Pacific Coast PDF

Pacific Coast is the first unit of the U.S. States geography course. It includes a study of Alaska, Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, and California. Students will also learn about the National Parks across the country.

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 Parks
• Hawaii
• Alaska
• Washington
• Oregon
• California

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:

• Build a pretend campfire indoors and learn about Teddy Roosevelt’s camping trip with John Muir
• Color a map of the National Parks
• Learn some Hawaiian vocabulary with flashcards
• Make a Hawaiian lei from paper flowers
• Paint and craft an Alaskan flag
• Go on an Alaskan wildlife webquest
• Make a 3 part posterboard presentation of Washington facts
• Craft an Oregon beaver from paper plates
• Go on an Oregon treasure hunt
• Play a gold rush game as you learn about California facts
• 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.

Pacific Coast 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.