The Lay of the Land

Locate the Atlantic Coastal Plain, the Great Plains, and the Continental Divide, and tell which way rivers flow on each side of the divide.

Warm-up, learn, try it together, practice, then a quick check. About 15 minutes.

What children learn in Level 4

Let's cross the country from the Atlantic Ocean to the Rocky Mountains. First comes the Atlantic Coastal Plain: low, flat land along the ocean, from New Jersey down to Florida. Savannah sits on it.
Past the Mississippi River come the Great Plains, a huge, flat grassland in the middle of the country. Few trees grow there, and the sky seems to go on forever.
Then the land climbs into the Rocky Mountains. High in the Rockies runs the Continental Divide. It's a line you can't see on the ground, but water knows it's there.
Rain that falls east of the divide mostly flows to the Gulf of Mexico. Rain that falls west of it flows toward the Pacific Ocean.
Lines of longitude help us find these places. The line at 100 degrees west runs right through the Great Plains.

Georgia Standards of Excellence in Social Studies:

SS4G1.a — Locate major physical features of the United States: the Atlantic Coastal Plain, the Great Plains, the Continental Divide, the Gulf of Mexico, the Mississippi River, and the Great Lakes.
MGS.9 — Map and Globe Skill 9: use latitude and longitude to determine location (developing in Grade 4)