All of our Study of...guides include a great resource list and while we'd like to carry EVERYTHING we like...we just can't. But we do try to carry enough items to get you started like:

A teacher's guide - The Study of...series. We also carry a nonfiction book (which contains information to teach), a read aloud (to use during your read aloud time) , an educational colorbook (to teach from and also to use pictures in notebooks), and most studies we carry stickers, stencils and a few other items. You would probably want to purchase a few more items and also pick up a few more at the library...but you could DO a unit study with these few items!

Ideas for using stickers:
These are obviously great for your young students but they can also be used to decorate the sides of lined paper (found in our Notebook Package) for writing assignments. We also like to use them just to decorate pages like the notebook record sheet, an assignment sheet, notebook covers etc. Try to provide these littel "extras" to make student's notebooks a real fun and exciting work of art and creativity.

Ideas for using stencils:
Stencils are fun to use for covers and for helping jump start students artwork. Once when we were studying Cowboys we used the hat stencil in the Wild West stencils by drawing four on a page and then decorating them with different types of hat bands like: leather, braided, snake skin, and so on. We learned about "hats" in the nonfiction book - Bandanas Chaps and Ten Gallon Hats!

Sticker Pictures:
Sticker Pictures are like "colorforms" where figures peel and stick onto a background. These are great for keeping little ones happy and quiet during your study time!

Educational Colorbooks:
I have had more people say, "Oh, my kids don't like to color." But when I explain that these are not Boo Boo Bear type colorbooks but instead wonderful line drawings all about a topic which include captions to teach from...it is a whole different picture (pardon the pun!) One great ideas for coloring books is to use a picture to spur a writing assignment. For example: you have a picture about pioneers doing chores so you could describe Pioneer Chores and the picture could accompany the writing assingment in the notebook. Boys in particular don't like to color much so I tell my nine year old son he must color one throughout the study. This way he can take it out each time I read aloud and work on his ONE picture!
All of the topics in this unit study series have one thing in common ...they are extensive or contain alot. So when you wonder "How will I ever teach about the 50 states...or Presidents...or Explorers..." you can take a Quick Look and conduct more of a hands on study instead of going too in depth. The way we recommend using these guides is to continue to do your regular unit studies but set one afternoon aside and do one of the Quick Look studies with your students (grades 2-4th and up - because they will have to do some writing). I usually get out several books about my topic and read to my kids. For example, when studying the 50 States, I read about bordering states, what grows or is produced in that state, when it was admitted to the Union, it's nickname and so on. Each Map Page is accompanied by a Fact Sheet to fill in. While I am reading, my kids decorate the map with mountains, rivers, large red dots for big cities and a star for the capital etc. These studies are more hands on and some come with stickers (50 states has bird and flags to stick on). The Quick Look studies are ready for the student to work in so they are a complete study - aside from obtaining some nonficiton books with the information in them to teach from. You CAN reproduce them for your own and family.