In search of a unit study
My unit studies are a way to combine education plus fun. They start with an interesting topic, then as the child learns more about the topic they will also learn aspects of English, Art, Math, Geography, Science and more. The idea is to get kids interested in learning by making learning fun.
I started writing unit studies when homeschooling my youngest son. He was not the type of child who like to sit and read. It was a bit more of a challenge teaching him as his attention span was not long. So at first I created a unit study about Pirates. He was thrilled to learn about pirates, to read about Blackbeard, figure out weights according to cannon ball size, draw a wanted poster and even learn map and compass skills. And so, we continued with Soldiers Through Time which was a seven module unit study that ranged in history from Ancient Roman Soldiers to Soldiers of World War II.
After helping my son get interested in learning I thought maybe the unit studies could help others enjoy learning too! And so came a unit study on Spies, one on Cowboys and Superheroes as well as a three part unit study on Forts Across Canada. These unit studies became known as Education with a Bang series to help add excitement to education, specifically for boys.
Fashion Through Textiles, a four part unit study featuring wool, silk, cotton and linen as well as the unit study on Herbolgy are part of the new line of unit studies which would be more appealing to girls but equally combine fun with education.
I continue to create unit studies and have many ideas in my head for new ones but sometimes I am not sure which one to start next. Constellations and the Mythology behind them sounds very interesting. What about the History of Pets and how they became domesticated? Or what about Biomimicry – technology inspired by nature?
I just love to research the various topics and put them into a fun and interesting unit study that will help inspire children to learn. One 11 year-old boy who was reviewing Science Inspired by Superheroes was blown away by the fact that you could learn science from superheroes and chose to do the unit study instead of play on the Wii! What a great reward!
And so I continue, finding interesting topics to put into fun and educational unit studies – always on the look out for new ideas!
Sandra Wilson is an experience home educator that is dedicated to putting the fun back into education!
You can view the full list of completed unit studies at http://www.homeeducationresourceemporium.com/unit-studies!
Book review – Say Please to the Honeybees
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Say Please to the Honeybees
Taking honey from the bees lands Violet in a heap of trouble. Violet is plagued by bees seeking comical revenge, spiders wanting tasty treats, a hungry horse, a gaggle of geese and a snippy salesperson. Children will love this humorous story with its adorable ending.
Make a Bee instructions included.Ages 3 – 8 (Grades JK – 3)
This story is a fun adventure that helps children learn about manners and give and take. Children can learn a lesson along with Violet, and the fun ending is sure to make everyone laugh. A craft is included in the book so children can be creative and learn at the same time – a great way to combine education and fun!
Susan Ross is a dedicated author that has tested her stories in classrooms of children allowing her to tweak each page just the way the kids like it!
Say Please to the Honeybees is just one of the great books written by Susan. To see more of her stories, or to order this one, visit her website http://susanross.ca/.
The Titanic’s Maiden Voyage
When the Titanic began her first voyage at 12:00 noon on April 10, 1912, there were 2227 men, women and children aboard. Many of the passengers were rich and famous but there was also over 700 immigrants traveling to a new land. On April 14, the Titanic was traveling full steam ahead in the North Atlantic. The weather was clear and cool however the wireless operator began to receive messages warning of icebergs ahead. Over the next few hours, a total of six messages came for other ships. The captain of the Titanic, E.J. Smith received some of these messages, but not all. There was no set system for passing messages from the operator to the crew and to the captain so, no one person saw all of the messages. The captain asked the men on lookout to watch for icebergs, but these men had no binoculars with them so they could only scan the waters with their eyes.Two great new unit studies – just released
In an effort to help boys enjoy learning I have created Unit Studies with a Bang! These unit studies combine subjects like English, History, Science, Art, Geography and Math with topics that boys will find interesting!
Cowboys of the Old West combines Geography, History, Art, English, Math and more in a fun unit study that teaches about the Old West and the cowboys that lived there! There is a preview of the unit study which can be downloaded as a supplement to a lesson plan, or even just for a fun learning experience! So grab your cowboy hat and set of on a journey to learn about the Long Drive, the history of horses, lawmen, outlaws and more!
Science Inspired by Superheroes looks at the superpowers of our favorite superheroes and describes the scientific principles behind these powers. With Science, English, Math and Art this unit study combines fun and learning with an exciting topic. Preview the unit study or download it and start learning right away!
These two unit studies have just been released and will be on sale all month! If you like these you may also be interested in some other unit studies with a bang including Soldiers Through Time; Spies, Secrets and Suspense and Pirates!
The Story Behind “Save Magic City”
While I was working for a big corporation, ten-hour-days seemed the only way of keeping up with the work load. However, after retiring, I got lots of time to look around me and take stock of the changes that had taken place while I worked.
The world is dominated by corporations who conduct their business in a globalized way. They change work forces the way we, plain humans, change clothes. As soon as a new poorer country offers better conditions, the factories and offices move and the old work force is “let go”. That means that men and women are left without the means to continue life as they knew it. The process of finding new jobs entails such stress that families split and children suffer.
I believe firmly that people should help each other when misfortune strikes; the need to put something on paper became an obsession. How to help people in a small community, where the major work supplier left and has taken their living means away?
From the beginning Leo becomes Edmund’s “magic Master” together with his Mom, he can help Edmund use his magic behind his Mom’s back, as Leona tries to solve all her problems by regular means.
Squirrel, a vivacious girl of eight, is one of Leo’s best friends, and she is always there to help with communications among teams. She is a powerful telepath, and finally, through Edmund’s cooperation, she finds the courage to tell everybody about her talent. She stops thinking of herself as a freak and proves her usefulness in the collective effort. At the end, she is the one who finds a way to communicate their dire straights to Edmund. Without her effort, the town’s children would have been left to perish by their abductor.
Raccoon, the oldest of the trio of friends, is calm and ponderous and lives most of the time he is not with his friends in front of a computer. He helps the grownups with their problems with the Internet and sets up the website for their town. He also is the one to find, through the Internet, a lawyer to volunteer his services for the problems that are sure to crop up in their strife for a new, independent life.
The town becomes a unit and they might as well adopt the Musketeers’ logo — one for all and all for one. The children surely live by that. To read their story, go to my website, www.rocsanneshield.com. You will find an excerpt of “Save Magic City”; if you are intrigued to hear more, you can purchase my book there as well. Save Magic City is also available for purchase at Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble
“Save Magic City” is an excellent book for adults who want to teach their children the importance of caring for each other and the environment they live in. My book makes great reading and you will, I hope, tell others about it too.
Do You Squidoo?
Have you discovered Squidoo yet? This a great site where homeschoolers have been putting their unit studies and lesson ideas, along with pictures from their lessons – all to help other homeschoolers! There are a variety of themes and ideas and some encouragement as well. It is
The Homeschool Club is a part of Squidoo. It features lenses specific to and written by homeschooling families. They have a directory of lessons, some homeschooling success stories and great advice on college and more!
It is a place to find resources for homeschooling, by homeschoolers, for homeschooler!
And, more and more unit studies are being written for The Homeschool Club every day!
They also encourage writing a lens or two of your own. It has an easy to use template to add text, pictures, website links, amazon products and many other inclusions that can make your lens complete.
One lens is even devoted to how to write a lens for them. It says:
The Homeschool Club Wants YOU to Write About Homeschooling!
Find out more, and get some great lesson ideas, by checking out the homeschool club on squidoo!
When my children were younger we belonged to a local homeschool group that had a weekly meet up in a church hall. It was just a drop in to give kids a chance to play with each other, and parents a chance to compare notes and get advice. To give the older children in the group some challenging activities, we created some clubs. We had a drama club, a book club, a rock club and a junior reporter club.
The aim of the junior reporter club was to encourage creative writing, collaboration and to show non-writers how they could also get involved. We had a couple of boys work together on creating the comics page, another little group worked on the puzzle page. A few of the kids wrote articles about topics they enjoyed and one child even took photos. All the kids collected ads and announcements for the classified page. (we even had a birth announcement for kittens!) After all the articles were collected and completed the whole group worked together to create the newspaper. They decided which article was to appear on which page and designed the layout.
This club involved all the kids in a variety of jobs to successfully create a finished project. No one noticed if a child had trouble reading or writing and no one was told that there was something they could not do. It was a great club that encouraged creativity, cooperation, self-esteem and achievement!
Educating children is a career
When I was in university I majored in English and History. I was often asked, oh are you going to be a teacher? A teacher in a classroom was not the career I had in mind. Passionately, all I wanted to be was a Mom. What I didn’t know then was that I would be a teacher because I became a homeschooling mom.
Homeschooling was our choice because it was what best fit our family. I was very lucky that my husband had a full-time job that enabled me to stay at home. At the onset, I was very excited about schooling my kids. We went on field trips, made projects, got involved in clubs all the while with me taking a hands-on approach and jumping in with both feet. As a parent we nurture our children, encourage them and guide them. A homeschooler just takes the extra step of teaching them academics as well as about life.
Homeschooling is not a part-time job. We found projects, activities and learning opportunities in almost everything we did. Although we tried to maintain a school schedule, to give the kids the benefit of a schedule, we often found teaching/learning opportunites on the weekends and at nights when “school” wasn’t in session. The key was to allow the learning to happen whenever it happened. Obviously this took time and patience because in a lesson the child is encouraged to do the learning and the doing, which could slow down the process of whatever needs to be done. I remember being in the grocery store, slowly travelling down each aisle because my son wanted to read everything!
What I noticed about homeschooling was it never stopped. My husband would come home from his job and enjoy family time, and down time. But as a homeschooler, I was always involving the kids in what I was doing, fraction lessons while baking, science lessons in the bath etc. It was not a 9 to 5 job but it was a full-time career.
Teaching children, whether in a classroom or at home, is a dedicated career. Giving children the attention, the encouragement and the opportunity to learn is one of the most important jobs anyone can have. And, one of the most rewarding!
What Grade are you in?
That is a question that always stumped my homeschooled children because we didn’t follow grade levels, we followed their learning level. Many of us have experienced in our lives that different topics have a greater interest, or make more sense to us than others and therefore we may be better at it than something else.
I remember when I was in grade 6 and would participate in my cousin’s grade 9 spelling drills. I always scored higher than he did but when it came to math, I couldn’t keep up with the kids in my class. Unfortunately, since I was in the public school system I was given grade 6 English (in which I excelled and sometimes got bored with) and grade 6 math (which I barely passed). Since I knew that my level of learning differed with each subject I expected the same from my children. Sure enough, one excels in English but not math while the other is completely opposite with math being the stronger subject.
And so, if the child is excelling in English should I stiffle the flow by only allowing him to study at the grade level his age is meant to be at? If he is struggling in math do I keep pushing him forward in that level, or should I lower the level a little to give him a chance to understand. I chose to homeschool so that I could offer my children an education that I felt they deserved. Therefore, I chose not to follow grade levels but instead, to offer them each subject at a level that they could understand and learn from.
By offering lessons geared to the learning level of the child, they are encouraged to learn rather than being frustrated with learning. They are inspired to excel and proud of their accomplishments. They succeed at their own level, which is what is best for them!
Share the love – the love of learning
Recently I just read about a charity that is helping to supply books to homeless shelters, battered women’s shelters etc in order to give the kids there something to read. Imagine the gift these books will be to allow kids to soar away with their imagination and leave behind the cruel world around them.
“I met a child who loved to read but didn’t own a book. I found a lot more like her when I took a closer look.
I rallied troops to help me and we sought books by the heap. And now we find the kids in need and give them books for keeps!”
This is the motto for Books for Keeps which I think it is worth all of us adopting.
Another great way to help give books to others is through BookMooch. This is a book swap site in which you post books you wish to give thereby earning points. You can then use your earned points to choose books you would like to mooch from others. Your only cost is the shipping cost of the books that are mooched from you! I often have people ask if I have a certain book, and if I can find it on there for free I will pass it along to them! You can also donate your points to a charity that can then acquire the books they need.
This month Usborne books is offering to donate one dollar in books to to Ronald McDonald Houses across Canada for every dollar of books purchased Usborne Books at Home.
Our online educational thrift store is also sharing the love, and with every $10.00 order a book will be donated to a local charity that gives books to kids in shelters at Christmastime.
Many local libraries also collect new books in order to give the gift of reading to those less fortunate. Books are such an integral part of learning, and learning is an important part of life. So giving the gift of reading is necessary so that there is at least one book for all!