Alaska unit study

This year for our homeschool geography we’re switching between country studies and state studies.  Since my Mom took a cruise up in Alaska I thought it’d be fun to study Alaska as our first state.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with how I do our geography lessons, they are primarily literature-based.  I search my library for any and all books on the country or state and we read as many of them as I can find time for.

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Alaska unit study books

We had some very fun books for Alaska this time. I bolded a few of my favorite books.

• The EXXON Valdez Oil Spill– which led to a fun discussion about how we can keep nature safe
• Kumak’s House: A Tale of the Far North – I am totally blanking on this book
• Disappearing Lake Exploring Glaciers (Geography Zone: Landforms) – I found the geography quite fascinating
• Exploring Glaciers (Geography Zone: Landforms) – the kids were especially interested in this because my Mom got to go on a glacier
• River of Life – I loved the illustrations of this one and the exploration of wildlife
• The Long, Long Journey: The Godwit’s Amazing Migration– I learned so much about these birds as we read, and discovered the Wondermaps world map was perfect for this activity
• Grizzly Bears of Alaska: Explore the Wild World of Bears – Batman used this for his Alaskan animal report
• Kali’s Story: An Orphaned Polar Bear Rescue -and Superman used this one, for his report
• The Incredible Life of Balto – Princess loved this one, but…
• The Bravest Dog Ever: The True Story of Balto (Step-Into-Reading) – This was her favorite Balto book
• Big-Enough Anna – there are a lot of books about the Iditarod
• Up on Denali: Alaska’s Wild Mountain (PAWS IV) – We studied Alaska shortly after the mountain was renamed
• Big Alaska: Journey Across America’s Most Amazing State – I loved the aerial tour of Alaska we got with this book
• Akiak: A Tale From the Iditarod – another book Princess absconded with

Alaska unit study supplies

Alaska printable (available in my subscriber page join my newsletter), Wondermaps*

Alaska unit study lapbook

So, we did our Alaska study right around when I got my overhead projector, and it was quite handy for some of the activities as I could draw on the projector, and the kids could see what I was drawing much more easily.  This was our project for “Big Alaska,” and my freehand drawing of Alaska.

As we took our aerial tour of Alaska we drew pictures to represent what was found there.  It made for a very colorful map at the end.

What we put in our Alaska lapbook:

• the super cool notebooking pages I found that look to be discontinued (bummer). They are so I made my own, United States Notebooking Pages
• what’s found in an Alaskan river (to go with River of Life)
• world map for the godwit bird migration
• glacier measurement
• and should be, but is lost, 4 animal reports: polar bear, grizzly bear, sled dog, and bald eagle

More great 6th grade lessons

At some point, I need to actually sit down and decide what years the kids were in different grades because I’m just trying to remember what year for each grade. Of course, I’m also kind of feeling out of it when I’m updating this in 2024, so I am quite confident I have the years wrong.

• Thomas Edison history lesson
• Morning Time for Middle School
• How to make a writer’s notebook
• food web lesson
• Colonial games lesson

Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons