Roll and Move: Game Mechanics 101

If you have played any mainstream games you have probably played Yatzee. Although I have run into people that have not heard of this timeless classic, it is probably the most well know roll and write game. Most mechanics are pretty self explanatory, and this is no exception. You are going to roll dice and record things on your sheet of paper. They tend to be small box games, easy to travel with, but not always easy to teach or learn.

In Yatzee, you are simply collecting sets from the die results. The dice are normal 6 sided dice (d6). With these basic dice we can bring things up a notch. Quixx allows players to participate in each person's turn. It also combines simple number writing with a push your luck element. Another game that uses a basic d6 is Welcome to Dino World.  

Games like Railroad Ink use dice with different sides. In Railroad Ink, for example, the sides of the dice have railroad and street configurations. They are written on your board to create the most efficient transportation system with the most connections. 

There are starting to be more variations in this genre. One of our most played games is Welcome To... It is a flip and write game, utilizing cards instead of dice.

What are your favorite roll and write games? Tell us in the comments! 

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 7^th 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!

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!

Lewis and Clark: A 3 Week Unit Study

This unit study is available for our patrons over on Patreon and covers science, language arts, history, and art. You will be doing a Minecraft reenactment of the journey, working with maps, studying animals and tracks, and playing Discoveries, The Journals of Lewis and Clark. It is geared toward grades 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8  but can be adjusted for higher or lower grades.

This unit study contains a list of resources and  activities for you to use in your studies. Choose those that will best suit  your students, time, and learning environment. My hope is that you will enjoy  the process of learning and not feel constricted by the timeline or  activities. Make changes as they suit your needs and enjoy your time learning  together! 

Join us, at any level, on Patreon to gain access to all of our board game based unit studies and writing promts.

Become a Patron!

World Travels France Letter

 

World Travels With

Written by Michelle Morgan for her son

For private use only, you may print and use in your own homeschool. Do not copy or replicate without express permission. Copyright Michelle Morgan 2015

Find the rest of our series here.

 

Hello!

Dinah and I enjoyed our first trip on the hot air balloon so much! It was amazing seeing the earth from so high up. We floated through the sky for a very long time, going wherever the wind blew. The wind brought us from the United States of America, across the Atlantic Ocean, to a huge city!


Standing in the middle of the skyline was an incredible tower, the Eiffel Tower. We saw so many cafes, bakeries, and architecture. In Paris, France there is so much to see and I wanted to see it all.


Dinah reminded me that not everyone can see the sights that we were able to see. She told me that about 200 years ago there was a boy named Louis Braille. He lived here in France. When he was just three years old, he had an accident in his father's workshop that caused him to be blind. As he grew up, the one thing he wanted to do was read. Louis left his family to attend a school for the blind in Paris.


In Paris, he was able to learn to read. The letters were raised so he could read with his fingers. There weren't many books to read though. Louis began to think of a new way for the blind to read, a way that could make books for the blind easier to make and to read. He created the Braille Alphabet Code. Each letter was made with a series of dots that are easy to create, feel, and read. Braille's alphabet is still being used by the blind today.


I can't wait to learn more about countries all over the world. They are all bound to have their own amazing stories.


Till next time,





 

Image via Nicole Codega


 

France is our first stop on our study around the world. Netflix and Amazon Instant Video should be great resources to find documentaries about Paris and France as a whole. This is your chance to break out your flag sticker book for the first time too. At my house, we put the big flag for the country in our passport and the little flag on or near the country in the book. Then we color in the country. Here are some other things you can add to make your study of France more enjoyable and hands on.

World Travels Introduction Letter

World Travels With

Written by Michelle Morgan for her son

For private use only, you may print and use in your own homeschool. Do not copy or replicate without express permission. Copyright Michelle Morgan 2015

Find the rest of our series here.

Hello!

My name is Delbert. My good friend Dinah got a very special Christmas gift this year, a hot air balloon! Can you believe it? It is beautiful, with gold, red, and black stripes. Dinah had a great idea of how to use her special gift. I bet you can't wait to hear her idea! Well, she thought we should travel around the world in her balloon. I thought it was a great idea and said yes right away.

I came up with a great idea of my own too. I knew we would learn so many new things about lots of countries we have never seen. Then I thought we should share what we learned with someone. We thought long and hard about who we should share our adventures with, and we thought of you!

Dinah and I are going to have so much fun traveling all over the world in the hot air balloon. We hope that you have fun learning along with us too. I will write again soon when we land in our first country!

 

 

Balloon photo © Walleyelj | Stock Free Images & Dreamstime Stock Photos

 

This introduction letter is a great opportunity to share some items with your kids that they can enjoy for their whole journey. We use a play passport, which would be easy to make. We also introduced these items into our study.

World Travels Geography Series

World Travels With

Written by Michelle Morgan for her son

For private use only, you may print and use in your own homeschool. Do not copy or replicate without express permission. Copyright Michelle Morgan 2015

Welcome to World Travels! We are so excited to learn about the world with you. In this series you will find an introduction and 16 country studies. Delbert and Dinah will be flying around the world in their hot air balloon, learning about the countries they visit and how Christianity has impacted them along the way. Here are the stops we will be making. We will begin in France, then head to Ireland, England, Netherlands, Italy, Greece, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, India, Mongolia, China/Hong Kong, Australia, Guatemala, Mexico, and finish in the United States of America. Click the country to find the post when it is available. The introduction letter can be found here.

In addition to the letters from Delbert and Dinah, we will be using several materials. You can choose to use these to further your study or use your own ideas that will spark your children's desire to learn. I will share country specific items after each letter, but the following we use in our home for all or nearly all of the countries.

 

Introduction Letter

France Letter

Ireland Letter

England Letter

Netherlands Letter

Italy Letter

Greece Letter

Egypt Letter

Saudi Arabia Letter

India Letter

Mongolia Letter

China/Hong Kong Letter

Australia Letter

Easter Island Letter

Guatemala Letter

Mexico Letter

United States of America Letter

World Travels in the Works

World Travels with Delbert and Dinah has been a very fun part of our homeschool in the past. I already mentioned that I will be bringing the series back. I have spent a long time thinking about what I want to do with it. There are countries to choose, artwork to make, and words to write. I made the decision to re-write the previous posts, add the new countries, and make it into a pdf book. I still plan to post it on the blog, but a pdf book will put all the information into one easy to read spot.

There will be some other changes as well. Instead of using photos, I will be creating original artwork for each country. Delbert and Dinah will be sharing geography from a Biblical view. They will share stories of missionaries, historical significance of the areas they visit, and Christianity in the area. Not all of these will be in every story, but I want it to be the underlying theme that binds them all together. The letters will still be fun to read and not too heavy for smaller kids. I may also rearrange the countries so they follow a more route like flight instead of the random line they once were.

It will take a while to put them all together, but I hope to post the studies along the way. Did you want to know the countries we will be covering? Here they are:

England

Italy

USA

Mexico

Egypt

Easter Island

China

Hong Kong (possibly, since they are technically part of China)

France

Greece

India

Mongolia

*Guatemala

*Netherlands

*Ireland

*Saudi Arabia

*Australia

*Starting Letter

 

*(from first series)

This would make a total of 18 months of geography letters. I hope you are excited about them as I am!

A Week of Fun Leading Up to Roald Dahl Day

I actually didn't know Roald Dahl had a day. A few weeks ago I found out that September 13th is Roald Dahl day and I knew we could have a lot of fun with that in our homeschool.

Diary of a First Child has a great list of things to do, eat, and watch. Her list includes a link to the entire BFG movie on youtube, which I didn't even know existed. We watched BFG On Monday. On Tuesday we ate peach cups for snack while watching James and the Giant peach on Netflix. We also checked out Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (that's the newer one) and Matilda from the library. We are planning to watch Chocolate factory as a family and have a candy extravaganza. I picked up some peanut butter M&M's and Sour Patch Kids for the occasion. Unfortunately, Willy Wonka candy is not gluten free.

We also read The Enormous Crocodile and are reading Matilda because it is mister's favorite. We haven't read either before and they have been so much fun. The Enormous Crocodile is a quick read and is very silly. It is a great Roald Dahl book if you are reading with younger kids with shorter attention spans.



 

World Travels With Delbert and Dinah

When we did kindergarten we selected Little Passports as part of our curriculum. We really loved it and Jayne loved getting a package in the mail every month. Then we had some big life changes and knew that it just wasn't in our budget. So we finished the second half of the school year by creating a DIY Little Passports type series called World Travels With Delbert and Dinah. It was a hit with our son and with our readers.

We stopped when kindergarten was over because our little guy's interests had moved from geography to math, go figure. Below I have the entire series linked. As we near our move to a new country, geography is beginning to perk our son's interests again. So, we are considering bringing the series back. What do you think? Would you like to see us bring it back?

World Travels: Introduction

World Travels: Guatemala

World Travels: The Netherlands

World Travels: Ireland

World Travels: Saudi Arabia

World Travels: Australia

 

 

Books My 6 Year Old Loves to Read

I am going to stick with my reading theme today and share some of my six year old son's favorite books.

Elephant and Piggie Books by Mo Willems

These books are his number one favorite right now. They are easy for him to read. They don't pose much of a challenge for him. They are so funny and silly though. He reads them over and over again. Anyone who is willing to listen will be read one or six of these books. The enjoyment level is high and his reading fluency has improved drastically from reading and rereading this wonderful series.  

 

Little Bear By Else Holmelund Minarik

This series is a classic and a TV show. My little guy doesn't remember the show but has fallen in love with the Little Bear books. This series introduced him to the joy of chapter books. Each book has four stories/chapters that add to one cohesive theme throughout the book. The text is difficult enough to challenge him but not hard enough to frustrate him. He loves the stories and the characters. We even enjoyed a chapter this morning from Little Bear's Visit.

 

Fly Guy by Tedd Arnold

This chapter book series is short and easy to read. It is easier and shorter than Little Bear. That is one of the reasons my little guy loves Fly Guy. He really enjoys all the silly adventures that Fly Guy goes on. Sometimes Fly Guy simply goes on a road trip, but sometimes things get more wild like in Fly Guy and the Frankenfly.  

 

The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner

To be fair he hasn't actually finished one of these. Book one was the first chapter book he attempted. He is at least five chapters in though and really gets into the story. The text is challenging for him quite often but he makes it through each page quite well. One of the reasons he has shelved this book for a while is that he really needed to feel the accomplishment of finishing books and this one will take quite a long time for him to finish. He is really drawn in by the story and characters. I think this book will be back in his hands soon because he really wants to see what happens to these four orphans living in a boxcar.

What are some of your kiddos favorite books to read? I know my little guy would love some recommendations!

The Reading Prize

One of my goals in Jayne's education is to instill in him a love of reading. I love to read and I want him to also. I taught him to read, so it is time to start instilling.

The reading prize was born!

It started off that we would give him a prize if he read. We had no idea how it would go so we basically made it 1 book for every dollar that the prize cost, a chapter book counts for 3. It turns out that the prizes were very motivating and we knew that we needed to change tactics or we would go broke in no time at all. So we modified our plan to be more sustainable.

How it works:

He reads X amount of chapter books (3 regular books = 1 chapter book) and he receives a prize. Each time the goal goes up one more chapter book.

Right now Jayne needs to read 6 chapter books or 18 non-chapter books. We realized that the price of the prize was not the key factor so much as the desirability of the prize. Now, instead of spending $5-10 on each prize we selected a Lego education minifig set. We can separate them into tiny themed sets and he can earn one at a time. The one we ordered is the community figures. We will split it into 17 separate prizes. Since we used some Amazon rewards on it we got it for $40 and that makes each prize $2.35 each. That is a much better deal and is a quality toy.So how is this all working out for that love of reading? He is reading like a maniac to get his prizes. His biggest reading day he read 10 books and 1 chapter from a chapter book. He has also been reading for fun. He loves the Mo Willems Elephant and Piggie books. The rule is that it has to be a book he has never read before to count toward the goal. He has been reading these books over and over though, simply because he loves them so much. The goal is to eventually phase out the program, but for now it is really inspiring him and I can see his love for reading grow.



How have you helped your kids develop a love for reading?

 

 

Bean Plant Experiment Finale

What did we learn? Sun and water give the best affect, of course. We also saw that water and sun are not equally important to plants. A plant can still grow and produce beans without water, albeit stunted. No sun and  the bean plant is doomed to death. Plants 1 and 2 both have bean pods growing now.

Log Cabin Project

To round out our kindergarten year we are reading Little House in the Big Woods. Mister loves learning about "Great Great Great Grandpa times". He has enjoyed every book we have read that covers the late 1800s. We kicked off our book by making a cabin. We used straws that I cut in half. The roof is made with the bendy portion. We lashed it all together with lots of masking tape.

We added some brown paint to make it look more like logs.

Mister drew the boards onto our floor piece and colored the paper plate base green for grass.

 We used foamie stickers to make 3 beds, a table and chairs, and a red fire place. He laid it all out like in The Little House on the Prairie movie we watched via YouTube.

 The finished log cabin with removable roof, door, and windows.

Of course, no house is complete till it has been successfully turned into a squinkies play set  We have a winner on that front!

Ping Pong Science

We did a fun and easy experiment this week. Put a small dent in a ping pong ball. Fill a cup with hot (but not too hot) water. Put in the ball and cover. The air inside the ball warms up and expands, pushing out the dent.

First Grade Curriculum Choices

It is almost time to start a new school year at our house. We are changing up everything. I am also happy to report that, wile it was not the determiner, we were also down by half for our budget too. We are really looking forward to trying out our new goodies, but for now I will just share with you what they are...

Illuminations 1 is our core model this year. It is kind of strange because it is just a downloadable file that includes your curriculum choices to buy separately and the year planned out for you. It has set up for 3-8 grade and high school as well as adjustments for younger learners. If we like this curriculum we can use it 3 times over! That is something I can wrap my mind around!

Mystery of History is the glue that will be sticking our whole year together. MoH is a chronological whole world history from a Christian world view. Bible history is included and put in with more common history for a chance to see what order it all happened in. Mister is a huge history buff, at 5, and so a curriculum focused around history is going to be right up his alley. All the readers on the reader list build upon the lessons learned in MoH. This can also be used 3 times.


Life of Fred is our math focus for 1st grade. Mister has fantastic reading comprehension and learns so much from reading books. Life of Fred teaches math through the story of Fred's life. It also shows how math is used instead of the typical worksheet format he will be learning the practical uses of the math he is learning. We can run through the books each year till he moves up in 4th or 5th grade.

The Ultimate Geography and Timeline Guide is one I don't know much about. It can be used through graduation. I will have to give you more information when I have started using it.

Grammar Punk looks fun. We are going to give it a shot. It uses dice to write sentences. It can be used through 3rd grade. I don't have this one yet, so I can't give you much on this one either.

For Science we will be reading through the mass of free kindle books I have been collecting over the last year. Mister will be learning all about animals from all over the world.

Bible is going to be covered a bit in our history lessons anyway so I think we will just read a chapter from Mister's bible each day. Of course, we will also have to watch What's in the Bible too. After all it is fun and we all learn from it!

We will continue working with Alpha Phonics and then we have agreed to let him have Magic Tree House and Boxcar Children books to practice with after that. We are really looking forward to the next school year but for now we are just having fun finishing up kindergarten!

Kindergarten Curriculum Review

We are almost done with the school year and I thought it was high time I shared my thoughts on all the curriculum we were using. I should mention that we will not be using any of these choices again next year but that is not because we didn't like them. One main reason is that we want to be more compact for our move into the mission field. 

The Sonlight core curriculum has been mostly good. There were a handful of readers that Mister did not really get into but we did find some new favorites. I would definitely use Sonlight again and plan at least get some of the readers from future years. Their book list is very good.

 

All About Reading Level 1 was a big hit at our house. Mister loved the hands on activities and it all stuck. It is very slow paced compared to Alpha Phonics, which we switched to when he finished level 1. We have been very happy with Alpha Phonics. It is very basic but he has already advanced past what he would have learned over the course of a year in All About Reading level 2 and we are still doing kindergarten at our house. Plus, Alpha is available on the Kindle so that is great for compactness!

I have to say I am not a big fan of All About Spelling. Some of the beginning activities helped him get started, but it would be just as easy to just have him spell words as he learns to read them. I don't think I would do a spelling curriculum again for Mister.

SonLight science was okay. I was disappointing to find that there was a box of supplies that needed to be ordered separately on top of the box that was included. I did not order the extra box. We are nearly done with all the science and have added a large pile of science books besides as we read them all faster than the schedule suggested. I would skip Sonlight Science in the future.

We ended up skipping Horizons math (shown above). Instead we went with Math U See. Mister got it and whipped through the workbook with ease. He did not like the math blocks and we started using Squinkies instead for much more fun and homeschool happiness. I wasn't feeling the Math U See groove this year and with the added fact that they are conforming to common core standards, I will not be purchasing from them in the future.

Handwriting Without Tears was done quickly. It lasted about 1/2 the year but Mister loved it and his handwriting is looking great, when he makes sure to do it correctly and not just mess around. This was a great choice and I am glad that we were able to use it. I would absolutely buy HWT again!

Little Passports got cut in November and we started doing our own series on the blog (World Travels on the side bar). Little Passports was fantastic and I highly recommend it. We just felt that we could spend less and focus more on what we wanted him to learn if we created our own. Plus the goodies we buy are just for him and are things we will actually use and he will love.

Dance also got the boot. We felt Just for Kix was way to commercial. Every dance class they were trying to sell us stuff (t-shirts, bags, ect.). It was hard for Mister because it was all geared toward girls. We did start using some awesome workout apps on the kindle and we have been walking and biking every chance we get.

It has been a great year! We still have a couple of months to go since we are schooling year round. Most of his curriculum is going to be finished this week though. We are going to do a long unit on Little House in the Big Woods. Mister loves the book as far as we have read it and we will be incorporating lots of activities too. 

Want to know what we are using for 1st grade? Joins us again tomorrow to find out!