Southwest PDF

Southwest is the third unit of the U.S. States geography course. It includes a study of Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma. Students will also learn about the people and culture of the entire 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:

• People of America
• Arizona
• New Mexico
• Texas
• Oklahoma

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:

• Color a map showing where major ethnicities of the United States settled
• Craft an American flag and label it with American values
• Fill a paper “closet” with American style clothing
• Make a paper Arizona flag
• Write your own guidebook to the deserts of the United States
• Make a hot air balloon craft celebrating New Mexico
• Make your own bolo tie, southwest style
• Craft a model of the Alamo
• Color and label a map of Route 66
• 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.

Southwest 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.