TOG and Geography
August 20, 2008 by SmockLady
Filed under Geography, Handy Helpfuls, Planning, TOG, curriculum
Read 727 times
Specifically, the United States and the growing State Card Bank. As TOG suggests creating a bank of cards with state info on them I have created our own version. I liked the cards that come in the curriculum for copying, but for two things: 1) they were an odd size and I wanted them to be an easy 4×6 inch standard so that it would be easy to laminate with some prefab laminate cards and 2) I wanted to add the state capital on the list. I am not sure why TOG does not have this on there. I know that these have changed for some states throughout the years, but so have the flags.
Here is a photo of the front of the cards (blurred and bad angle and a glare, sorry). I did a quick mock-up for example.
Here is a photo of the back of the cards (also blurred and bad angle and a glare, sorry. again.)
I spent some time playing around in Publisher or Photoshop (whichever I was in the mood for at the time) and created our own version of these cards. I saved them as PDFs so that they could easily be shared here and printing them would be easy too. I have two versions of the cards. My girls wanted a nicer smooth looking card so I made some with rounded corners and then some standard square cornered cards. Both measure 4×6 and fit nicely in the prefab laminate pouches that can be found at most office supply stores; I think I have seen these at Wal*mart and at Target as well.
I also realized that we would spend numerous hours saving and resizing the flags each time we sat at the computer to collect our data for each state’s card. So I went a step further – I collected all the state flags in one file on my computer, resized them for use on the state cards, and I even labeled them so the children did not have to guess since they do not know these yet. And you are all the lucky recipients of my labor as well since I have decided to share those too. Woot! go me.
Go here for downloads of the state cards and info.
Update:
I have added the files for the State Outlines.
If you came to download the files, please consider leaving me a comment saying so. I’d love to know they were of interest/help to you. Anyway, a comment isn’t much to ask for when I am sharing freely, is it? :^)
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I have even gone so far as to collect pictures of each state’s outline, bird, flower, and tree. We are thinking about putting a cutout of each of these items on the back our state card before we laminate it. I’m going to post about our alternative plan tomorrow. For now I have each category in a separate PDF. Again, I will be sharing them with you. Woot-y-woot! go-go me.
Update 2:
I have added the files for the State Flags.
I am hoping to gather the information into cumulative files, giving each state it’s own page/file with all the information (photo files and clip art) for that one state on a page. These will be worked on and saved in the order the states entered the union.
These are not completed yet, but I will post again when they are. I hope these files are useful to someone else out there besides us.
Go you is right! I am in awe! Thank you for making things so streamlined. I had everything together, but you put all the info in files to be stored on the computer and printed at our whim. I like the shape of your state cards. For the past years I’ve just trimmed the TOG ones and they looked less than professional. Way to fine-tune an already good idea to make it great and rewarding. I’ll link to you when I write my weekly report on what we’ve accomplished! Pam
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Pam – thanks. I’m glad you can use them. OH, and I would definitely love the link. Thanks.
The SmockLady Rocks! I was thinking the exact same thing about the odd shape of the TOG cards. I am amused and thrilled that you have put so much time and skill into this project. Thank you!
Wendy
Thank you for sharing. I think I will use these to make a matching game for the kids. :cool:
Ooops, I didn’t sign in here. :) Thanks so much for sharing. It’s very kind of you to save us all the time.
Yeah, I don’t know if we’ll use these this year, as we’re starting with the ancients, but hey, maybe we’ll make a game out of it or something. Who knows. But thanks. :)
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Thanks so much for sharing this information! I appreciate the work that went into it and look forward to using it as we use Year 3 next year.
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Thank you for making the state outlines and flags available! They are awesome! Thank you for posting on the TOG forums, too.
Caroline
THANKS! I love creating my own stuff, but TOG overwhelms me–so much to do! Thanks for sharing!
What a blessing, thank you for sharing your talents with us. :)
Dear Smock Lady,
Woman, I like how you think! Great job on these! We are on our second go-round with Year 3, my now-Rhetoric daughter did the cards but i stuck them all on notebook pages so they wouldn’t get lost.
You, however, managed to add all the things I was planning to – Thank You!!
Have a great year,
Caryl in San Diego