Heartland PDF

Heartland is the fifth unit of the U.S. States geography course. It includes a study of  Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio. Students will also learn about the national symbols of America such as the national anthem, animal, seal, and motto.

This unit is a guide for the mentor to use in creating lessons and directing discussions and learning. It is not a textbook for the student.

Thus unit includes sections on:

• National Symbols
• Wisconsin
• Illinois
• Indiana
• Michigan
• Ohio

Each Layers of Learning Geography unit includes library lists of books, a family read-aloud suggestion, hands-on activities, printables and paper crafts, sidebars for extra learning, and tools to help you assess student’s progress and mastery. Learn more about how Layers of Learning works.

Hands-on Learning

Mentors choose books or videos to learn about the focus of that day’s lesson and then direct the students in a hands-on activity. Here are some of the choices from this unit:

• Make your own bald eagle t-shirt
• Color the Great Seal and identify its symbolism
• Craft a Wisconsin cheesehead hat
• Make an interactive lift-the-flap poster about Illinois
• Cook Chicago style deep dish pizza
• Use printable Indianapolis 500 race cars to make a fact poster about Indiana
• Paint the Great Lakes and label important sites
• Craft a felt version of Ohio’s flag
• Make a model of the Hopewell mounds
• Plus much more!

Flexibility

This unit was written to be used for a month but contains plenty of content for many more weeks of learning if you choose. This is a pick-and-choose curriculum, meant to be cycled back to in the future when your child is older. As such, it intentionally includes far more material than you can possibly cover in a month.

Plains is also part of the overall U.S. States course.

Printable Pack

This unit comes with a downloadable Printable Pack that includes all the student worksheets. The printables can be copied as many times as needed for your family or class.

Extra Resources

This unit comes with extra weblinks and a YouTube video playlist on the U.S. States Resources page.