Tag Archives: unit study

Daily Learning Routine for Non-Homeschooling Moms

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Boy, the world is quite a mess lately, hmm? Our kiddos are home full-time until September and Mr. Fix-It and I are both Essential workers at our off-homestead jobs, so our house has been kinda reeling lately. A little bit of organization goes a long way! We have always done summer home-learning activities, but I had to look over my previous activities and make some adjustments for this new phase of Crisis-Schooling. It’s not really the same as homeschooling. I’m not trying to cover a complete school year or curriculum. … Continue Reading…

How to Plan a Family Unit Study for Fun Summer Learning

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A book, a movie, and a field trip about the same topic equal an easy summer family unit study!  Summer brain drain–ugh! For 3 months the kids run around from camp to craft to sleepover wanting fun and games and play time all day, every day because SCHOOL’S OUT so we don’t have to do any more of “that learning stuff.” Um…not around here! So what’s a busy, working mom to do besides frantically shuffle the kids from one STEM camp to another and continue to spend her nights tracking … Continue Reading…

Coal Mining Communities Unit Study for Middle Grades (5th-8th)

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Resources for a Unit Study on coal mining communities, including FREE Amazon and YouTube video list, website links, book lists, and templates for student projects and reports. Perfect for grades 4-8, but could easily be aged up or down to suit a general family unit study as well. via Walking in High Cotton

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What ARE Relaxed Summer Learning Plans?

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I’ve gone back and forth for several years not knowing where I fit with homeschooling (since we don’t homeschool full-time) and finally embraced the fact that we do homeschool–just not full-time. But I am–we are–intentional, teaching parents and we create a constant learning environment at home. Well, we try, anyway. {smile} So this week I’ll be sharing some of my planning process and what our summer calendar looks like. But first I’d like to share some thoughts on why I go through the trouble of making summer learning plans, and how we … Continue Reading…

Resources and Ideas for a Family Unit Study on Archaeology

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Well, the school year is starting to wrap up. Now that our Spring Break road trip is behind us, I’m focused on pulling together some unit study materials for the summer. Our family topics this year are marine biology and archaeology, and this year we’re really focusing on professions in those fields. We want the kids to start seeing and understanding what following your passion really looks like, day-to-day. What jobs do people do if they love history or ocean animals? Archaeology started out as a bit of a stretch for … Continue Reading…

How to Build a Pirate Ship from Corks

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We’re a little behind around here, but we wrapped up our summer unit study on pirates (our astronomy unit study is continuing because we’re just loving it too much to stop!) and I wanted to share some of the fun projects we did! One of our hands-on projects was to build a pirate ship that would really float from corks! Flexibility has become our family motto! With relaxed learning plans, there’s no need to feel behind or rushed. If it takes longer, that’s ok. You just keep fitting it in, … Continue Reading…

History, Adventure, and Treasure…The Ultimate Guide to Studying Pirates

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In the spring I mentioned that we would have two family unit studies this summer. One is our Astronomy unit study–which is continuing casually through the whole summer and has been very fun so far! (I’ll have an update on one of our projects soon.) The other topic I chose this year is Pirates. I had no idea they would overlap so much, but space pirates is totally a thing so it’s worked out great! The history of Pirates is an interesting topic because it can involve a lot of … Continue Reading…

The Quest for Truth Sci-Fi Series for Middle Grade Readers…A Review and GIVEAWAY!

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We’ve continued with our slow, steady, and FUN family Astronomy study this month. So far we’ve already seen and documented several moon phases including a full moon and a new moon; visible Jupiter; visible Mercury, and learned to recognize the Big and Little Dipper.  We’ve also watched several space and sci-fi movies as a family, including a special at-home family movie night presentation of Rogue One (which my kiddos hadn’t seen yet) and a splurge on Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 in the theater. We’ve been keeping a list of … Continue Reading…

Summer Star-Gazing…A Simple Family Unit Study on Astronomy

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Have you gotten your FREE Summer Unit Study Planner? I’ve been hard at work with mine, laying out plans for an Astronomy unit study and a Pirates/Maritime History unit study for the family this summer. I’ve put quite a bit of time into gathering resources and planning activities because I enjoy it. We don’t get much for family vacations and holidays around here with the farm to keep an eye on. So we have to make up our own, local, staycation-type fun for the summer. I’m going to share my resource … Continue Reading…

Space and Science-Fiction Adventure Books for 8-12 Year Olds

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When outlining our simple family unit studies, I mentioned that I like to use a fiction read-aloud on the topic as the backbone of our unit. Then I laid out our summer-long Astronomy unit study for you and there were no fiction books! I struggled with finding fiction books in the space and sci-fi genre because it’s not one that I’m very familiar with, personally. It took a lot of searching, chatting with our librarian, and reading reviews on Amazon to find a list of books to consider that meet … Continue Reading…

How To Make Relaxed Summer Learning Plans

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I already introduced you to why we make summer learning plans. Today I’m going to share simple steps for creating your own simple, relaxed summer learning plans. I did this for the first time in 2012 and it worked great–even though we were not strict about sticking to it. It’s an outline, not an itinerary. In 2013 I did less pre-planning and I feel like we got less out of it as well. So I’m going back to my first-year concept. I’m not done (obviously–since I pretty much just started last week!) … Continue Reading…

50+ Resources for Learning About War Dogs and K-9 Heroes

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Have you seen the movie Max, about a Marine Corps dog originally stationed in Afghanistan? As a boy momma, with an equally adventure and animal-loving girl, it was right up our alley for family movie night. We enjoyed it! A little predictable? Yes. But still a quality family movie. And it sparked a lot of interest from the crew about military working dogs. The boys are already crazy about anything military and the Ladybug loves everything dogs right now so this angle on their favorite topics was very fresh for them, … Continue Reading…

Our Teeny-Tiny Mini Unit Study on the Oregon Trail

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I’ve been reading some great articles about everyone starting to plan out their homeschool year, and while it hurts my heart that we still won’t be homeschooling full-time, I have been so happy with how some of our summer learning plans have gone that it also makes me feel energized for planning our own year. Over the last two months we’ve done our first two, homemade, mini unit studies, one with Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder, and one we just finished with The Stout-Hearted Seven by  Neta Lohnes Frazier. … Continue Reading…