Too bad I didn't have something like this when I was in grade school...
I found a picture of the original 48 US states and posted it then enlarged it with Rapid Resizer to about 20 inches wide.Then printed a pattern and using two 1/4" Baltic Birch pieces of plywood I used one as a backer board and the other I cut out the states.
I then glued the outline of the states on to the backer board and since I had lots of states to color I decided to use kids water colors...This one I made in 2000 . I think the next ones I make will have the names of the states on the back side along with the capitals of each state also..I doubt if anyone out there can name all of these 48 states in about 10 minutes and for sure would never be able to name the capitals of each state in a life time...