity got me thinking about the coin collection, and so we got it out and have been pouring over it for the past few days.  Even if you don’t end up using the sheets, you can learn a lot just by studying and discussing the coins themselves.

Here’s the quarter for our state…

All of the quarters list the year the state was admitted to the union.  Some include state nicknames.  Many include symbols, like ours.  Guitars…of course.  I’m actually quite surprised that Elvis wasn’t on ours.

Here is the state where the older kids were born….

It includes the nickname, the state bird (Carolina wren) and the state tree (the Palmetto…what else?).  Half the things in the state of South Carolina are named Palmetto something-or-other, and I think you should know that encounters with Palmetto bugs are some of the most unpleasant experiences you’ll have in your life.

See?  Study of the state quarters sparks all sorts of interesting conversations.

Many quarters depict historical scenes.  Above you can see North Carolina commemorates Kitty Hawk.  Virginia, below, shows the English ships coming to Jamestown…

Other state quarters show famous landmarks, like Arizona and the Grand Canyon…

After a thorough perusal of all the coins, I think my favorite is Connecticut….

I just love that tree!  I’m considering stenciling it on my living room wall.

Because I have this thing for skulls, I think Montana is pretty cool too.

I haven’t had a contest in a while, so I’m giving away one of the map binders like mine (well…it will be fairly close to mine as I’m having a hard time finding the exact match).  If you’d like to be in the running to get one of these cool maps, leave me a comment telling me which state quarter is your favorite.  If you don’t have a favorite, just make it up….I won’t know the difference.  If you want to link to this contest via facebook, twitter, or your own blog site, just let me know that you’ve done that, and I’ll enter you once for however many times you blabbed.  The contest will end Friday at 8pm Eastern, and I’ll announce the winner sometime over the weekend. (Continental US entries only….sorry!)

Oh, and the quarters are NOT included.  I wouldn’t want to rob you the experience of collecting your own!