where is Wyoming anyway?

For the 4th quarter Will and I have been focusing on state history and US geography. I figured that we needed some fun practice so I turned to a game I found at the thrift shop called mad dash!. After our daily round I set a blank US map from Uncle Josh's Outline Map Book on the table and ask him to fill it in without looking at the giant map on the wall. He liked using the abbreviations so I printed out a list from the USPS website. I can't figure out why Connecticut and Massachusetts tend to be some of the hardest ones to fix in his mind, since he has been through these states over a dozen times on our summer pilgrimage to Maine. Of course he has never been to Alaska or Hawaii, but those are the first he scribbles down. In mad dash! those two states are the mad cards and when you try to make your road trip linking states together they can be used to jump over a missing state.

It has only taken about 50 games and a dozen blank maps for Will to think of it as a fun game rather than just a dopey extra assignment. Today he begged to play 3 rounds and filled in his blank map in about 10 minutes. I don't usually steer other moms to buying a particular product, but I have to say that we have had a great time learning with this game.