Crafty Classroom (A REVIEW)

At the beginning of the summer I decided that we'd start a year-long study of the United States, so I was happy to try out for review the  USA Activity Bundle Pack from The Crafty Classroom. So many fun ways to explore the United States with this bundle including state-shaped mazes, state birds, and an activity notebook. All available as a downloadable pdf. Let's take a look at each component of the bundle!

First, we have 50 mazes...

There are 50 state-shaped mazes in this e-book download ready to be printed in any way you wish. They are originally full sheet mazes, but I made them into booklets (one for each boy) with the mazes half-sheet size. This makes them a little smaller, but still very doable. My boys love their booklets.

I made 50 maze booklets for my boys so they could each have their own.

Still a good size for doing the maze!

I told the boys they could go in any order they want, and that they didn't have to follow along with our weekly states. They could also work as fast or as slow as they desire.

Aric decided to start at the very beginning.

 Next, we have the State Birds realistic art cards...

This was probably, by far, my most favorite e-book of the bundle. It inspired a whole bird study, complete with a nature viewing window. Each page included in the state birds pdf file includes a space to write about the birds, a color picture of the bird, a blank bird to be colored in, and all of the states the bird is associated with. I was surprised to find out so many states shared their state bird!

One of the pages from the state bird pack.

One book is suggested by Crafty Classroom for use with this pack, United Tweets of America 50 State Birds by Hudson Talbott. This book is so cool. I checked it out from the library to see if we liked it first, and we loved it. I will probably be purchasing a copy of our own for our year-long study. I do highly recommend this book to go along with this pack as well. It is a good quick reference. We also used several of our own bird reference books as well.

We used the suggested book, United Tweets of America, along with some of our own bird reference books.

We all had fun coloring the bird cards, including Mom. The book was a great reference and even provided some humor. I encouraged anyone who worked on a bird page to write down a few facts about the birds on the lines.

Everyone colored pages, including Mom!

My boys enjoyed reading from the book while coloring their bird pages.

My goal was to get all the birds up in our window so that we could play the matching game, and have a reference. We'll get there eventually! This is how far we have made it so far.

I made a basket so that we can pull out the coloring pages and have the reference books available anytime. This makes my nature study heart so happy! I really like these bird cards.

Last of all, the U.S.A. Activity Notebook...

We have only made it through one state so far (it has been a busy summer!). So, the only page we have completed in the notebook is Connecticut. These pages are so nicely laid out. I love the items included on the pages. There are plenty of things to learn about with each state, and these pages really capture the best of it all.

3rd-grade boy

6th-grade boy

8th-grade boy (who doesn't think he should have to do this)

This USA activity bundle is just awesome. Such a fun resource for helping kids study the United States.

There are some other great resources from The Crafty Classroom that the other review crew members tried out. If you'd like to see what else they offer, click on the picture below!