Cool Off with Arctic Animals Study

Last week, I spent a day with a friend of mine and her children doing a unit study on Arctic Animals. We had a blast (that would be a cold arctic blast:-) and I just wanted to share some of the things that we did. First of all, most of the ideas and material came from Sea World's Educational site - did you know that they had great unit studies online? The material included some great experiments as well as tons of information. I also went to the library and picked up about 15 books on different animals from the Arctic, and ordered a DVD from Netflix called Growing Up Arctic.

We started the day by reviewing the sequence of Creation from the first chapter of Genesis to discover when the arctic animals we were going to study were created. Then we started on our cooking craft and mixed up and baked some cupcakes that we would later turn into Polar Bear "Cub"cakes. We read some books, watched the DVD, the older two children, Sam and Charis, wrote reports about their favorite Arctic Animal. Then the kids made walruses out of paper plates and had a lot of fun creating and naming their own walruses. It was a wonderfully fun day and I think the kids really enjoyed doing school in this manner. I am a huge proponent of unit studies, especially when you have multiple children of all different ages to teach at the same time. I did this project in order to "show" my friend how we do unit studies at our house and how much fun, yet very educational, they can be.

I would like to encourage you, if you have never done unit studies or at least not very often, that you consider this approach very seriously. The retention and relaxed fun of learning that results is amazing and school will not be a drudge to be endured each day. We are currently using literature-based unit studies at our house and my children actually beg me to do school during the summer when I like to take it a little easier. So we just do a couple days a week to keep everyone happy.

For more homeschooling ideas and encouragement, visit the Carnival of Homeschooling - The Boy Scout Edition hosted over at Consent of the Governed.

The Continual Joy of Unit Studies: Renaissance Faire and Growing Crystal Candy

Since day one of homeschooling (some 9 years ago now), I have used unit studies because they are fun, educational, easy to incorporate all subjects and we can all work together! And did I say FUN? We are currently studying ancient history with A World of Adventures by Learning Adventures and have been able to incorporate alot of fun activities into our schooling. This past weekend we went to the Two Rivers Renaissance Faire and the kids learned to juggle and fence. There were many funny, educational and entertaining shows as well. The renaissance festival season is well under way across the country and continues throughout the year, so check your area to see if you can take advantage of attending one of these to add zest to your homeschooling. And make sure you count that day as a homeschooling day! The schools sure do (there were many yellow buses there, too.)


Since we are studying rocks and minerals, we finally got to use a kit that the grandparents gave us a while back to grow crystal rock candy. My daughter can't wait to try it (she had to wait 7 days!!). But it has been very interesting to watch the growth and changes each day. I would encourage you to include as many fun learning activities as you can into your homeschool and make it memorable and exciting for your kids to learn.