Unit Study: Explorers and Exploring

I have been quite remiss in mentioning the unit on which we've been working. 

About six weeks ago, we were browsing a book store and I came across this awesome book:  How to be an Explorer: An Adventurer's Guide .  This is one of those really fun books that has pop-ups and letters and diary-entries and games all rolled into a book that is meant to be "an adventurer's guide" written by "Sir Henry Hardcastle" to teach kids how to explore.  "Written" in 1931, the book is a guide to explorations of the Thirties -- archaeological digs, Polar treks, jungle safaris and animal discoveries. 

My kids were so enthralled with this book ... I decided to do an explorer's unit with them.  A great way to tie together history, geography, map-reading, orienteering, nature study, survival skills and just plain fun all into one. 

So off we started ...

The how-to book breaks exploring into perfect unit sections:

1. tool kit -- which we'll make after Christmas using the wonderful haversack directions given in Alice Cantrell's Tin Cups and Tinder: A Catholic Boy's Little Book of Fire, Food and Fun.  We'll fill each haversack with binoculars (they'll each get a pair for Christmas ... shhh!), journal, sewing kit (also made from Cantrell's book), first aid kit, magnifying lens and other critical items (incl snacks of course!).
2. ideas for exploring and training -- we'll be armchair training by reading about explorers as well as watching great videos like:  Marco Polo, Christopher Columbus, Around the World in 80 Days, as well as watching the documentaries that Michael Palin has done:  Around the World in 80 Days, Pole to Pole, the New Europe, and others (for Netflix subcribers, the Palin vids are on instant queue!).  We're also reading Voyage of the Dawn Treader (getting ready for the release of the film in Dec) making maps of the islands as we go from C.S. Lewis' amazing descriptions!  This is what we've been studying for the last month or so ... reading and watching videos!
3. individual areas of exploring (we'll take about a two weeks on each of these):
1. sailing the seven seas -- KonTiki
2. beneath the sea (a great op for reading 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea )
3. jungle and rainforest
4. lost civilizations and archaeology (we've started on this a bit in history while reading All Ye Lands)
5. polar quest -- antarctic and artic (we'll watch the first and last segments of Palin's Pole to Pole again, watch Shackleton, and re-read Mr. Popper's Penguins )
6. desert adventures -- Lawrence of Arabia
7. mountains -- Heidi
8. finish with an overview of some famous explorers -- Lewis & Clark, Magellan, Captain Cook, and others

This breaks into such a wonderful long-term lesson plan for us.  We'll take a break for our Advent study (on Dickens and Victorian Christmas -- that will be the next post!) and be able to pick up right after the first of the year with exploring this amazing world God gave us!   As the weather improves in the Spring and Summer, we'll be explorers in our own part of the world .... adventuring into the mountains, down into the caverns (a field trip to Luray in April), out west in the Summer for a niece's wedding (a rode trip that is thru some amazing parts of God's ocuntry!),  and other wonderful areas around and about the Old Dominion.

Come along for the journey ... ok?
 

Unit Study: 2010 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games

We'll be starting our unit on the Winter Olympics/Paralympics starting tomorrow with the Opening Ceremony in Vancouver.  Since the Olympics go from February 12-February 28, and the Paralympic Games go from March 12-March 21 ... we'll be quite busy immersing ourselves in the games: geography (where is each medalist's country or state, etc), math (charting the medals, graphing the times, estimating, etc), science of the Arctic region, snow  and climatology and meteorology of Vancouver area, history and culture of the Inuit, the Games, the medalists', story-writing and crafting, art studies and other things.

Here are a few of the resources we've compiled for our unit ... please feel free to comment if you have any others you've found ...

Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games' Unit Study Resources

Activities:

• "bobsled and luge runs" out in the yard (with time trials)
• choosing a county to root for during the Games -- incl a report at the end about the country and athletes with charts of the medals, results, etc.
• making our own igloo
• making our own Inuksuk using the book, The Inuksuk Book, but using cornstarch "clay" instead of rocks
• making our own soapstone (using bar soap) carvings using the book, The Art of the Far North, for ideas and examples.
• Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games (Wii)
• this VERY cool project that pulls in art AND the olympics (HT: MaryM) from That Artist Woman

Books -- Winter Olympics:

• The Complete Book of the Winter Olympics: 2010 Edition by David Wallechinsky
• Freeze Frame: A Photographic History of the Winter Olympics by Sue Macy
• Frozen in Time: The Greatest Moments at the Winter Olympics by Bud Greenspan
• The Winter Olympics: An Insider's Guide to the Legends, the Lore and the Games by Ron C. Judd

Books -- Paralympics:

• Athlete First: A History of the Paralympic Movement by Steve Bailey
• Fighting for Gold: The Story of Canada's Sledge Hockey Paralympic Gold by Lorna Schultz Nicholson
• Paralympic Sports Events (Winter Olympic Sports) by Robin Johnson

Books -- Vancouver and Canadian Inuit Culture:

• Art of the Far North: Inuit Sculpture, Drawing and Printmaking by Carol Finley
• Let's Go to the Arctic: A Story and Activities about Arctic People and Animals by Charlotte Ford Mateer
• The Inuksuk Book by Mary Wallace
• The Inuit (True Books : American Indians)by Andrew Santella
• The Inuit of Canada by Danielle Corriveau

Internet Sites:

• A2Z Homeschool -- Winter Olympics Unit Study
• Amanda Bennett's Unit Study
• Canadian Olympic School -- Teacher's Resources
• Homeschool Share's FREE lapbook helps for Amanda Bennett's unit study
• Inuit Culture and Customs
• Inuit Ornaments -- detailed directions for making Inuit-based ornaments
• The Inuit Way: A Guide to the Inuit Culture (pdf booklet)
• Kaboose -- kids' craft, games and activities for the Winter Olympics
• KidsTurnCentral -- online resource listing
• Legends of the Inuit Peoples
• NBC Coverage of the Olympic Games
• Team USA: Olympic Facts and Figures
• Vancouver 2010 site
• Vancouver 2010 site: schedule and results
• Vancouver 2010 site: teacher resources
• Winter and Kids: Vancouver
• Winter Olympic 2010 Printables and Activities
• Winter Olympics for Kids (UK site)

Television:

• Modern Marvels: Winter Tech -- Thursday, Feb 11 2000(EST) History Channel
• Opening Ceremony -- Friday, Feb 12 1930(EST) NBC

Videos/DVDs:

• Arctic Tales
• Cool Runnings
• Eyewitness: Arctic and Antarctic
• Ice Worlds (Planet Earth)
• Miracle

We'll round out our school days with Lenten activities including as-often-as-possible-daily Mass and readings on Lent from the Saints.