From Dinosaurs to Da Vinci (January Unit Studies)

For the sake of planning, fun, and sanity, we're working with unit studies this year for music/Bible/art/science. Pippin still has his normal 2nd grade workbooks: Explode the Code for reading/writing, Developmental Math for math, and Thinking Skills for spatial development, as well Dutch group 3/4 workpages for language. And we have Mystery of History for history, and an ample supply of library books and chapter readers. But our electives have been more random over the last year or so, so having the unit studies planned out is extra fun for all of us. Especially now that Bloom is in preschool 3/4 and is ready for more than wooden puzzles or scribbling on coloring pages. And knowing there is a new little one on the way, it makes me feel better to be preparing easy crafts or making library lists for late-pregnancy-life or newborn-life times when I just don't have the energy to sit at the table and check workbooks....


For January, our themes were: 

Bible: Creation, Adam and Eve
Art: Da Vinci
Music: Vivaldi
Science: Dinosaurs

                            



BIBLE

I normally do our Bible reading from our children's Bible (though I honestly often forget it because it's not in the shelf with our other schoolbooks). One morning, though, I handed Pippin the Bible and asked if he could try reading the Creation story. He sat right there and read it all the way through, only hesitating over a few of the harder words. So now I'm incorporating that into our morning routine (and keeping the Bible next to the workbooks and binder so we don't forget it). This is the Bible we use, with simple short stories that stay close to the original story without a lot of unnecessary embellishment. 






The Mary Martha Mama site had a pack of free printables for Adam and Eve, so we printed out several of those. Some were at Pippin's level, some were more cut-and-paste for Bloom, so everyone was happy. 





MUSIC


For Vivaldi, we listened to classical cds or songs from YouTube. There aren't a lot of resources in our library for musicians, so I'm satisfied with the audio exposure and reading aloud short musician biographies that I can find online like this one.


ART

For Da Vinci we got out several fun books from the library, and tried a parachute experiment of our own.





I also found a fascinating documentary on The Renaissance - the Age of Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci  on YouTube. It was more teenager/adult level, but the kids enjoyed the the scenes with actors dressed in period costumes as 'Michelangelo' sculpted his famous David statue. We fast-forwarded through a few scenes that weren't child-friendly, while I summarized how Constantinople was being sacked, forcing leading scientists and artists and scholars to flee to Italy and prompt the Renaissance. 



SCIENCE

Technically, Da Vinci was a scientist as well as an artist, so we got a double dose of science this month! Pippin has long been interested in becoming an archaeologist, though, so this was right up his alley.



For our dinosaurs unit theme, I dressed up our school table with jungle lanterns, a dinosaur poster, and some felt palm leaves, and let the kids play with Easter eggs. When we had little guests over, we had crafts like cut-and-paste dinosaurs and coloring pages. 





For language, I found dinosaur themed workpages in Dutch on the Juf Milou site, so that Pippin could learn new vocabulary words that he may already know in English (archaeologist = archaeoloog, skeleton = skelet) as well as practice his handwriting.


Dinosaur books from the library, of course!




This one is now a definite family favorite, though more funny and less scientific. It's also available in English as 'We Don't Eat Our Classmates'. 





And that was our January. 

       




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