Unit Study – Page 4 – Dwimble.com

February 10, 2012January 18, 2017

Goofy Gecko Unit Study

After getting her lizard “Wonder Colors” for her birthday I knew the next unit study for us to do would be “Goofy Gecko” which we bought from the Amanda Bennett site. Earlier in the week I did a separate post on our field trip to the zoo. Here is a break down of the days:

Day 1: What is a Gecko?

Day 2: Getting to know Geckos.

Day 3: Where are the Geckos?

Day 4: The Science of Geckos

Day 5: Cool things about Geckos

Goofy Gecko

We learned so many cool facts about Geckos. The videos were really cute and both girls loved them. Each day featured a certain Gecko that we learned about in detail and then the child is supposed to draw them. Nadia was really creative and hers were really cute. My favorite of the 5 Geckos was the crested gecko. They are so cute and COOL! If you want to see a large variety, go to JB’s Cresties. A fun fact is that the Crested Gecko was thought to be extinct until they were re-discovered in 1994. Nadia’s favorite was the Web Footed Gecko.

Goofy Gecko

We were able to get a lot of great books about Gecko’s and other reptiles at the library. And we found out that our Green Anole “Wonder Colors” is actually the smallest iguana in the world. Cool, huh?

Goofy Gecko

Here is Nadia’s completed lapbook. What a fun study this was! Next up is a Unit Study on Valentine’s Day!

November 14, 2011January 16, 2017

Autumn Treasures Unit Study

We got the Autumn Treasures unit study of Amanda Bennett’s site, unitstudy.com, and it took us much longer than usual due to our busy month, but it was great. I started by getting about 15 books from the library and printing some extra activities from Homeschool Creations. We learned a lot in this study just like our past ones on seashells and robots. We started with Do a Dot pages to get warmed up and start our discussion about fall (even though it was still pushing 100 in these parts)

Autumn Unit

Just like the other units there were a lot of fun videos to watch including how candy corn is made and how an apple press works. We learned about Johnny Appleseed and his travels – Nadia enjoyed all his crazy hats, especially the cooking pot. I have already done blog posts on the monarch butterflies and apple pie bites that we made, but here is a little view of the rest of our unit.

Autumn Unit
Nadia is working on her fall tree in this photo.

Autumn Unit
A puzzle for the back of her lapbook.

Autumn Unit
Learning the life cycle of a pumpkin – here she is with the pumpkin she picked out at homeschool day at Mainstay Farms.

Autumn Unit
Families are encouraged to go on a nature walk each day and collect items. Then enter the highlights into your unit study work book. Here are some of the things Nadia found along the way.

Autumn Unit
Leaf rubbings from our nature walks.

Autumn Unit
“Fairy” Amelie and Nadia on a nature walk.

Autumn Unit

Autumn Unit
Amelie was saying, “art art art art” over and over while I was working with Nadia so I went to see what she wanted. Then I realized that she was drawing “hearts.” Pretty cute!

We got the idea for one of our other cooking projects from the Mama Jenn site. These were messy and fun to make and tasted yummy!

Autumn Unit

Last of all, here is her completed lapbook.

Autumn_17

Autumn_18

September 27, 2011January 15, 2017

Rocking Robots Unit Study

I am going to start this post by saying that I learned a lot doing this unit study!! It was really interesting and with our schedule it took us about 2 weeks to do it all instead of the 5 days. Here is what we started with:

Robot School — Click on the photo to see album

We downloaded this unit study from the Amanda Bennett site. This is the same place that we bought the “Sunny Seashells” unit. To see that post, go here. This unit had so many awesome videos that Nadia loved. She would crack up laughing at some of the stuff the robots could do. The cow milking robot grossed her out becuase “those udders look messy.” She was fascinated by the underwater robot Jason who has a 6 mile tether. It suggested that you drive 6 miles to give the kids an idea of how long that was. So the next morning when we drove to the gym I told her to pay attention because that is how long Jason’s tether is. She has talked about Jason a lot since then. There were quite a few areas we didn’t delve into because she can’t read yet and I think older kids would get more out of it. That is the great thing about these unit studies, you can do a lot or a little based on your child.

Here is the breakdown of the days:

Day 1: What Is a Robot?
Day 2: The History of Robots
Day 3: People and Places of Robots
Day 4: Science Secrets of Robots
Day 5: Goodies and Gadgets of Robots

Robot School

Silly Nadia and her robot dot-to-dot.

Robot School

How is a robot like a person? (notice Sparks from Toy Story 3 is watching her do school)

Robot School

We learned about CiD – an ice cream serving robot. Can I get one for our house?

Robot School

Nadia with her completed lapbook and her robot craft. If you look in the bottom left of the lapbook you will see her “water clock.” This was the first robot ever invented and it was revolutionary because you didn’t need the sun to tell the time. She has brought up the water clock a lot since we talked about how thousands of years ago people didn’t have electricity or batteries and all the technology we enjoy now.

Robot School

Nadia and Wall-E. After taking this photo we celebrated the end of Robot School by watching Wall-E.

June 24, 2011January 14, 2017

Sunny Seashells Unit

I have seen these Download and Go unit studies by Amanda Bennett on other homeschool blogs, but hadn’t ordered one yet. When we planned our vacation I decided to buy Sunny Seashells and got everything ready. We didn’t start until Museum School and Chinese school were over so we would have time to just focus on this unit. I hoped it would get Nadia extra excited about our beach vacation and she did!

This is what we started with.

The unit is set up to be a 5 day learning adventure. We took a lot longer than 5 days because Nadia is at the low end of the age for these and I wanted her to enjoy it, not feel like it was information overload. Each day has book suggestions and videos links built in. I ordered about a dozen books from the library and we set the laptop on the table each time. There are family fun suggestions included and craft ideas. Each day had a “shell” of the day and Nadia liked some more than others. Each day also had a country of the day that was featured and Nadia would find them on the world map and color them in. My friend Cynthia from church brought Nadia a shoebox full of shells for us to use and then when she found out how much Nadia loved them she gave her the box full. Nadia was totally shocked, “MOM! Did you know that she gave me the whole box? Can you believe that?”

Sunny Seashells 2011

Looking at all the shells through the magnifying glass.

Sunny Seashells 2011

Spelling out vocabulary words with our tiles. Nadia is now hooked on pointing out things that are “transparent.”

Sunny Seashells 2011

The girls watching videos. Then Amelie showing me her shell while yelling “SEEEESHELL” (her variation of the word)

Nadia’s favorite video of the week was one we actually clicked through to from one of the unit study videos. We watched it at least 20 times and Nadia would say, “NO don’t eat me!”

Sunny Seashells 2011

Very glittery crafts! One for Cynthia with a lot of rhinestones for giving her the shells.

Sunny Seashells 2011

The last photos show her finished lapbook. When we got done she said, “Mom you are really fun to do this with. It’s like a party with you!” And at least 10 times today I heard, “I am so excited for our vacation. I want to find some shells!”

I think these units are really fantastic – I learned a lot or perhaps learned again things from when I was little 🙂 I love that it’s broken down day by day and you can do as little or as much as you want based on the age of your child. The videos and other links being built into the PDF are a huge convenience. We will buy more of these to use in the future.