Human Body Unit Study.

My kids have always been fascinated with the human body. From how we digest food, to what kinds of cells we have. I'm almost certain it has everything to do with their dad being a doctor. I've been wanting to do a fun unit study on the human body for the longest time, but it was something that I just never got around to preparing. This year, I made it a priority!

In wanting to keep things simple, since this is mainly for Marco and Isabella (with Anthony tagging along depending on his mood), I didn't want to make it too in depth. So I came across two great workbooks that cover the human body in simple terms and offers tons of hands-on activities.

My Body, by Teacher Created Resources and Easy Make & Learn Projects Human Body by Donald M. Silver were the perfect finds for our unit study!! So yesterday I spent a couple of hours planning them to go together. They complement each other wonderfully! To make things a little more challenging for Marco, I also added a narration, copy work, or additional activity. I think both kids will have fun with this!

Of course, being a scientific daddy...DH was a bit envious of how I get to teach all these fun things to the kids. "You know, I really should be the one teaching the kids about the body." SOLD! So now my dearest, most loving husband will be the one carrying out this little unit study that is going to span 14 weeks (this will only be done once a week due to DH's demanding and hectic schedule).

The lesson plans are simple, but finished. The copies are all filed away in order and I'll be pulling out all the human body books we have to keep in our book bin upstairs. Daddy will be a wonderful resource for the children as they are always learning fascinating things from him (the latest being all about bone marrow cells, the coccyx, and other body parts that I can't even pronounce!).

Here is a sample of the first 6 weeks. Super easy!

Today I decided to take a little break from the usual routine and take the kids to the library. They absolutely love going and I enjoy it too. After hunting for books, playing on the computer, and visiting all through the children's section, we always get a snack in the vending area. It's like a huge treat for the kids and we do it every time we go.

Once we got home and had lunch, we got started on our Harvest Time lapbook activities. We took a little walk outside to catch falling leaves, made leaf people, and read lots of books. It was a good afternoon. Here are some books that I think go really well if you are doing an autumn or harvest unit.Exploring Nature Around the Year: Fall, by David Webster. This book has activities, projects, and science facts all having to do with the Autumn season. Offers great ideas if you are running low on stuff to do.

Our Seasons, by Grace Lin and Ranida T. McKneally. A great book that explores all the seasons and explains simple questions like "why do the leaves change color?" The explanations can get a little complicated for young readers, so you might need to simplify it a bit. We only read the autumn section.

I Know and Old lady Who Swallowed a Pie, by Alison Jackson. My kids thought this book was hilarious! It follows the same format as There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly, but with a Thanksgiving theme.

Let's Look at Fall, by Sarah L. Schuette. Super simple book with great pictures. Perfect for little kids. This was a great opening book for our Autumn unit and although it is simple and short, we spent a lot of time looking and commenting on the pictures.

We Gather Together, by Wendy Pfeffer. A great book that's all about fall. Great illustrations and shows the fall season around the world and through different points in time. Marco really enjoyed it, but it was a little too complicated for Anthony and Isabella.

Creating leaf people was a big hit today. After the kids finished their creations, I laminated their leaf people. I'm hoping the leaves will maintain their color.

Marco and Isabella have fun making leaf people.

Anthony refused to be in the picture, but you can see his work on the left side on the orange paper.

Library days always lead to hours of looking through books and reading together. So much fun!

Teaching Africa.

I am in charge of teaching Africa for our geography class at co-op this upcoming month. I think Africa is an awesome place to study!! I am using CHC's Continents plan as a guide. These are from the CHC Grade 2 Lesson Plans. Since we only meet once a week and my class is about 45 minutes long, I don't have the luxury to include lots of fun crafts and activities. I get to stick to the basics! Even then, I still get to cover some fun things!!

Week 1
Continent Outline: Students will identify, label, and draw. I'll be using Uncle Josh's Outline Maps to print out a map of Africa. Deserts, forests, oceans, mountain ranges, and lakes will be taught and located on the map.
Activity: We will be learning an African song, "Siyahama," that the students will perform at the end of the unit.

Week 2
Animals, Attractions, and Landmarks: Students will learn about animals that are native to Africa. Basic facts about the Pyramids, the Great Sphinx, and Victoria Falls will also be presented.
Activity: Each student will create a mural in which they will be able to glue pictures of animals and landmarks. We'll continue to practice our song at the end of the class.

Week 3
Saints: We'll be learning about African, Catholic saints, including St. Charles Lwanga, St. Monica, and St. Augustine. We'll be able to place where they were from on our mural of Africa. Kids will be able to take home some coloring pages to be completed at home for a coloring contest.
Activity: Continue practicing song for performance.

Week 4:
Unit Wrap-Up: We'll be reviewing the unit on our last day and collecting all saint coloring pages to be entered into a contest. The prize will be a goody bag filled with a surprise! Since there are about 18 students in the class, I'm thinking of dividing up the contestants into age groups. But no one will be empty handed as I'll also be presenting the class with their finished murals and some yummy African treats. Then we'll give all the parents a treat with our presentation!

African Recipes
Calas
This is a rice fritter recipe from western Africa. This will yield approximately 2.5 dozen fritters.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups cooked long-grain rice
• 1/4 cup warm water
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon grated whole nutmeg
• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 3 large eggs, lightly beaten
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 tablespoon powdered sugar

Preparation

Place the rice in a medium bowl. Drizzle warm water over rice; mash rice with a fork until almost smooth. Stir in baking powder, salt, and nutmeg. Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Gradually add flour and eggs to rice mixture, stirring with a whisk until well-blended.

Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Drop rice mixture by level tablespoonfuls into pan. Cook 4 minutes on each side or until golden. Remove fritters from pan with a slotted spoon. Pat dry with paper towels. Sprinkle with powdered sugar. Serve immediately.

Waiting for Science.

I have been patiently waiting for the new Angelicum lesson plans for our science text, HSP Science. If there is any complaint that I have about Angelicum so far, it is that they are a bit slow to respond to emails. And the fact that they still don't have their act together for new lessons is a bit annoying as well.

In the mean time, I decided to start a new unit study with the kids about animals. I decided to go with Evan Moor materials this time since all I have to do is print out the worksheets to go with our unit. Since we will eventually be using a science text, I really just want to cover the basics for the time being.

Here is a list of what we'll be doing.

• Animals are everywhere.
• Living/Non-living.
• Shapes, sizes, and colors of different animals.
• Animal homes.
  
• Animal classification.

I think this will be enough on the animal kingdom since we've been studying and reading about animals all summer. This will also be an easy enough unit for Anthony to follow along in. Simple and fun!

Summer Olympics 2008.

I was watching a segment on TV about the summer Olympics, when Marco asked me, "What are the Olympics?" I tried to explain to him the basic concept and he kind of nodded and went on his way. I've been thinking about it and I've made the decision to do a little unit study on the Olympics. After all, they represent a unification of all cultures through sport. And even though the are underway, we'll learn as we watch our favorites on TV. It'll be way cool!

After doing a bit of research, I came up with the following websites that offer some fun and educational Olympic activities. It is always a challenge to find something that is appropriate for the lower grammar levels. I'm planning on picking and choosing from these different sites to make my own study. Perhaps we'll wrap it all up by making a lapbook and hosting our version of the Olympic games using activities suggested from first-school.

2008 Summer Olympic Games: offers printables on individual sports.
The Official Mascots of the Beijing 2008 Olympics: super cute and perfect to decorate a lapbook!
Learning Page: offers some nice worksheet with the Olympic theme.
Summer Olympics 2008 Unit Study: this is a free unit study with lapbook templates and activities correlating to several subjects.
The Olympics Games: a great resource from Enchanted Learning. Offers everything from flags, history, activities, and crafts.
Discovery Education Streaming: this is a great resource and I plan on using it to watch some video segments with the kids.

There are plenty more sites out there, but I always get overwhelmed with the multitude of websites to visit. I don't want to inundate anyone so I'm keeping it nice and simple. We'll start our unit on Monday and I'll be spending the weekend getting ready for it.

My main objectives for the unit will be:

• What are the Olympics?
• Why do we have them?
• How are they important?
• What is the history behind them (brief)?
• What sports are played?

I really don't want to get sidetracked into the study of China, so I'm keeping that to a minimum (we don't have that much time!). We'll also be taking a field trip to the library and seeing what Olympic books are available. With this being all last minute, I don't expect to find the greatest selection.

Dinosaur Unit Completed!

It's been a few days, but we finally completed our dinosaur unit! After taking a few days off from dinosaur activities, we had to extend our 2 week unit to end today. It was great fun and the kids woke up every day asking what dinosaur craft we were going to do. I don't think they even knew that they were learning in the process!

We began our unit with a study of "long ago." We made a poster-sized mural depicting the landscape and studied several pictures from books in order to get the background just right. Every day we added a different dinosaur to our landscape and learned a little bit about that dinosaur as well. Another concept we studied was that of extinction and the different theories behind what actually happened to the dinosaurs. It was fun to chart all the plausible and not-so-plausible explanations as to why the dinosaurs disappeared. My favorite? "Aliens came and put a giant bag over the earth and all the dinosaurs suffocated." I guess we'll never know!

I loved that all the books we read together got the kids asking questions and wanting to learn more. We were able to head outside and compare the size of a 50 ft. diplodocus to the size of each one of us using paper chains that we made. We asked questions and made hypotheses; then we tested them. How many of us would it take to reach the top of the dinosaur? About 14.5 of Marco. If the dinosaur was lying down, how many steps would it take for us to walk from it's feet to it's head? 43 steps. Exactly what does 50 feet look like? Really big! It was lots of fun! And the best part is that all the kids got involved, not just Marco; Isabella was learning right there with him and even Anthony got a good lesson in listening during reading time and following directions!

Our other favorite activities? Dressing up as paleontologists and then looking for fossils through the sand. They learned how to carefully use brushes to dust fossils off (chicken bones) and how to transport them to a museum. We also had a dinosaur hunt through the house where we followed the dinosaur tracks to a big pile of bones (made of paper). After finding them, they had to figure out how to glue them together to make a dinosaur. The list goes on and on. All the paper crafts went into the dinosaur folder and all the other big stuff got put up around the room. It will be a little sad for them to have to take it down this weekend.

As we reviewed all that we learned today, I realized how much kids can retain when you use playtime as learning time. I'm already looking forward to setting up another unit study for them. So far the contenders are horses and cowboys. But for now I'm not sure since we'll be busy preparing for the beginning of our new curriculum with MFW.