Geography: Regions Radness

Hello darlings!  I wanted to share some Regions of the United States resources with all of you.  I was at a loss as to how to put all of the objectives together in an engaging way without doing A LOT of creating and prep work.  Thankfully, Linda over at Around the Kampfire, already had an awesome unit created!  Yay!

Look at one of the things we created from her unit!  Now I can't give you the recipe for the salt dough project, but I can tell you that the one she gives you works really well and the kiddos loved it!  Of course this was one of the last things we did in the unit.  

I especially loved her landform posters!  She had them to print out in color and put up in the room.  I also projected them on the smartboard when we learned about each one.  If you look behind the kiddos, you can see them.  I printed them in black and white and projected them on the screen in color.

We weren't concerned with the regions for this project.  We were created the major landforms of the U.S.  My third graders had to create the Appalachian Mountains, the Rocky Mountains, the Great Plains, the Desert, the Great Lakes, and the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers.  

As you can see below, kiddos had to draw the U.S. first and draw on the landforms before they were able to do the project.  

 This was very sticky and messy, but they loved it!  We used cardboard that students brought from home to hold the salt dough project and we used tempera paint from Michaels.

After we learn about landforms, I send this paper home for students to complete with their parents.  It is a great intro into regions because we can discuss the different places we have been.

To learn about the Regions of the U.S. students used different resources to research one assigned region.  Then their group had to teach the information to the class AND create a 2-3 question quiz for the class.  The group was responsible for grading all the papers.

Resources Used:
Eduplace Kids: interactive landform map
Pearson Social Studies Interactive
States in each region online quiz

Here is the packet that contains the graphic organizer for each region that I give them to fill out as they research.   I know that Geography info out there in cyberspace cannot agree on regions.  Some say there are 4, others say 5.  I use the regions that are in our social studies book.

Here are some groups presenting their information.  I gave them all anchor chart paper and they had to decide how they were going to present their information to the class.  

 I think that regions is the hardest to find any online resources for.  Do you have anything that you use?  I would love some other ideas!