Looking for fun and educational summer activities for kids?  Read on….

The U.S. States and Capitals

Broadway is going into fifth grade next month and has decided that she needs to memorize all of our states and capitals before the school year begins.

In fifth grade at her school, they do quite a bit of work on this subject and she would like to be prepared, so I decided to create a list of the states, capitals and abbreviations.

This will serve as a great study sheet.  You can easily cover one column while reciting the capital or state abbreviation.

I was not expecting this exercise of learning about our states to be an ongoing fun summer activity, but it has been a nice surprise to see how the kids all really enjoy learning about our nation.

Sometimes we will all try to name all of the “M” states or “A” states.  Everyone participates and it is as if we have created our own board game.  Super Fun.

I have attached the study sheet below in PDF format for your easy print out!

States and Capitals Study List

Hope you enjoy this fun and educational activity as much as we are.

Flag Frenzy-Great Educational Family Activity

My sister was in town over the fourth of July week and she brought a really fun card game for the kids called “Flag Frenzy”.

This game is so much fun, you completely forget about the fact that you are learning and that this is an “educational” game.

How it works:

1. Shuffle the Deck and place two cards face up on the table – these are the “table cards”.

2. Distribute the rest of the Cards evenly among the players, face down.

3. Dealer says “Flag Frenzy” and each player takes two cards from the top of their deck.

4. Quick – Find a Flag in your hand that matches one of the flags in the table cards.  First one to find a match puts that card on top (face up) and says the name of the matching flag/country.

5. Continent cards must be matched with a flag of a country on that continent (ex. France/Europe)

6. After you play a matching card, draw another card and try to find another matching flag!  The first

player to play all his or her cards wins the game!

During this game, you hear MANY country names being yelled (like “Myanmar, Philippines, Ukraine, Congo, Denmark, Indonesia, Sudan” etc…) and everyone is learning in the process.  It is really neat to hear our kids yell out the names of countries that we have never discussed before.

This game leads to many other discussions about geography and different country’s history and culture.

HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS GAME!