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    #17658 06/10/08 02:52 PM
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    Kriston Offline OP
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    Has anyone out there put together her/his own unit studies before? I think I'm going to try using unit studies for next year for DS7, so I'm starting to think about what's involved. I'm essentially a lazy person, so I'd prefer not to have to make the putting together into a full-time job.

    I was hoping to get tips from anyone who has ideas. If you have anything to share, whether you are a homeschooler or not, please gimme what you got! wink

    Thanks!


    Kriston
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    I've never put any together but I loved doing a unit on Bedouins in grade school. We made tents, food and even a paper mache camel smile We also learned a lot about the desert and nomadic lifestyles.

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    HHmm not sure what technically constitutes a unit study but what I've done in the past is to find a few non-fiction resources (books, movies) and a few fiction sources (books). I then google the topic to find any cool craft, science experiments or look in my myriad of experiment books for something to go w/ it.

    So for my DS5 who asked me about clouds today, I'll get the non-fiction Let's Read and find OUt science books about water cycle. I'll get a beautifully illustrated poem about the water cycle (beautiful words so tie in language arts, using descriptive words in painting a pic in the reader's mind, rythem of poetry). I will look for an easy reader for him to read to me about weather, clouds etc. I'll look for fiction picture books about a rainy day or some such thing. Additionally, we'll watch Magic School Bus episode on evaporation/water cycle. We'll then do an experiment to look at the water cycle. You put salt water in a bowl. In the center you put another bowl. You wrap tightly in saran wrap and put a rock in the center. This will guide the evaporating water to the center and it will drip into the inner bowl. When you have enough water condensed, you taste it to see that it's no longer salty and is drinkable. We might also discuss how Survivor Man used this method in the desert for survival and might google this method as a survival technique. WE'll put a glass of ice next to a boiling kettle and watch condensation form.

    Well you get the picture.

    I've done this with history as well...find a good historical fiction to go along w/ the history less, find pics to add to a timeline, read non-fiction sources, watch a movie etc.

    Is that what you're referring to?
    Dazey

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    Kriston Offline OP
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    Yup. Pretty much, Dazey.

    The idea I'm going with is to try to tie virtually all subjects into the unit. So if we do a robot unit, we'll read some stories about robots (lit), write stories about robots (composition), look at how robots work (science), study the history and development of robotics (history, science), design robots (art, engineering), construct our own robots from Lego or some such kits (art, science, engineering), do math problems related to building robots (math), etc.

    Working math and science into a given unit will be easier for some topics than others, naturally. A unit doesn't have to be quite so comprehensive to work, but it would be nice if we could cover at least most of the biggies in each unit.

    We're currently thinking we'll do units on robots, ancient Greece, Arabic (he was thinking the language, but since I don't speak it, we'll definitely broaden our scope to history, math, science, food and lit there!), comparative religion and myth, the Ohio River, and dinosaurs...so far.

    Does that sound like a good start? Any obvious problems anyone sees there?


    Kriston
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    If you want to cut down on your legwork, what I did was to google "dinosaur unit study." It pulled up several resources. Also, if you post at Well Trained Mind curriculum board, people will either post what they did or point you to their blog showing you what they did. Some have book lists at Amazon that might include both fiction and non-fiction sources. I have some resources written down for Ancient Greece which I'll post later.

    Do you have LEGO MINDSTORMs NXT kit? No better way to learn robotics and programming.

    Oh a friend of mine wrote a unit study on comparative religion and myth. I'll look it up and post a link later.


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    It sounds fun!

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    Kriston Offline OP
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    To be honest, Dazey, I haven't been wild about the pre-packaged units I've seen online. They tend to be either too easy or too craft-oriented. Real art that involves creativity and design, I like. But I tend to hate and despise pre-made, adult-designed craft projects that only require kids to cut on the dotted lines and paste as directed. They always seem like time-wasters for kids to me. What exactly do they get out of them that they couldn't get out of drawing something of their own?

    Anyway, I came to the conclusion that I'm probably going to have to go it mostly alone. I have some resouces that I plan to use for the units, naturally. But even in homeschooling, that old HG+ dilemma of asynchronous development crops up and makes a lot of the stuff that's out there pretty useless. Plus the library is free, and a lot of the pre-packaged unit studies charge for their use. So mostly I plan to raid the library, much as I did this past year. I just plan to do it with a bit more rhyme and reason than I used before!

    I'm glad you asked about the Lego Mindstorms kit. Where does one get one of those? That kit was part of my current plan, actually, since I'd heard about it earlier this year and it sounds perfect. But I don't know if you just go to Target or wherever and buy one, if you get them online from specialty suppliers, or if there's some other source required. I'd be grateful for help on that one! Thanks!

    And Dottie, you're a goof! laugh So your private school had robots in ancient Greece? confused (LOL!)


    Kriston
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    Kriston Offline OP
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    P.S. Dottie: What exactly are you detoxing? You're not fasting and living on lemon juice and cayenne pepper or some such thing, are you?


    Kriston
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    I totally get what you're saying but I've found great books lists through googling unit studies which saves me time. I then look them up at AMazon to get a rating, then I check to see if our library has it. It does take leg work.

    Here's a link to a thread of dinosaur unit studies. http://afterschoolers.yuku.com/topic/1953?page=2

    You can get LEGO MINDSTORMS at Toys R Us. You can buy it online. Look for sales or coupons. Sometimes FAO Schwarz has a good sale on them. We own two kits. One time Target (maybe Christmas) had some in the store. I did buy my online from Target and there was a coupon and I got free shipping so check that first.

    Your first resource for robotics is http://www.thenxtstep.blogspot.com/. There is a forum where you can post questions and folk will answer. I'm LEGOmom at that site. There is a fun Mars Mission challenge starting now that I think we will do this summer. It's similar to First LEGO League but you can do it alone rather than having a team and you do it all at home. I find this is great for our asynchronous kids. I was shocked that DS then 7yrs old took to programming like a duck to water. His science fair project was to ask the question "Does hot water cool down at the same rate that cold water warms up to room temperature." he used LEGO temp sensors attached to the LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT brick. He wrote the program to gather the data, append it to a file, and download it to the computer. DH ten helped him to transfer it to Excel for graphing. DS then interpreted the graph on his own. My FIL said, given it was LEGO products, the temp curves were perfect (it never reaches room temp - asymptote). I was further shocked when my 5yr old started writing his own programs and began debugging them as well. It's a great tool for logical thinking. I own ALL of the LEGO NXT books so if you have your eye on one, I can give you thoughts on it.

    I'm not a crafty person hence we never do crafts. I figure that's what I sent them to preK for lol. Things like mummifying a chicken is just VERY COOL!!! those are my types of go-alongs lol.

    I also tie in geography whenever possible.

    I think this summer we'll do an Olympics unit, tie it in w/ Ancient Greece, do math to chart the medals the countries get and scoring etc.

    When we did early peoples, the boys enjoyed the arch dig I setup in the sandbox. That involved marking off quadrants, drawing them on paper, numbering them, labeling items, discussing what they might have been used for, etc.

    Most of my unit studies were when my boys were younger than yours is now.

    I have a good dino book. I'll look it up. it shows a dino graveyard (actually I think that's the name) and it asks you to come up w/ hypotheses explaining the graveyard. It then goes through and systematically disabuses each one based on the available evidence.

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    Kriston Offline OP
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    Cool stuff! Thanks so much, Dazey! I have to go look up all the stuff you suggested.

    I owe you one! smile


    Kriston
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