How we used Fantastic Unit Studies
My children and I had such a FUN time with these studies!!! I chose to pick three of the studies to complete with my children, grades 2nd, 4th, and 7th. It was so hard to choose which of the unit studies to do for this review. I cannot wait to do all of them.
Our Senses (ages 4-7)
I did this unit study with my daughter who is 7 years old. I knew going into the study that I would be unable to do all of the activities with her due to the fact that she is literally allergic to ALL FOOD. She can have sugar, salt and water so I knew that I could work with these three things. There was a warning at the beginning of this study about food allergies. This unit was full of fun activities in order to teach and reinforce the senses.
This activity was a fun way to reinforce the 5 senses. The book suggested
using potatoes to make potato people but we did not have potatoes so
we improvised and used various fruits and veggies to make people. My
daughter also made a butterfly and we talked about how animals and
insects use senses too.
This was an activity that we did that reinforced the sense of touch.
We used three containers, one was hot water, another was ice cold water,
and the third was lukewarm water.
For this activity we used food grade flavorings
(banana, coconut, peppermint, lemon, and almond). Using her sense of
smell, my daughter had to smell the center of each flower
and decide what it smelled like.
This activity used touch in order to determine what
an object was, while she was blindfolded.
At the end of the study on the senses there is a fun, fill-in-the-blank story. The student has to use words dealing with the senses to complete the story.
"One morning Amy woke up and saw a rhinoceros. She screamed in surprise and ran out of her room. Her mother came running over and said, "Are you o.k.? I thought I heard a crash." .........................
For the first underlined word my daughter had to come up with "something you see" and the second underlined word had to be "a sound".
Insects (ages 8-13)
My 9 year old is all about living creatures. She was so excited when I told her she would be studying about insects.
The first activity was an Animal Classification activity. The goal of the activity was to help students learn about how animals are classified and sub-classified into smaller groups. Did you know that each creature in the world has been given a name in Latin. Giving each creature a Latin name allows all languages across the world, to have a common given name for each animal or insect. For example:
Ladybug
Coccinella septempunctata
Latin septum = "seven" and punctus = "spot"
The student is supposed to come up with a clever mnemonic in order to help them remember the animal kingdom order.
Kingdom
Phylum
Class
Order
Family
Genus
Species
Kids Play Crazy On Frozen Green Slime.
Placing animals into categories
Placing animals into categories
Atoms and Molecules (ages 8-13)
My 12 year old daughter really enjoyed working through the unit on Atoms and Molecules. While she does not particularly enjoy science she loved this!!! Because the curriculum teaches science employing fun and interactive experiments in order to learn concepts and principles, it was a hit with my daughter. Being a kinesthetic learner who learns better by experiencing and actually doing things, this was a perfect fit. After finishing this unit my daughter said, "Mom, this is the kind of science that I like."
Overall Thoughts
We really enjoyed Fantastic Unit Studies. I would highly recommend this book to other educators and homeschoolers. The curriculum was a perfect fit for our family. I look forward to completing the rest of the units with my kiddos.
"All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better."
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson ~
To read more reviews click here.
No comments:
Post a Comment