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🌎 🇺🇸 SUNDAY STATES: U.S. Territories and World Oceans (To Close the Year)

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Tour the United States and travel the countries of the world each week with the River Houses. Our Sunday States & Countries posts will point the way.

Many homeschoolers like to review the U.S. states and the nations of the world each year, and our recommended homeschool reference library includes a current world almanac, a world atlas, and a history encyclopedia that make these reviews fun and easy. We started our tour at the beginning of the River Houses year in September and are now approaching the end! We’ve completed all the regular states — it’s convenient to have 50 states to cover in a 52-week year — so we’ll wind up our United States survey with the several U.S. Territories and Possessions that are scattered around the globe. You can find them at the end of the “States and Other Areas of the U.S.” section of your almanac:

Another important United States “territory” is our federal city, the District of Columbia, formed originally from parts of Maryland and Virginia, but by design not part of any state:

  • 🇺🇸 THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA along the Potomac River between Maryland and Virginia. Population: 671,803. Capital: Washington. Official bird: Wood Thrush (bird guide page 412). Website: dc.gov.

❡ Little lessons: You can teach a hundred little lessons with our state-of-the-week posts, using your reference library as a starting point. Find the location of the state capital in your atlas each week. Look up the state bird in your bird guide. Read the almanac’s one-paragraph history aloud each week. Using each state’s official website (above), find and copy the preamble to that state’s constitution into a commonplace book over the course of the year. Practice math skills by graphing each state’s population and area. Look up the famous state residents listed in your almanac either online or at your local library. The possibilities are endless and they can be easily adapted to each student’s age and interests. Pick a simple pattern to follow for just a few minutes each week and your little lesson is done. By the end of the year, without even realizing it, your students will have absorbed a wealth of new geographical and historical information, as well as a host of valuable reading and research skills. 🔎

❡ Maps to color: National Geographic has a large blank United States map and a blank world map, complete with flags, printable in sections and ready to receive the colored pencils of your students. Why not give them a try this week. 🖍

And since we’ve now finished up the world’s land areas — the nation-states and the non-national continent of Antarctica — this week we’ll cover what is actually the largest part of the earth’s surface: the oceans. The world’s five oceans, in order of size, with links to their Wikipedia pages, are:

  • 🌊 THE PACIFIC OCEAN between the eastern hemisphere to the west, and the western hemisphere to the east. Area: 60,060,893 sq. mi. Average depth: 14,040 ft.
  • 🌊 THE ATLANTIC OCEAN between the western hemisphere to the west, and the eastern hemisphere to the east. Area: 29,637,974 sq. mi. Average depth: 11,810 ft.
  • 🌊 THE INDIAN OCEAN south of the continent of Asia. Area: 26,469,620 sq. mi. Average depth: 12,800 ft.
  • 🌊 THE SOUTHERN OCEAN surrounding the continent of Antarctica. Area: 7,848,299 sq. mi. Average depth: 14,450 ft.
  • ❄️ THE ARCTIC OCEAN covering the north polar region. Area: 5,427,052 sq. mi. Average depth: 4,300 ft.

A wealth of information and many beautiful maps of the world’s oceans can be found in your current world almanac and homeschool atlas as well.

What grand global geographical excursions (real or virtual) have you and your students made in your homeschool this Hercules Term? 😊

❡ Read and think critically: The external country links we provide each week typically go to official government websites, which are not always in English and which may well be propagandistic in one way or another, thus offering older students a good opportunity to exercise their critical reading and thinking skills. 🔎

❡ Come, here's the map: Teaching your students to be fluent with high-quality maps — not just basically competent, but fluent — is one of the best educational gifts you can give them. Why not look up any one of our selected states or countries each week in your recommended homeschool atlas and show your students how to locate rivers, lakes, marshes, water depths, mountains and their elevations, highway numbers, airports, oil fields, railroads, ruins, battle sites, small towns, big cities, regional capitals, national capitals, parks, deserts, glaciers, borders, grid references, lines of longitude and latitude, and much more. (Yes, you can find all those things on the large maps in your atlas.) There is so much information packed into high-quality maps that a magnifying glass is always helpful, even for young folks with good eyesight. The endpapers of the atlas and the map-reading information on Plate 2 (10th and 11th eds.) will guide you in your voyages of discovery. 🗺

❡ Plan an imaginary vacation: Here's a fun exercise for your students: take one of the countries that we list each week and write out a family travel plan. How would you get there? How much will it cost? Will you need a passport? Where will you stay? Will you have to exchange your currency? How do you say hello the local language? What cities and attractions and landmarks will you visit? What foods will you eat? How will you get around (car, train, boat, mule)? Make a simple worksheet with blank spaces for the answers, have your students do the research, and start planning your world tour. ✈️ 🚞 🚗 🛳 🐎 😊

❡ Print this little lesson: Down at the bottom of this post you'll find a special "Print" button that will let you create a neat and easy-to-read copy of this little lesson, and it will even let you edit and delete sections you don't want or need (such as individual images or footnotes). Give it a try today! 🖨

❡ The great globe itself: This is one of our regular Sunday States & Countries posts. Print your own River Houses States & Countries Calendar and follow along with us as we take an educational tour of the United States and the whole world over the course of the homeschool year. And don't forget to add your name to our free mailing list to get more great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox every week. 🌐

❡ Homeschool calendars: We have a whole collection of free, printable, educational homeschool calendars and planners available on our main River Houses calendar page. They will help you create a light and easy structure for your homeschool year. Give them a try today! 🗓

❡ Support our work: If you enjoy our educational materials, please support us by starting your regular Amazon shopping from our very own homeschool teaching supplies page. When you click through from our page, any purchase you make earns us a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you for helping us to keep going and growing! 🛒

❡ Join us! The aim of the River Houses project is to create a network of friendly local homeschool support groups — local chapters that we call “Houses.” Our first at-large chapter, Headwaters House, is now forming and is open to homeschoolers everywhere. Find out how to become one of our founding members on the Headwaters House membership page. 🏡

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