A Net in Time

Curriculum and book reviews, faith, homeschooling and more!

Unit Study

Interactive unit studies

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Being who I am I love to find things that will be helpful to others.  Years ago someone turned me on to the dragonlady (who no longer exists) who did these AMAZING unit studies.  They had printable templates for doing great builds of pyramids, or lizards or just whatever have you.  Fantastic units that thoroughly engaged the student (and their teacher) in learning.  I thought they were fantastic and since then have looked for other interactive unit studies. 

Interactive Unit Studies

Through the Homeschool Review Crew I discovered  Home School in the Woods … which has some interesting builds such as this World War 2 game.  And we’ll be using them as a spine for our WW2 Study.  They do some simply amazing unit studies. My search continues for the immersive experience. I have found some more that intrigue me. 

home school in the woods

First off Why Unit Studies?

Well.. why NOT unit studies.   Look at the benefits of a unit study.

  • Focused attention.
  • Incorporates more than one field of study
  • Hands on elements
  • Involves more of the senses 
  • Caters to a variety of learning styles
  • Leads to rabbit trails which increases the learning potential
  • Fun and enjoyable.
John Lubbock quote

Totally Online interactive unit studies

Techie Homeschool Mom has wonderful online unit studies.  Beth has pulled together some great unit studies.  I (and my lad) have worked through a couple of them.   Good questions, interesting facts, with no need to print things out.   History, people, holidays, and more.  Prices for individual units run from $8-24, she also does some group deals.  I first ran into her units through the Homeschool Giveaways site, and then again through a conference I think…. Anyways, I’ve always been pleasantly surprised by their thoroughness, I suspect you will be too. 

Oh.. what grade are they good for?  I’d say grades 3-8. 

interactive unit studies

You get questions, projects (like the one below), videos, thought-provoking discussions, and more.  Give them a boo won’t you?

techie homeschool mom

Kristin Moon makes unit studies for older students.  I’ve looked at some of them for my rising 9th grader. 

From Kristin: The courses contain videos, hands-on activities, instructions for experiments, online quizzes, and links to sites for more information. The content is geared for upper middle school and high school. While I do plan to offer courses for middle school, it’s been my experience that moms can start feeling frightened about teaching science at the higher levels. In fact, that’s typically one reason why folks put their kids back in school in high school. My goal in creating these courses is to provide quality science resources for families who wish to continue to homeschool throughout high school.

Kristen Moon Science

Kristin currently has five online courses

  • Science of Autumn Leaves
  • Microbiology
  • Genetics and Heredity
  • Prokaryotes
  • DNA basics….
kristin moon science

Lisa Marie Fletcher of The Canadian Homeschooler has her mostly online Canadian History course.   The Canadian Time Capsule is rather neat series for up through middle school.   This is predominately done on-line with hands-on elements, reports to right, activities to do etc. 

canadian time capsule

Every month you get a new historical event to work through.  The capsules don’t come in chronological order.  Good books are suggested for various age ranges.   You should check them out if you have any interest in Canadian History (trust me, it’s WAY more interesting than you may think).

Canadian time capsule

Print off unit studies

Of course, you can follow the more traditional method of unit studies.   Down load them, print them off, and have a lovely book that you can show off to others.  Some of these unit studies will have hands on activities, and others will basically be workbooks. 

I was introduced recently to Love at Home Education which is looking to created multi-age unit studies for K-12.   In reviewing Natural Disasters I found them excellent for K-8.    You can learn about presidents of the United States, Penguins, Polar Bears and so much more. Have your whole family learn about the same thing together. 

Natural Disasters

Then of course there are Amanda Bennett’s unit studies.  I used to review these unit studies and we thoroughly enjoyed them.  We learned so much!   They aren’t geared for high school, bring primarily for elementary school.  You could do them as a family and supplement the material to make it suitable for your middle and high school students. 

Just so you know they’ll be having some sales this month if you are at all interested.

For August 12 – Animal Science DNG bundle 30% off the reduced bundle price
And August 19 – American History DNG bundle 30% off the reduced bundle price
August 26 – Kitchen Science DNG bundle 30% off the reduced bundle price
unit study

I know if you search on-line you can find lapbooks (which are like mini unit studies with visual elements) for free, and a whole host of small unit studies.  You can use them as a basis for a large study. 

Other Options

I was told to check out Google Classroom and that if I had trouble figuring out what to do, to watch pocketful of primary on YouTube. She apparently has posted a walk through of the basics on her channel for google classroom.  So that might be an option for doing up your own unit study, appropriate to your student. 

Interactive Unit Studies

In Conclusion

Finding interactive unit studies for high school students is harder then finding them for elementary students or middle school.  It is possible.  They tend to be more focused.  Give a look, use what you can, and help your students learn. 

Review: Natural Disasters

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Today I am reviewing a unit study called Natural Disasters by Love at Home Education.   Today your whole family can learn about the natural challenges of our world with one complete unit study.  Stay tuned to learn more. 

Natural Disasters

What I am Reviewing

Natural Disasters.

Curriculum.
Images.
Recommended books and supplies.

Love At Home Education.

Earth, Geography, Science, Earth Science, Natural disasters, Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, Storms, Drought, Avalanches

125 pages, k-12.

What makes this K-12?

There are recommendations for videos, books, and writing for older audiences. Most of the experiments are geared towards Elementary and are then recommended to further expand knowledge for Junior High and High School.

Under the “Extra Resources” tab on the loveathomeeducation.com website, you can find Free photos, K-12 writing resources, Free vocabulary lists, Curriculum guides and the Recommended Books and supplies list!

Natural Disasters

The Details of Natural Disasters

Created by Love at Home Education. They bill themselves as a dinner-table friendly, all-inclusive family curriculum; that your high schooler, and kindergartner can learn together on their own levels.”  

You will find their unit studies are written for elementary kids.  They truly are.  

Natural Disasters

To make this a middle school or high school curriculum you would need to supplement with video and text, adding additional assignment.  I found very few suggested activities. I had hoped to find a list of videos and books for middle-to-highschool in the recommended books but did not. 

The Layout

Natural Disasters

Five units make up this broad unit on Natural Disasters.   Each unit is then divided into five suggested days.   You’ll cover vocabulary words, do experiments, make at least one art project, writing assignments and more.   

I happily did not find busy work such as word search, fill in the blank, crosswords and the like.   My lad despises such activities!   Go figure ’cause I always loved them.  

Natural Disasters

You won’t find clutter filling the pages.   There is information and activities but nothing cutesy or irrelevant. A wonderful thing for parents with youngsters (such as I raised) that were distracted to the point of hating curriculum that had such embellishments. 

Now there is this neat file of pictures to help round out this unit study on Natural Disasters. 

natural disasters image file

My Thoughts and Recommendations

The nitty gritty eh… can I recommend it?  YES, for elementary kids, and perhaps middle school. I don’t really see it as high school level material.  The lack of supportive materials and a simple increase in essay length doesn’t really do the job. 

I think it could use some better overall layout.  It would be helpful to have a  table of contents and a written out suggestion of how to use it.  I think it would be easier to follow the suggested layout if it was all written out in one area.

disclosure

Review: Branch Out World

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Paddington Bear…. doesn’t that bear just make you smile? Today, for my review, I have a unit study, from Branch Out World, that will help you dig deeper into the world of Paddington Bear and the places he has been. Fly with me from the deep, dark forests of Peru to the city lights of London. Along the way we’ll discover art, architecture, story-telling, language arts and more.

paddington Bear by branch out world, my review

Who is Branch Out World?

Branch Out World is brain child of a homeschooling family located in the United Kingdom.  Having a deep love of books, they wanted to share that love with others and to that end have created literature-based unit studies as well as lapbooks.  They are geared to be used by the whole family.   Their unit studies have a UK link, the lapbooks are more globally oriented. 

What do you Get?

I received a 69 page PDF of Paddington Bear, a literature based unit study.  It’s connected to the picture book of Paddington Bear. 

table of contents for paddington bear unit study from branch out worldYou could, if you wanted get through all five days, it’s quite doable, or you could spread it over a longer period.  🙂  A weekly schedule is included, explaining the how and what of each day’s planned activities.

In this literature study you will find lapbook elements such as the one below, along with lists showing what supplies you’ll need every day.

lapbook element for paddington bear unit study from branch out worldA sample day (I’m choosing day three) has the following options to do with your students.

  • Learn about the artist
  • Picture study based on page 31 in the picture book
  • Learn about architectural features.  We went to youtube and looked up specific examples online.  Later we went for a walk and talked about the different features we learned about in the houses we saw.   This was fun to do!
  • Principles of Design – overlapping… my son declined to do this project, but we did talk about how shadows would be different depending on where the fruit was placed and that helps show depth and placement.
  • Principles of Design – Emphasis.  My son did this project using a huge spider in the foreground.   I’ve a picture of it below.

As you can see, lots to do on any given day.  Depending on your student this could take 1/2 an hour or a couple of hours. You could easily expand the projects or shorten them down to just the basics.

All the information and lapbook elements are found at the end of the study.

for paddington bear unit study from branch out world

How We Used Paddington Bear:

I offered to get the book for my 13 year old to read and he turned me down flat.  We had the option of watching the book being read, but mostly we just sat down and looked through the options for extended learning.  He dove right into learning about the Spectacled bear… telling me all about what he learned about them, showing me one of the videos he watched, and showing me on our globe where they live.

He also grabbed onto the idea of learning some architectural terms, and even drew a picture showing emphasis.  It was so interesting watching what elements he gravitated toward and knowing that this study would please so many students.  You certainly don’t have to do everything in the lesson plan, you can pick what your students are most interested in (or what you deem most important) and learn about the world at large through a great picture book about Paddington.   I have to admit to being a bit annoyed with myself, I had a couple of different elements put together and I can’t find them AND I failed to get a picture of them.    I only have the picture of this one element….the drawing for emphasis.

emphasis for paddington bear unit study from branch out world

My Thoughts:

I have to admit, my son is a bit beyond the Paddington years, so we picked up this review so that I could look at it for those that DO like Paddington.  I was impressed. A good variety of activities and interesting topics to look at.  Even my non-Paddington son found things of interest.  If you are a lover of all things Paddington OR doing a larger unit study on bears and want to have a literary tie in, this book will provide a good way to do that.  🙂

I was browsing through the Picture Book Explorers series and saw the Mousehole Cat.  That sounds like a fun book to read and then explore.  What one would intrigue you? 

book cover paddington bear literature study

 

Paddington Bear
Branch Out World
Picture Book Explorers series
69 pages, PDF, 5-10 years old.
lit-based unit studies, topic pack, home education resources, homeschool resources

 

 

65 members of the Homeschool Review Crew had a chance to utilize this study.  Please read our reviews. 

Branch Out world picture for reading crew reviews.

Social Media Links:

Facebook: @BranchOutWorld
Pinterest:  @belzibow
Instagram:  @belzibow
Twitter:  @belzibow

 

 

Big List of Unit Studies

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Next year my son wants to study the world wars. He wants it to be an all encompassing study for history, geography, spelling and what not. I have to admit, I find the idea a bit mind-boggling. I know I can do it, I just struggle with knowing where to start and what to do. I was talking with a fellow homeschool mom and she said “just plan six week unit studies”.

Although I feel overwhelmed by the whole idea yet, partly because I haven’t found the time to adequately start planning and coming up with good work and ideas for the lad, breaking it up into six week segments is doable you know?  Or even two week segments.

To that end I thought I’d do some research into unit studies and working with them, to share with you some places to go for free unit studies, and to understand the benefits of using them.

picture of four books, words big list of unit studies

What is a unit study?

A unit study is a collection of learning activities tied to a theme.  I used to do them when my lad is younger… we’d study, for instance, George Washington and end up learning math, science, history, geography and then do some art.   It was fantastic!  It’s a hands-on, filled with rabbit trails way of learning and can work really well.  In fact, my son still remembers the Terrific Tigers study that we did. 

How do you make a unit study?

Good question!  This is where research comes in and talking to your child and knowing what will and will not work for them comes into play.  For instance I won’t plan wordsearches as a way to help my lad learn vocabulary since he hates them.  You can find some good methodology at All the Homeschool Things has a good plan for doing unit studies as well as Lisa at Canadian Homeschooler has put together a unit study planner.  Proverbial Homemaker and All the Homeschool Things have planners as well. 

But seriously, how does one make a unit study?

  1. Decide on a topic or theme. …
  2. Select a starting date and length of time for the unit. …
  3. Choose books, DVDs, and other media resources. …
  4. Plan activities for your children’s ability levels. …
  5. Decide how you’ll record your unit.
  6. Plan a final activity. 

What subjects can you include and how?

Sometimes you need to think outside the box to include everything you want in a unit study, sometimes you just can’t.  Consider your students, what they need to learn and how you can help them connect pieces together.  Teach Beside Me gives some hints. 

  • Math: Create math problems at your child’s level. 
  • Language Arts: Reading, comprehension, grammar, writing skills.  Although you don’t need to include all of this in every unit study that you write, most units do ask students to write a little bit about the topic. 
  • Science: Sometimes a unit study shines in science. Other times you may need to work a little. 
  • Social Studies or Geography: Much like science, social studies may be your main topic, or you may need to work some information into the topic at hand. Some questions you may keep in mind as you work: Where was your topic first seen or invented? What culture surrounded the time or event? Where did this take place? What are the residents associated with your topic used to?
  • Art: Draw. Build. Act. Design. Create. Make. Sculpt.
  • Music: Can be easy or hard to fit into a study.  Fit it in if you can. 
  • History: Can be complicated or easy, depends on the study you are doing. 
  • Physical Education: This may need some creative work. Like I’m thinking for our world studies to get the lad on an exercise program just like the soldiers would have had to be on. That actually might be good for both of us. 🙂

people moving in front of free sign
Photo by William White on Unsplash

Look for something that might already be out there.

Seriously, if someone has already done the work, why replicate it?  You can always adapt if you need to, for instance, currently we are reviewing Home School in the Woods World War 2 timeline.  I want to spend more time exploring what caused the start of world war two than they devoted to it.  So when we look at this study again, I can add to it.

Places to look for FREE unit studies.

Some paid options would be

Some Randoms

I mustn’t forget to tell you about a really cool unit study I’m reviewing right now. The Canadian Homeschoolers Time Capsule of Canadian History. Making Canadian interesting and exciting.  Combine on-line learning with hands on fun.  Never has Canadian History been so interesting.

The Canadian Homeschooler Learning Centre

Review: Creation Illustrated

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Three weeks ago I received the Pine Trees Unit Study ebook from Creation Illustrated. Since we have pine trees around our house I thought it would make for a nice little “time out from the normal” study with my lad. My thinking proved correct as my lad worked happily on the pine tree study rather than doing his normal course work, it’s good to have a break before Easter you know?  🙂  The Pine Trees study is part of the Creation Unit Studies that fit well with their magazine articles. 

Pine Trees by Creation Illustrated, a review

Who is Creation Illustrated?

Creation Illustrated is a company that focuses on showing God’s truth through nature.  They do this via a magazine format. They have chosen to help students expand their knowledge of a topic in their magazine using a unit study.   The unit study contains a link to the magazine.  So not only do you get to read the article that corresponds to the unit study, you also get a chance to see what a great job they do with the rest of the magazine. This magazine is for all ages. Below is the cover to the spring edition.

What do you get?

I received two unit studies, Pine Trees and Snow, though my son only worked through Pine Trees.  I thought though you would like to know if the unit studies are similar at all and they are!  They at not identical in their set up, as in subjects are in a different order, some sections are longer or shorter and such like.

Some of the units you will encounter are: 

  • List of resources
    Brief introduction to topic
    Vocabulary/Definitions/Spelling
    Bible study
    Geography/Science
    Hands on lesson
    Math
    Art Aspect
    Wordsearch

As you can see they do their best to make their unit studies well rounded.  Teacher answer key provided.

How did we use it?

Before starting the unit study the lad and I went for a walk looking for pine trees.  We found a variety in town, and a few on a favourite walk around the dam. I figured it would be a good thing to actually see the trees before we started so he’d already be able to spot differences in the trees before we started. 🙂   It was interesting to see the colour variations… some were light green, others dark, still others with a bluish tinge.  The needles didn’t all feel the same either and noting the differences in the bark texture surprised my lad. Pine Trees by Creation Illustrated

Each study encompasses several worksheets that the student fills out after reading and watching various resources provided.  My son commented that some of the line spacing is too small.  He’s still improving his cursive and struggles yet to make his writing fit narrow spacing.Pine Trees by Creation Illustrated, sample pagesOne issue we ran across in the Pine Trees study was the some of the bible verses provided didn’t seem to make any mention of Pine or fir Trees.  We didn’t find that to be a big deal as it was more fun to go out and measure a pine tree using a pencil!  🙂 But to alleviate this concern for other parents, it would be VERY easy to just include the bible verses in print form.  This unit study fit in well with the Fall 2017 Copy of the Creation Illustrated Magazine.  The unit study about snow goes along with the Winter 2018 magazine.   In that study you will, in part, learn how snowflakes are categorized and make some crystals. 

Anyways, back to our study, after we did our nature walk we worked on the worksheets of the ebook.  First I had my lad go through and see what he already knew.  Then we looked through the various resources in order to answer the questions.  My son choose to do all the easy worksheets one day and then write his essay the next. 

Pine Trees by Creation Illustrated, essayAll in all it took three days to complete the unit study.  We could have stretched it out over a week doing a little every day, or used the questions as a stepping stone to dig deeper.  Instead we enjoyed ourselves with a walk, took a partial day to learn about pine trees, and then worked on the finer details of writing an essay.  It fit into our week well and the lad found it helpful. 

Pine Trees by Creation Illustrated, cover page

Pine Trees
Creation Illustrated
Pricing: currently 30% off for the unit studies.
Series: Creation Unit Studies.
Unit studies are geared to grades 5-8.
New subscriptions to yearly membership to magazine are 25% off. 
Creation Illustrated. 
Creation, Nature, Magazine, Unit Study, all ages, faith based

60 families from the Homeschool Review Crew have reviewed The Snow and Pine Tree unit studies distributed by Creation Illustrated. Please check out their reviews here.

creation illustrated - sample pages of Pine tree unit
You can find Creation Illustrated on the following social media Platforms.

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/CreationIllustrated/
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/creation_illustrated/ 
Pinterest – https://www.pinterest.com/creationnature/pins/ 
Twitter – https://twitter.com/CreationMag 

The other unit reviewed was the Intricacies of Snow.

Creation Illustrated unit studies snow

Review: Albert Einstein and Relativity for Kids

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Chicago Review Press puts together these wonderful books that are well done unit studies.  Today I would like to talk to you about Albert Einstein and Relativity for Kids.   Imagine a book that does all the work of researching for you and then provides 21 different activities to help cement the learning in your children’s minds.  Hands-on activities to help you figure it out and see what Albert Einstein was talking about.

What do you get?

Albert Einstein and Relativity for kids is a softcover book divided into 8 chapters with different 21 activities.  Some of these activities are familiar, and other take regular household items and add a teaching element I wouldn’t have considered otherwise.  Most are hands on, but some are writing assignments.  It is written by Jerome Pohlen.

Albert Einstein and Relativity for Kids activity options

Chapters are:

  • A Curious and Independent child
  • The patent office and the miracle year
  • Special Relativity
  • The Professor Without Socks
  • General Relavity
  • Fame and Persecution
  • America and the Bomb
  • Standing Up for Peace and Human Rights

The tome is well designed, with text balanced well with images.  Written at a level good for upper elementary to high school students.  It is a well written book that is engaging and interesting.  I appreciated the timeline at the start of the book to give me a good overview into his life.

Albert Einstein and Relativity for Kids Sample pages

I love that pictures and images are strewn throughout the book, bringing into focus places and people that were part of Einstein’s life.

Albert Einstein and Relativity for Kids images from his life

My thoughts.

This is an excellent book to teach your children about Albert Einstein and the Theory of Relativity.  Engaging text that gives the facts without being boring.  Excellent graphics that break up the text with good experiments to help you to understand concepts.  This would be a great book to use within a homeschool setting and easy to adapt to using in a co-op. 

Albert Einstein and Relativity for Kids book cover 
Albert Einstein and Relativity for Kids
   His life and Ideas with 21 Activities and thought experiments. 
Jerome Pohlem
Chicago Review Press
Unit study, history, biography, hands-on learning
Softcover, 128 pages.
Reviewed for Chicago Review Press.
Where to find: Amazon Link.

Other Chicago Review Books in this series:

Marine Science. 
Michelangelo.
Marie Curie.

Skating, Spiders and more

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At breakfast we did our normal reading

10 minute stories

Today’s story was about the littlest mermaid. he stopped eating so he could listen and said “i liked that story.”

World History

Today we learned about what vikings did when they died. Bodies were treated very respectfully and generally burned at sea or on wood platforms.

Today we took advantage of the free skate (parent/child/senior) at the local rink. We had a good time. It is good to see the lad getting better at his skating all the time. At times he was skating independently, and frequently he can make it around the rink without falling. So nice to see him improving his skills.

We then moved on to working with math using reflex. He continues to gain in fluency.

We then started out spider study. Click on the picture to learn where to purchase it.

This is an ebook. You need to print off the learning activities that you wish to do. You can put it into a file folder or use paper to make it into a small book. entirely up to you. I asked the lad what he wanted to do.. “put it into a file folder mommy”. it’s all good to me.

so today we read a poem Don’t Eat Spiders – by Robert Hiedbreder





Don't Eat Spiders   By Robert Hiedbreder
Daddy said to me, "Don 't eat spiders, Don 't you dare.
They may be delicious, But I don't care.
Don't eat spiders, Alive or dead,
Don't eat spiders, That's what I said.
Don't eat spiders, Even in play,
Fried or mashed, Or in any  way
Don't eat spiders, That's what I say.
Never, ever, That's what I say!"  
But I answered Daddy, "Tell me why ! 
Will I get sick ? Will I die ?
 I'll eat spiders, I don't care.
I'll eat spiders On a dare".  
I ate a spider Off the ground.
I swallowed a spider, It wriggled around.   
SUD-DEN-LY..... I grew eight legs,
They're skinny and hairy.
I shrank to a spider, Creepy and scary.
I sit in a web, I eat dead flies,
I watch the world With eight beady eyes.
So don't eat spiders, I hope you see,
Unless you want to be A spider like me.
And don't eat spiders. Do you see?
Cause if you eat spiders  You might eat me! 




This poem made the boy smile.   It really caught his imagination.


We learned that spiders come in: yellow, grey, brown, black, white, orange, red, and green.


While he was colouring the above I used these questions to stimulate his brain. 🙂


What if there were no spiders in the world?
– we’d have a fly planet and we would have a cloud of flies


– web, house, spider, fear, flies, jumping.


A spider makes me think of
… interesting ones in the garden.
…webs
…webs in my hair!
…flies and mommy being scared. 🙂


– I would tell them about the spider in case they are scared of them.


How many ways can you get a spider out of your bed?
– spider treats
– slide a paper under him and take him away
– catch him in a jar


We learned some vocabulary: acre, molt, carnivores, oviparous, and arachnids.


And all spiders have these common characteristics.


 All have eight legs
 All belong to the arachnid family
 All have two main body parts
 All spin several different kinds of silk, although not all produce webs
 All have fangs
 All make venom to paralyze or kill their prey
 All are carnivores
 All are oviparous
 All molt several times during their lifetime


From a spider unit study i picked up at a yard sale this summer we found the letters to spelling out spider.  This gave the lad a chance to sound out the word spider.

It was a good start to a study.  It will take us a few days to finish it.