When we first arrived here, my oldest went into fourth grade, just at the point when the class was learning all the states in the US. This involved being able to place them on a map, and knowing their postal abbreviations and capitals. This was a rather daunting task for him, to say the least, so I said I’d do it with him. It was something of a challenge for me too, since my geography of the US was so bad that I didn’t get much beyond knowing that California was on the west coast, New York on the east, and we were somewhere in the middle. So we plodded through together, and now, if I’m ever on your pub quiz team, I will be able to help out with the location of all the states and their postal abbreviations (so many beginning with M, it’s just crazy - you darn Americans, you should have set a cap on the number of states allowed to begin with the same letter). I’ve forgotten all the capitals, though. Sorry.
So now my second child is in fourth grade, and has been through the same exercise. I didn’t volunteer to do it with him, but instead came up with a suitable bribe, and the deed was duly done over the course of a few weeks. But they’ve introduced a new project since oldest learned his states. Each child picks the name of a state out of a hat, and then has to research that state, and put together a report and a scrap book. I remember oldest doing a scaled down version of this (he got Wisconsin), but it’s since really blossomed into a magnum opus. The children wrote to the relevant state tourist office in class, so the first task was to intercept the brochure which arrived and not chuck it in the bin with the other junk mail. The report had to include a rough draft as well as a final copy, an outline (I never did quite understand what this was, but it involved writing in bubbles), and a bibliography citing at least three different sources. The scrap book was to supplement the report, with illustrations and… oh heck, you all know what a scrap book is.
Hurrah for the good luck with which 10-yo picked Colorado out of the hat. It’s an interesting and picturesque state, and we’ve been there, which surely helped. So, following the suggested format, Husband and I helped 10-yo put together a report about Colorado’s geography, history, flag, emblems, state government, famous people, main industries, places to visit, sports teams, and ‘fun facts’. You might know that Colorado has the highest mean altitude of all the states, but I bet you didn’t know that Colfax Avenue in Denver is the longest continuous street in America, or that Colorado is one of only two states in which all the water in the state flows out of it and none flows in. (Brownie point to anyone who can name the other one.) We helped him cut out pictures from the tourist office brochure, draw maps, and stick in photos of our own Colorado experiences.
Then last week, the children hosted The Second Annual Fourth Grade State Fair. (Yes, the Second Annual one… I don’t make this stuff up, you know). The school gym was duly decorated in red, white and blue, and each child had half a long table on which to display his or her scrap book and report, and any items that represented the state in some way. They were allowed to offer food items (this being America, where the policy ‘no snack left behind’ is in full operation). And they were to dress in an appropriate costume. Thus it was that 10-yo borrowed some ski goggles, and donned his snow boots, his winter coat and a woolly hat, and brandishing a couple of ice axes that I hardly even knew we possessed (maybe I really did marry an axe murderer by mistake), declared himself an ice-climber. His half of the table displayed a pair of hiking boots, a few boxes of ‘Celestial Seasonings’ tea (one of the biggest herbal tea companies in the world, which started with one Coloradoan gathering and drying wild herbs), and a little glass vial of iron pyrite, the substance known as ‘fool’s gold’ which we had panned from a stream when visiting an old gold mine on one of our trips (and which 10-yo insists is actually real gold). The food he offered was potato chips (crisps, to you Brits), because they grow a lot of potatoes in Colorado. By a stroke of happy luck, I just happened to be in a health food shop a few days beforehand, and spotted a brand called ‘Boulder potato chips’, which hailed from Boulder, Colorado. How clever was that?! (and they were even on special offer).
I thoroughly enjoyed the Second Annual Fourth Grade State Fair. It opened with the children singing a couple of songs, my favorite being ‘The Nifty Fifty’, which included a rapid run-through of all fifty states in alphabetical order. Quite a feat of memory and verbal articulation. Then the fourth graders took their places at their tables, and we all circulated round the displays, ‘we’ being the fourth grade parents, and kids and teachers from other grades.
The children were happy and confident, and as you approached their stand, they would readily engage you in conversation and share their knowledge about their state. This is one great benefit that my kids will have received from an education here. They are taught to present confidently and clearly. They have no problem addressing you as you walk up, saying “Would you like me to tell you about Vermont?” or “My state is Hawai’i. Would you like to sample some pineapple?” It will be a useful life skill, and not one we teach in the UK (not as far as I know). I loved the costumes: a cowboy from Oklahoma, a southern belle from Georgia, a scientist from Maryland, the Statue of Liberty from New York State. The snacks were fun and varied: fruit of many kinds, fish sticks, bread, cheese, green jello (looking at you, Utah), Ritz crackers (I thought they originated at the Ritz Hotel in London, but apparently they’re from Maryland), rice krispy cakes (did you know that Arkansas produces half the rice grown in the US?) and various drinks, including milk, which is the state beverage of several states. Who knew?
I loved the enthusiasm of the fourth graders to share the wonderfully random ‘fun facts’. The official state cookie of Maryland is the chocolate chip (yes… some states have official state cookies). In Oklahoma it is illegal to take a bite out of someone else’s hamburger, and you may not take elephants into the downtown area of Tulsa. Also in Oklahoma, women may not gamble in the nude, in lingerie, or while wearing a towel. Good to know.
All in all, it was a great event, an imaginative culmination to the state projects. If I was American, it would have made me proud to be American. As a resident alien (yay), it made me reflect on really how incredible the USA is. What a land of plenty, and variety, and beauty. So much to offer “from sea to shining sea” as the words of America the Beautiful go. You may not know, incidentally, that the words of that song were written by Katharine Lee Bates, after being inspired by the view from the top of Pikes Peak. Pikes Peak in Colorado, that is.
.
