Showing posts with label printables. Show all posts
Showing posts with label printables. Show all posts

Monday, March 02, 2020

How to Create Your Own Unit Studies


I know that for many, curriculum is one of the biggest challenges in the life of a homeschool parent, especially at the beginning. Some places are more challenging than others, for sure. We live in Quebec right now and it is incredibly challenging to make the government happy while still allowing learning to be fun and engaging.

I have been making my own unit studies for a couple of years now. It has been so much fun! I have to tell you that I REALLY love making units and that is why I make them for my patrons over on Patreon. I have fun doing it and they get the ease of not having to come up with anything.

Today I want to show you how I do it. It is easier than you think. I made my printable unit study planner available for free on our Patreon page. Follow along and we will get a unit started, planned, and finished.

Get the planning templates here!

First I need to know what I am going to make my unit on. My oldest is going into 7th grade in the fall. I like making history-based units best and he will be required to learn about ancient history. I might as well start at the beginning and do a unit on Neolithic society.

The first thing I am going to do is choose a game. I already know it is going to be Stone Age because I have been wanting to give it a try. If I were doing the study for a younger kid, I would choose Honga or My First Stone Age. If I didn’t already know a game I wanted to use, I would do a quick Google search for one. I always have a game in my units. If you want to know why, check out my post about whatgameschooling is and why you should do it.

I thought it might be fun to get in more experiential learning with a video game. A quick search brought up some options that look awful. Far Cry Primal looks interesting though, so I am going to check out the rating, system, and cost. Well, the M rating looks like it is fairly accurate from the ads I saw for it. I will just stick with a board game for this unit.

Now that I have a game figured out, I am going to start looking for books. I usually start by searching Google for best books on the topic I am covering. So today I am looking up best books for teens about the stone age. I always choose a book that is fiction and one that is non-fiction. For non-fiction I have decided to get the Horrible Histories Collection 20 book set. It includes the stone age as well as the other eras we will need to cover next year. I like how they are written. These will probably be the read-aloud books for us.


I am having a hard time finding a book for my son to read. I am looking for something about a boy, if possible, and age appropriate. So, I will try some other keywords in my search. After some more searching, I decided to go with The Kin by Peter Dickinson. I can get it on the Kindle, which is a bonus. Plus it is an omnibus, so he can read one or all of them for the price of one book.

Next on my list are videos. My first stop was Curiosity Stream. We got a year of streaming for super cheap and it has been a great resource for our homeschool. I found The Manot Skull which is about evidence that modern men and Neanderthals lived side-by-side. Modern Stone Age Family is about cooking and eating from ancient times. Lastly, The Neanderthals’ Dark Secret which is about why they are no longer around. That is probably good so I will check out some websites. I didn’t find anything I wanted to use, except for a virtual tour of Lascaux Cave. Technically it is another video, https://vimeo.com/40849516. It is a nice addition though. Sometimes there isn’t a site to explore and that is okay.

I already know that I will have him recreate some stone age art, so that is one activity down. The Modern Stone Age Family video would pair well with a cooking activity replicating one of the food prep methods. Now I am going to head over to Pinterest and see if there are any interesting activities to do. I’m finding that this is a topic that doesn’t have a lot of information or activities. It makes sense since it is prehistory. It is okay for this to be a short unit. I will add a great activity staple, making a diorama. I let him build it out of whatever he wants or on Minecraft.

I already have history in the unit since it is the main focus. Science is there because of the scientific study of the bones and foods they ate in the videos we will watch. I don’t worry about getting math in because we use Shiller Math and don’t need to add more. I have an art project, not required, but a nice addition. For language arts, I have reading and listening taken care of, but I would like to get some writing in there for a well rounded study. I think I will have him write and illustrate a short story about what it would be like to live in the stone age. It has writing and some more art. As a bonus, he can make it into a picture book to read to his 3 year old little brother.

So, there you have it! We made a unit. On the printable I have included a page for you to plan out your activities by day/week. My Neolithic unit is short and will probably take a couple of weeks or so. Most of my units take about 4-6 weeks depending on the topic and amount of potential information and activities. It took about an hour to put the unit together, mostly one handed with a 3 year old on my lap, and while also writing this blog post.

Whether you are making a unit for a specific topic to cover regulations or making a unit for your child’s ever-changing interests, you can do it. It is fast and very flexible. You can make your units months in advance or just days. If you want to get some pre-made units, become a patron. You can get this unit and more. We also have a few free units that you can check out in the side bar and at our Patreon page. Good luck unit planning and let me know how it goes!


Get the completed unit here on our Patreon page!


Tuesday, February 18, 2020

Amazing Race Study Notebook


We love to watch The Amazing Race! Why not turn it into a great way to study geography and social science? This one printable will help your students engage deeper with what they see in the show and learn about the countries that the contestants visit.
Pages one and two give you art for your binder. Page three is a page to put in information about the country visited (map, flag, country stats).  The fourth page is a place to record the events that occurred in the episode ind interesting facts or situations that arose. The last page is a place to record information about the culture of the countries visited. 
Pages 3-5 will be printed as needed, depending on the season being watched. We have had a lot of fun using this workbook over the years and we hope you and you kids do too!
This unit is available for all of our Patrons at any level, so come check it out and get started learning with the show.
Become a Patron!

Saturday, October 29, 2011

Hot Dog Pre-K Pack

Pattern cards
We have 50 followers and, true to my word, I am sharing the hot dog pack! Jayne really loved this pack. It is smaller than I intended but I made it while my computer was on life support, so what I made was all I was going to get. You can find the printables on our facebook page in the Hot Dog pack photo album. The link is here: http://facebook.com/thecrazyelephant

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Homeschool Fun: Fire Safety

Jayne cuts the puzzle
This week's focus was on national fire safety week. The printables from Homeschool Creations were a great compliment to the week. As usual he really liked the activities. He especially likes cut and puzzles, so this sheet was his favorite. I cut the edges to make it a little easier for him and then he cut out all the little squares. He was pretty proud of himself when he got it put together. There is something especially difficult about puzzles with smooth edges. I was a little concerned that it would be too easy since he is used to doing 60-100 piece puzzles, but it turned out to be just right.

Jayne "drives"
On Wednesday, Adam's day off, we did all of our fire safety practice. We practiced our exit plan by setting off the fire alarm in the house. We also did a little stop, drop, and roll practice. Last year I cut a flame shape out of some felt and used it for practice because it would actually "roll" off of him. I couldn't find it this year, so we used our imaginations. We also used Jayne's toy phone to pracitce calling 911.

The highlight of the whole week was the field trip to the fire station! Jayne loved it and made sure to clibm around in all the trucks. He brought home all kinds of doodads. He has been watching Fireman Sam on Netflix this week too. Jayne says he wants to be a firefighter when he grows up.

What kinds of fun things have you done with your kiddos for fire safety week?