California Regions Salt Dough Maps

I am newly back in 4th grade from a very long hiatus and I am SO excited to teach state history again!  It is just something I find so interesting.  Between the actual content and the projects, I can't get enough!  So to start our year right, we did a VERY traditional and quintessential 4th grade activity, California Regions Salt Dough Maps.

We started by researching the four main regions of California.  To make things a bit easier, I gave the students a few paragraphs that had all of the basic info that I wanted them to research.  The kids read the passages, filled in the organizer, and learned a bit about each region. (you can get the research here)

Then the students got to work sculpting their CA map.  I gave them all of the ingredients to make the salt dough inside of a gallon-sized ziplock bag.  They had the following in each bag:

1/2 cup of salt

1 cup of flour

1/2 cup of water

a sprinkle of cream of tartar

When they got their sealed bag, the students started kneading the contents until a dough formed.  If it was too watery, I added more flour.  If it was too crumbly, I added more water.  It wasn't a perfect science for each bag, but it was pretty close for the majority of them.  

After they were sure they had a dough, the kids opened back up their bags and began sculpting the state of CA on their cardboard.  They followed the outline of the state, which I had them draw ahead of time on the cardboard, and added more dough to represent mountains and less dough for the valley.  This was fun (and messy) but the kids ended up with fairly accurate representation of California. 

After it all dried, they painted the four regions in different colors. 

Next, they used the research they did earlier to create little informational flaps to add to the artwork.  Each region had its own flap, with a picture they drew themselves to represent that area.  Inside the flaps, they added information about each region.

And that was it!  All in all, it was a fun and memorable way to learn about the regions.   My kids are STILL talking about it months later!

If you want all of the printables and instructions, as well as actual lesson plans, that I used with my students, you can grab them here.