My Unit Studies {Free Printables & Hands-on Ideas}

Trail of Tears Unit Study and Lapbook

August 9, 2014 | 13 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Before I tell you about the trail of tears unit study and lapbook that I have planned for fall, I want to say congratulations to Crystal Cook, our grand prize winner of the Explorers Basket.

All I could “hear” were squeals on the other side of my email. Too, I restrained myself from commenting on each reply, which you know is hard for me to do, but wanted you to know that I read each comment.

I value your input because though I may not get to do each suggestion, I sure do try to eventually.

Also, I may be wildly insane for even attempting to prepare the Trail of Tears unit study and lapbook about 14 days before we have to be out of our house and hotel hopping, but I would rather plan and have it than to not plan.

I am just giving you heads up now that this unit study, though I don’t want it to be, may stand half-baked for a while because our huge move overseas is here.

I can’t even begin to tell you all the details that are consuming when you don’t have a forwarding address yet, or will be totally mobile.

Too, I am still transferring files over to my laptop and by the way if you know of a good mini (and I do mean mini) printer that is easy to get cartridges for, let me know.

Back to my unit study, I pushed myself one more time to go ahead and at least get the printables started on this unit study because it really is a time period that I wanted Tiny to study at an older age.

Though we will focus of course on the culture and life of a few different Native American people, I wanted to expose the injustices and ugly side of American history.

Those are teachable moments too of examples that we do not want to be like.

The ugly side of history is something we do not shy away from, but I do wait to talk about it when each of the boys are more middle to high school age.

It’s crazy though how even very young children know when something is not fair and can have empathy for a fellow being.

It’s just when they are older they can value the model lessons.

Also, in preparing my lapbooks, as I talk about in the new The Big Book Of Homeschool Ideas where I am a co-author, one way to keep doing lapbooks for the middle to high school ages is to be sure clip art is not babyish. That is a huge turnoff to the older kids.

That is one aversion I have to many printables and that is the clip art outgrows your crew in about one year. It’s okay for sure if the focus is on the younger crew and sometimes it is.

But I mostly aim for middle to high school because there is so much content for younger kids and not much for hands-on and to keep learning fun through to the upper grades.

I think sometimes finding appropriate clip art is more time consuming than actually doing the unit study, but I find it so worth the time for our kids.

Today, I have two minibooks.

Well, actually one minibook and then a tear shaped printable to use either on the front of your lapbook or inside lapbook as a way to introduce The Trail of Tears.

Trail of Tears silhouette credit: Edees Crafty Corner

How to Get the Free Trail of Tears Lapbook

Now, how to grab the free lapbook. This is a subscriber freebie.

That means when you sign up to follow me, you get access to my subscribers library and this freebie.

However, not all my freebies are in the library (wink).

I like to keep up to date with what is valuable to you so I can give you more, some freebies you must sign up again on the form below even if you are already a follower.

And it’s the only way I have of freely delivering them to you. Just follow the steps below.

► 1) Sign up on my list.
► 2) Go to your inbox and confirm your email from the automatic reply I sent you. If you’re already a confirmed subscriber, you will not have to do this. You’ll receive the freebie instantly.
►3) Last step. look for my reply AFTER you’ve confirmed your email.

Oceans Lapbook Starter

July 11, 2014 | 3 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Sharing the oceans lapbook starter today for my Oceans Unit Study and Lapbook,

So we were able to get a bit of school done this week and I was also able to create minibook four today, which is How Low Can You Go.

Tiny was reading to me the other day about how deep the ocean is and we were trying to picture how far a diver could go. This next easy minibook gives a visual example of the depth of a diver and also of submarines.

With a little bit of supervised research on google, your child should be able to arrange the pictures or clip art in order from the top of the page or sea level to the bottom of the page or the deepest.

Then glue the pictures on the page.

Too, we have started to arrange minibooks 1 – 4 on the file folder. Above is the beginning layout or lapbook starter of where we have decided to place the minibooks so far.

Too, when we place them, we try to arrange them so that we have as much room as possible for the rest of the minibooks.

I have some notebooking pages coming up too because this a big unit and I think it needs a bit more research by Tiny.

Are you following along or are you breaking right now for summer? If you are, then you can save this unit for when you start back to school.

Other Ocean Unit Study Resources:

HOW TO DOWNLOAD THE FREE OCEAN LAPBOOK

It’s a subscriber freebie.

That means when you sign up to follow me, you get access my subscribers library.

However, not all of my freebies are in the library (wink).

I like to keep up to date with what is valuable to you so I can give you more, some freebies you must sign up again on the form below even if you are already a follower.

It’s the only way I have of freely delivering them to you. Just follow the steps below.

Free Ocean Lapbook and Fun Homeschool Unit Study Ideas

► 1) Sign up on my list.
► 2) Go to your inbox and confirm your email from the automatic reply I sent you.
►3) Last, look for my reply AFTER you confirm your email.

Ocean Currents Minibook

June 10, 2014 | 2 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

I have an ocean currents minibook today. However, my Oceans Unit Study and Lapbook is now complete.

It has been tempting to jump ship (hee hee, corny pun) in our ocean unit study and study about all the cool marine life.

But I felt like we needed to stay focused just a bit more on the actual geography and science behind how the water moves.

So today I have the ocean currents minibook ready. I wanted Tiny to take time in today’s lesson to think and pause about the wonders below.

It is important to me that Tiny understands that ocean currents are like giant “rivers” of water and they probably could make any mighty river we can physically see as miniature by comparison. You know this is the part of the unit study where I want to build his awe for creation.

I think this part of studying oceanography has to be one of the fascinating parts to understanding the vastness of the ocean.

Bottom line: We are soaking up our study of the ocean and loving it! On the next post on our Ocean Lapbook, I will show you the layout of the minibooks. I normally like to get three or so minibooks made before I show you the layout and oh yes, I have the cover page coming too.

OCEAN HANDS-ON ACTIVITIES FOR KIDS

HOW TO DOWNLOAD THE FREE OCEAN LAPBOOK

It’s a subscriber freebie.

1) Sign up on my list.
2) Grab the freebie now.
3) Last, look for all my emails in your inbox. Glad to have you following me!

What is the Ocean Minibook

May 8, 2014 | 9 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

I keep on pushing through with our home school schedule and created the minibook: What is the Ocean next. Hoping to squeeze in the Ocean Unit Study that we prepared together in our 10 Days of Diving Into Unit Studies by Creating a Unit Study Together before I have to completely stop homeschooling and prepare for the move might be too big of a goal, but nothing ever came from not planning.

I have learned through many years of homeschooling that with big changes you need to mete out some grace to yourself too.

Talking about moving, which you may get so tired of me talking about, but look what sold and was gone today.

This sale pulled at my heart strings a wee bit because all of my boys learned how to play on this piano. Focusing on the fun and wonderful opportunity we will have of living overseas though, I think I might be able to get over this quickly.

My plan for now is to not slow down with any school since I know we will have a long stop when we move.

We will go ahead and start our Ocean Unit Study. I have already started creating printables. As usual I have tried to create some of this minibook with cursive writing so it is not babyish and because if your kids are like mine they can always use the practice reading all kinds of cursive fonts.

Also, this minibook is easy enough to find the answers to because it is just a matter of locating Oceans and Seas in their Atlas on online, whichever you prefer them to do. I will eventually be creating a page with links too, but I have already collected several links when we prepared this unit study together and will be sharing them again together as I round them up.

So the title of this minibook comes right off one of the chapters from the book I told you we would use as a simple spine when we did our 10 day unit study series together, which is Discover the Oceans: The World’s Largest Ecosystem.

Download here What is the Ocean free minibook

Hugs and love ya,

Fun Ocean Unit Study Resources

How To Make An Easy Ink pot & Quill Pen with Berry Ink

April 22, 2014 | 5 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

If I do start a series called hodgepodge homeschooling it would include how to make an easy ink pot and quill pen with berry ink that Tiny did today. This is such an easy and fun hands-on activity that can go along with any topic on westward expansion, Lewis & Clark or just the life of a pioneer.

While I worked in the kitchen pricing my items for the moving sale this weekend, Tiny could do most of this on his own. Plus, this easy activity went along with the Free Westward Ho History cards he is memorizing right now.

How to Make an Easy Ink pot

The first thing we did was to make an easy ink pot so that the paint could dry while we made the berry ink.

Here is the list of what we ended up needing:

1 empty plastic bottle.
sharp craft knife.
1 small piece of cardboard.
masking tape.
black acrylic paint/paintbrush.
one sharpie.

Cut the top off the plastic bottle because the top is the perfect size for an ink pot. I actually did the cutting because the knife was just too sharp to let Tiny do it by himself.

Then place the cut lid on the cardboard and trace a circle or template out of the cardboard with the sharpie. The cardboard circle is the bottom of the ink pot. Using the craft knife, cut the circle out. Then start wrapping masking tape around the ink pot and taping the bottom round cardboard piece to the ink pot. We ended up not using the cap that is for the lid.

Then Tiny painted the ink pot with the black acrylic paint and set it aside to dry. How easy was that?

Easy Berry Ink and Quill Pen

The next thing Tiny did was grab some ingredients he thought he would need for the berry ink and quill pen. He was pretty close.

Look at this list for making the berry ink and quill pen.

1/2 to 1 cup berries. We actually had mixed blackberries, blueberries and some raspberries that were overripe in the refrigerator.
1/2 to 1 teaspoon salt depending on how much ink you make. We used a full one teaspoon because he used a whole cup of berries. So about 1/2 teaspoon of salt for 1/2 cup of berries is the measurement.
1/2 to 1 teaspoons of vinegar depending too on how much ink you make. Again, we used a full one teaspoon because we used a full cup of berries.
1 feather. A contour feather is better. We had feathers laying around the house from some Native American head dress we had, but you could easily buy one or better yet, send your kids outside to find a couple of feathers.
1 small bowl for mixing.

First, he tried to smash the berries because I knew they needed to be strained and the pulp taken out. It wasn’t too easy and that seemed like too much work to me.

So I pulled out the hand held lemon squeezer and it worked much better. No need to mash, then strain because it’s all done at one time in the hand held lemon squeezer. So we added berries, squeezed and out came the juice and we threw away the pulp. The squeezer took a little bit more time, but I think that process helped Tiny to understand the effort the early pioneers had to put forth to produce ink.

Add the salt and vinegar and stir. That’s it. If it’s too thick, add a wee bit more vinegar. Our concoction came out just right the first time.

The feather required some kitchen shears to cut it to a point.

You probably have most of this stuff laying around your house like we did. It was a fun way for Tiny to spend the morning learning about the early pioneers and Lewis and Clark. He had to try his hand at writing a bit more like Lewis and Clark did. It makes you appreciate how fond Lewis and Clark must have been of journaling because of the sheer effort it took to make ink and then to preserve their writings for generations to come.