Whenever I’m back home in the US, I’m always grabbing books about the nation
to help the kids learn more about their American side. One of my favorite books
is Laurie Keller’s
The Scrambled States of America, which I just read to them again today.
In it, Kansas decides he’d like to meet some other states, so all the states
have a party to meet each other. That leads to the idea of swapping places. It’s
a great, great read, with all the states deciding they want to go back home in
the end. My kids are entranced by it and love parts like Nevada and Mississippi
falling in love, plus some of the trivia the book has.
Even I learned things, such as Michigan having a
thumb region.
That got me to thinking about the various ways I learned to remember some of the
states, which I’ve been passing on to the kids.
California is easy, in that they know it’s Daddy’s state. But I did initially
remind them that if you look at it, it sort of forms the shape of a C for
California. Similarly, Texas always looked like a lower case T to me, while
Louisiana looks like an L.
Then there are parts of states that have names based on what they look like,
such as the Oklahoma panhandle and the aforementioned Michigan thumb. I’d love
to know what some other areas of states are referred to by those who live there.
It’s one of those things you don’t know if you’re from out of state. If I
eventually enable comments on the blog, please post some you know of below.
At the end of the book, all the states are listed alphabetically. I made the
mistake of singing these for the kids to the tune of Fifty Nifty United States,
or what I can remember of it from learning it in elementary school. I always
lose the tune near the middle.
Turns out, the song was written by Ray Charles. You can get the sheet music
or CDs
here, see the lyrics (you’ll know most of them)
here. Want
to hear it? Through Yahoo’s audio
search engine, I found a short clip
here.
