Scrambed States of America!

Sometime last year on one of our weekly library visits, Shay came across The Scrambled States of America by Laurie Keller. Wow! To say this book has been a life changer is an understatement. She lives and breathes this book. The library also has a video we watched numerous times on the computer. For Christmas and her birthday, she got The Scrambled States of America Talent Show and The Scrambled States Game. She can tell you which character says what in the book, their personalities, etc. These "characters" have really cemented what we studied this past year in our United States Curriculum "Across the States".  Recently, she's been REALLY into the game. And I must say, I only barely let her win. She is getting faster and faster at responding.

LOVE THIS GAME!

The Game set up for 2 people.

Each player gets 5 State cards and a map.

There can be as many as 4 players, but we play it with 2. Each one of us gets 5 cards, which are placed facing up in front of each player as well as a map. In the middle are 2 decks. The blue deck contains the other states and the red deck contains the game cards. These have things written on them like "Capital starts with S or T" or "Nickname contains the name of a plant or animal" and each player needs to look at the cards in front of them and see if they have a state that matches what the game cards say. The first person to yell out their state gets to keep that state card in a pile and gets another state from the blue deck.

Capital starts with S or T.

Topeka! Kansas!

Each card has the state name, capital, and nickname.

This game keeps going until the blue deck is exhausted. At the end of the game, the person with the most states in their keep pile wins. I'd say she wins 80% of the time. I give her extra time to find a card if she needs to. Sometimes I can't win the hand because let's say it asks for a capital with A or B, and I don't have a state that does, obviously I can't win that round. There are a few variations on the game, which we will move on to once she's mastered this level.

I'm the winner!

 We seriously have played this game every day. Pretty soon, I'm not going to have to let her win.