Based on Go, Go America
by Dan Yaccarino
Grades: K-2

About the book
Author Dan Yaccarino’s zany illustrations take the reader on a wild tour of the fifty U.S. states. Kids will not only learn where the official home of the International Rotten Sneaker contest is but many other outrageous facts that will impress any history buff. Learning about the United States has never been so fun! Don’t miss the special resource section in the back of the book that offers readers a chance to research loads of facts listed by state.

Related Activities
To extend students’ enjoyment of the book, try these:

Graphing Home States: Survey your class and record what state each student was born in. Together as a class plot the states on a bar graph to show what state most students are from. If your class is overwhelmingly from the same state, have students find out their parents' home states.

State Trivia Contest: Divide the class into two teams. Read a fact out of the Go, Go America book and ask students to recall what state the fact is from. Score one point for each correct answer and the first team to reach 10 points wins.

Favorite States: Ask students to select one U.S. state and research five facts about it. Have students draw or trace an outline of their state on a large sheet of construction paper then fill it with the five facts they learned about their state. Students can also include a drawing or picture of their state’s flag. Hang their state displays around the room or in the hall.

Mapping the States: Give students a blank U.S. map with state lines shown. Ask students to fill in as many state locations as they can. For younger children you could do this activity as a class or let students work in small groups and see who can fill their map first.

Name that State: Select a state and have students play 20 questions to guess what state you are thinking of. Students can only ask questions that can be answered with a "yes" or "no".

Size it Up: Using the state square miles information in the resource section of the book, have students list the states in order by size from the largest in square miles to the smallest. Practice student’s basic math skills by asking them to add two states square miles together.