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?”
Looking at all the shells through the magnifying glass.
Spelling out vocabulary words with our tiles. Nadia is now hooked on pointing out things that are “transparent.”
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!”
Very glittery crafts! One for Cynthia with a lot of rhinestones for giving her the shells.
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.