Friday, April 10, 2020

Spring Time Unit Studies

This post contains affiliate links to Amazon. 

Spring is upon us and in my opinion is one of the best times of year to do Unit Studies! The children are wanting to be outside more, their attention span is shortening by the day, and there are so many good choices for units right now! 

So what kinds of things are there to do units on?? Well...If I had a list, it would rival a CVS receipt. No lie. Right off the bat, you can look at Spring Holidays.  Mardi Gras, St. Patricks Day, & Easter fill February through April. But do you want to really spend a whole month learning about one holiday?? No. 
My next go-to is to think about what we usually do in the spring. Gardening, Farming, Nature studies, Animals are having babies... there is a lot of new birth in the spring, so this is a great time to choose something in that realm.

For March, Our focus was a cultural one. We took St. Patricks day and expanded it to all of Ireland and Irish lore. Fairies, Gnomes, and things like that kept the kids interested. I didn't do a post on this due to our crazy schedule and I had a super bad accident that kept me down and out for a couple of weeks. Thankfully I'm almost healed and trying to keep things as normal as possible here.

For April, we have a lot to study! We decided on these topics- 
1) One week of Easter
2) One week of England (in honor of our daughter being born there and it's her birthday month)
3) One or two days studying Viruses..because hello pandemic! 
4) The rest of the month is Farming/Gardening - a focus for us to learn more about our new area, and since we live in the farming country, what is grown here etc. We also are planting vegetables again this year and its always fun watching them grow!

If you'd like to see our resources, check below for links and ideas!

Easter
Easter resources have been shared on my Facebook Page @Under The Willow Tree! There weren't many, but it was easy to do there!

One Week England Study
The kids wanted to learn about the UK and have tea and scones! How could I say no to that! 

London Brainbox Game
Book of Afternoon Tea
England 
The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Royal Britain (Barnes & Noble)
My Busy Books London (Barnes & Noble)



Virus Pandemic Study 
The Bacteria Book
Understanding Viruses with Max Axiom
Virulence
Virus 4D Model
 

Farming & Gardening Study
We have a lot of nature around us, and that means learning the plants for safety. Knowing there is poisonous things growing with edible things as well is very important. And we are trying our best to get a garden going! 

Foraging With Kids
Compost
Farmer Boy
Let's Hatch Chicks
Chicken 4D Model
From Cotton to T-Shirt 
Cotton Education Kit 
To The Coop!
Cow Cents


 

This is what we have so far. I've been trying to scale back our layout to allow time to do other projects and things too. 

Check back later for more fun resources!


Sunday, April 5, 2020

New Chapter, New Place

Our family just wrapped up 4 adventure filled years in Arizona. We had a lot of opportunities and experiences to grow on. My heart has grown to love new people, new places, and appreciating this homeschool life even more! The desert unfortunately was just too far away from all of our family, and we decided to do our best to get back to them! 

 On to a New Chapter!

We arrived at our new home in Georgia, just in time to enjoy Spring weather! We traded a tiny 15ft foot dirt backyard, for a 1.6 acre parcel of grass and trees! Yay! Our dog is happy, the kids are happy, and we have finally unpacked almost every single remaining box. Whew! 

Have you ever experienced a move so "all consuming" that you couldn't even think about doing normal things?? 

Thats kind of how it's been for us. Thankfully, we have been given some time at home to work on projects and settle in. It's been a true blessing! We have even taken bike rides and nature hikes to explore all of the wonderful nature around us!

One of my biggest goals was to get our homeschool room done first. It was a challenge because we had to paint and unpack the bazillion boxes of homeschool materials. I'm not a minimalist at all (and never claim to be lol). So now, our new homeschool space is also all set up and ready to go! 
Shown with our March theme & Unit Study.
Several weeks in and the kids are loving it here. We look forward to sharing more soon! 

In the following posts, I'll be sharing some awesome homeschool tips and new Unit Studies! 

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