Posts Tagged ‘unit study’

Unit Studies for Homeschool

Friday, December 7th, 2012

unit-studies-for-homeschool

Where can you find unit studies for homeschool? Some of you were asking for a tour of my huge Unit Study Treasure Vault. It’s loaded with almost 1,000 rich pages of fun material for unit studies, all instantly available when you join as a member. Over 100 unit studies are there, with supporting articles and embedded videos. Here are some of the unit studies:

  • Pond Life Unit Study
  • Human Body Unit Study
  • Astronomy Unit Study
  • Microscope Unit Study
  • DNA Unit Study
  • Genetics Unit Study
  • Birds Unit Study
  • Hatching an Egg
  • Bridge Unit Study
  • Dry Ice Unit Study
  • Mushroom Unit Study
  • Earthworms Unit Study
  • Engines Unit Study
  • Fossils Unit Study
  • The Cell Unit Study
  • Chemistry Unit Study
  • Insect Unit Study
  • Butterfly Unit Study
  • Inventions Unit Study
  • Horses Unit Study
  • Underwater Sea Creatures Unit Study
  • Aquarium Field Trip
  • Plants Unit Study
  • Classification of Animals
  • Rocks and Minerals Unit Study
  • Caves and Mines Unit Study
  • Simple Machines Unit Study
  • Weather Unit Study
  • Swiss Family Robinson Unit Study
  • Peter Pan Unit Study
  • Homer Price Unit Study
  • Beowulf Unit Study
  • Mystery Dinner
  • Map-Making
  • Neighborhood Map
  • Geocaching
  • Studying Your State
  • Luau Unit Study
  • Japan Unit Study
  • China Unit Study
  • India Unit Study
  • Mexico Unit Study
  • Australia Unit Study
  • Israel Unit Study
  • Bank Field Trip
  • Newspaper Field Trip
  • Circus Field Trip
  • Train Field Trip
  • Race Car Unit Study
  • Construction Unit Study
  • Around the World Unit Study
  • Learning to Draw
  • Pottery Unit Study
  • Wood Crafts Unit Study
  • Mosaics Unit Study
  • Mask-Making Unit Study
  • Paper Bag Puppets
  • Art Party
  • Nature Crafts
  • Feast of Tabernacles Unit Study
  • Ruth Unit Study
  • Make Your Own Bible Games
  • Ancient Egypt Unit Study
  • King Tut Mask
  • Egyptian Feast
  • Ancient Greece Unit Study
  • Greek Feast
  • Ancient Rome Unit Study
  • Middle Ages Unit Study
  • Medieval Feast
  • Cardboard Castles
  • Renaissance Fair
  • Vikings Unit Study
  • Cathedrals Unit Study
  • Renaissance Unit Study
  • Explorers Unit Study
  • American Revolution Unit Study
  • Native Americans Unit Study
  • Presidents Unit Study
  • Wild West Unit Study
  • Civil War Unit Study
  • Modern History Unit Study

Wouldn’t it be great to have access to all these unit studies instantly? Why not join the Unit Study Treasure Vault today?

Filming the Pond Unit Study

Thursday, October 18th, 2012

Last Saturday afternoon, I jumped onto the bed where my husband was taking a nap. “Carpe Diem!” I shouted. “The sun is shining, and it’s perfect for filming the Pond Unit Study. Can we go?”

“Get me some tea…” he groggily stated.

By the time we were backing out the driveway, dark clouds covered the sun, and it looked like it was going to storm. I looked down at all the gorgeous drawings my kids had made of microscopic creatures from the pond, and their sweet watercolor pictures of the pond itself. I didn’t want them to be ruined. My clip-on mic cost us $600. I didn’t want that ruined either. I looked nervously into the sky through the front windshield.

When we arrived at the pond, the wind started blowing all the papers. As my husband filmed, people gathered around just to watch, apparently entertained by me. I didn’t mind the audience. I’m a ham anyway. They asked me if they were going to be on YouTube. My husband laughed. My son Stephen asked if he could get another sample of the pond water, and I realized I needed to show the audience our handy-dandy pond-collecting contraption invented by my husband.

There was constant noise, so we had to keep stopping and starting over. A motorcycle started up every five minutes. Then I took a deep breath and nearly choked on an insect. And I was in a desperate hurry to film before an impending downpour.

You might be saying, why not film another time? Because next weekend I’m filming the mushroom hike and collecting video footage of all the mushroom activities we do. Since my sons are involved in flag football on Saturdays also, there is no other time to record. By the time my husband gets back from work on weekdays, it’s dark. Both of these unit studies are going into my Treasure Vault on November 1st, which only gives me five days to process the mushroom video footage. So no, there is no other time.

Then I found out my mic was on mute after half an hour of filming. Apparently my batteries were dead.

I looked up into the sky. “Lord, I know You want me to do this. You led me to do this unit study thing. I know You control the weather.” I felt discouraged as I went back to the car to change the batteries.

When I came back from the car, the sun was shining. The pond looked gorgeous with the beautiful autumn trees reflected in it. I was so happy. I pulled myself together to re-film the unit study.

People don’t realize how much work it is to film a video. I had accidentally left my notes at home, you know, my script, so I was doing it impromptu, hoping I covered all the transitions between the different video clips I had filmed over the last month. For example, I almost forgot to mention the coffee filter art we did to create that psychedelic-looking green algae called a Desmid.

Anyway, I now have the video footage, and it will probably take 2 to 3 hours to edit it because there are over 100 short video clips just for the Pond Unit Study. I will be adding it to my Unit Study Treasure Vault along with a Mushroom Unit Study on November 1st. On that day I’m also adding a video called “Feast of Tabernacles,” which was a super fun Bible unit study. My children enjoyed waving branches, building a simple tent-structure, and stomping on wheat that we collected from a wheat field. Yes, I’m filming my whole life right now and putting it into the Treasure Vault. That’s what I felt God leading me to do, and I will continue to follow where He leads!

3-D Castle Puzzle

Thursday, June 14th, 2012

I always wondered what it was like to put together a 3-D castle puzzle. Well, now I know. It’s anti-climactic. The box claims that you will love every minute that you put this puzzle together, and my husband and I laughed at how ridiculous that statement was. The foam pieces don’t even fit together properly. (See close-up of clock tower cross.) I should have paid attention to the enormous amount of hours down the drain for attempting to put this puzzle together. Yes, I say attempting because close to the end, we realized we had missing pieces as well as extra pieces, none of which fit into anything.

My sweet children spent up to an hour before finding ONE piece. That’s ridiculous, people. And yet, every time I said to the kids, “Let’s just throw this thing away,” they would say, “No, we want to finish.” But they never wanted to work on it, because it was too hard. Just about all the pieces were gray bricks. You can’t actually work on a specific area when everything looks the same. So after the children were in bed, my husband and I tried to make some headway so that my children wouldn’t feel like failures.

Oh, and never mind the fact that there is about half an inch of air between the outer and inner walls of the castle, so if you find a piece, woe is you, because you must put the piece in, only to crush the entire wall. I taped two popcycle sticks together, and my husband carefully fished it between the walls, to get the pieces to not crush the wall.

Right near the end, I wanted so badly for it to be over and done with so that I could have the table back. I said to my husband, “I don’t care what you have to do! Fake it if you have to. Just give the kids the illusion that this thing is finished…” I begged with pleading eyes. And my husband came through for me, like he always does. My knight in shining armor finished our castle, and the kids squealed for joy in the morning. Don’t ask me where the castle now resides. Ahem. (Trash can.)

Medieval Wax Seal

Friday, June 8th, 2012

medieval-wax-seal

My husband bought a medieval wax seal before we were married and never used it. I jumped up and down and said, “Can we use it, please?” He finally relented. It was brand new, and I suppose he never intended to use it. He just thought it was cool.

The kit included three waxy metallic candles in blue, dark red, and gold. It also included the letter “E,” which stands for “Evans,” our family name.

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We lit the candles and dripped the wax in a puddle to seal a letter. The children had each written a letter to God, which they sealed, only to open when they are adults.

The seal was made out of metal. It was heavy for its size. You press the seal into the hot wax. It leaves an imprint. Then you wait for the wax to cool before lifting it up and looking at it.

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If you don’t have a medieval wax seal, I suppose you could use candle wax and a rubber stamp. But it might ruin your rubber stamp, so choose a stamp you don’t like. You could use a stamp that represents your child, like a monkey stamp for my daughter, who climbs on top of everything, including the roof of the neighbor’s shed.

Now the children each have a letter that has been sealed with our family seal. My husband let each child press the seal into the melted wax.

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