A Time for Crickets...

Mid-September, and the evenings are beginning to cool down. When I open my window at night I hear that old familiar sound that means Autumn is in the air.

Speaking of... Have you ever studied crickets with your students? Crickets make a great Nature Study for September and/or October.

The first book I think of when I think of a Cricket Nature Study is Comstock's Book of Nature Study.

It has a great section on crickets. Did you know that some cultures keep crickets for pets? If you want a fun way to interest your child in crickets, consider making a unit study out of it. This can be short and sweet, so that you can keep cranking with your previously scheduled plans, or it can be expanded to include everything you want to do for the week.

The first thing to do is to get some picture books to read. I recommend at least one fiction and one non-fiction. 

Here are some picture book titles I found:

• The Very Quiet Cricket by Eric Carle 
• Chester Cricket's New Home by Garth Williams 
• Cricket in Time Square by George Selden

Here is a non-fiction book I found about crickets (in addition to the Comstock Handbook of Nature Study):

• Crickets by Cheryl Coughlan

You could do your Cricket Unit Study work all in one day, or spread it out over the full week. I recommend you begin by reading the section in Handbook of Nature Study about Crickets. 

It is very informative. Pay special attention to information about different types of crickets.

You will want to figure out, later, what type(s) of crickets your child finds on his cricket hunt. We also had fun making a cricket house. Instructions are in the book.

 
It was doable, in my house, because we have way too much clutter. We were able to come up with a flower pot, soil, sand, moss, and a globe to an oil lamp. Initially, though, we just used a shoe box.

This type of hands-on activity is fun for a little guy. He was having fun learning, and I was still able to write "school" activities down in my school planner (for accountability - I get reviewed every year because of state law).

Here the unit study activities might look like:

Bible: Read Deuteronomy 28 and ask your student to listen for the mention of crickets in the reading. (It is in verse 42)

Math: Send your students on a cricket hunt. Give each one a mason jar with a lid. Send them off to the edge of the house foundation. They can look under leaves behind the shed, or under random tarps under the deck or around the yard. Check the wood pile. (They might want to wear gloves.) Have them round up as many crickets as they can find. Have them count them. Who found more? How many did they each find?

Science: Look at the various crickets. Do they all look like the same species? Within the ones that seem to be the same species, are they all the same? When we did the study, we found we have black crickets in our area. We were actually able to learn that you can tell the difference between the male and female crickets. Who knew? 

Art or Science: find a diagram of a cricket online so you know the names of the cricket parts. Print out a blank diagram and have students fill it in. Have student draw their own drawing of a cricket.

Literature: Read picture book/have student read picture book, or begin reading The Cricket in Time Square (a classic!).

See how this works? You could practice handwriting by having them write out one sentence from the book you read. You could work on spelling by creating a list with words you introduced in this study, like "thorax", "cercus", "palps", "spiracles" and "ovipositor". You could work on vocabulary by having them look each word up and write out a definition.

You could include physical education by actually going on a nature walk to try to find crickets, but I guess even hunting for them in the back yard would be fine to count for physical education. You can include "health" by having them wash their hands at the end of the activity and talking about the importance of washing hands when dirty or before eating.

The only subject I didn't include was Social Studies, but you could include that by researching the cultures that keep crickets as pets (I think it is Japan, but I might be wrong). 

I hope you have enjoyed by recounting of our cricket study and my brainstorming on how to make a complete unit study of it. Unit studies can be a great way to cover school for grades K-3 in particular. I hope you enjoy!

Paddington Bear - A TOS Homeschool Crew Review

Today I get to tell you about a product by a British company called Branch Out World. 

For the past month I've been looking over a unit study by Branch Out World about the children's picture book, Paddington Bear. 
I did not own a copy of Paddington Bear, and my library did not have a copy that I could verify was what I needed, so I was able to order an inexpensive copy on line.

The Paddington Bear Unit Study is a digital product and is geared towards children ages 5-10. It is, however, flexible. There are many younger children who would love to be part of these activities, and there are many suggested activities that an older child would love to participate in as well.

I do not currently have any children in my home, and I was asked to write an informational review of this product as one who has raised children who were once that age, and as someone who still works with children and has a grandchild on the way!

The first thing I noticed that the Paddington Bear unit study suggested was that part of the plan was to read Paddington Bear to the child(ren) each day for five days in a row. This reminded me of other unit studies I have seen. It also reminded me how much young children like repetition!

I then glanced quickly at some of the content of the study and thought to myself that with older children one might want to take more than a week to do these activities! Then I read through the book.

I was previously familiar with Paddington. In the deep recesses of my brain I have a recollection of Wellington boots and a rain slicker. On reading this book, the one that kicks off all the Paddington stories that follow, I realized that I may never have actually read this before.

This book lays out the story of how Paddington first came to join the Brown family in London. Paddington came from Lima, Peru. I knew none of this! After reading the story I went back to look more deeply at the study.

I was so fun to be exposed to British terms that I didn't understand! At the very beginning I read this:
-----------------------------

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I chuckle every time I read it. I imagine a "Library ticket" has something to do with reserving a copy of Paddington Bear at the library. The rest of "Before you start" includes ways to prepare for your week.

When I was a new home schooler, it is embarrassing but true, there were times when I would open something like this study on Monday morning for the first time and expect to be able to just roll into using it without any preparation at all. That is just silly, but I wasn't good yet at preparing.

This unit study is like a smorgasbord, and you need to prepare for using it by reading it through and choosing which activities you will do, and then preparing for those activities. 

The week's plan is divided down this way:
Day 1: Explore the setting;
Day 2: Exploring the words;
Day 3: Exploring the pictures;
Day 4: Exploring Science; 
Day 5: Exploring Maths, Crafts and More

I decided to read through the plan and brainstorm about which activities I would choose if I had a child to do this with. So on Day 1, I would start by reading through the picture book. Then we would color maps of England and Peru. Then we would pull down the globe, and I'd help him find Lima, Peru and London, England so he could see how very far Paddington had traveled. If I had found easy books on each, we would read books on England and Peru. You can also create a time line. It was fun to learn that Paddington Bear was first published the year I was born, and that is also the first year ant farms were created and marketed! Who knew?

On Day 2, after reading through the book I would ask my child to give a narration back to me of the story. If he wanted to, he could draw a picture or two to go with his story. I would pick words out of the story and ask if he knew what they were, and explain if he didn't. I'm thinking "stowaway", "tart", and "marmalade".  The rest of the vocabulary seemed self-explanatory, though. I would totally serve tea and buttered toast with marmalade.

I was going to buy some and make up the toast and marmalade anyway, but I couldn't bring myself to do it as the first listed ingredient is "sugar". ::sigh:: I liked the idea of focusing on correct grammar by zooming in on the speech of the cab driver and seeing if the child can catch the improper words for correct grammar. In this section of the study I learned that there is a chapter book called A Bear called Paddington. I think this is the book I remember from my children's childhoods.

On Day 3 we would take a slow study of the pictures in the picture book. I totally love the suggestions given for doing this, and suggested questions to ask. Picture study is a bit of a lost art, but one I encouraged with my son, who was my last student and was an only student all his years in our home school. I was delighted with the special information given about architectural features to look for in the pictures to discuss. I liked the suggested art project to teach about depth using methods of overlapping.

Day 4 is Science day, and we would totally want to learn about bears native to Peru. We would spend some time learning about and playing with shaving cream. We would make our own foam! There were instructions for making Foam Food ("Do not eat!"). I'm not sure I would do this one because 1) I'm lazy, and 2) I had kids that if I said, "Do not eat!" they saw it as a challenge or an invitation. I would want to steam up the bathroom so he could write in the steam on the mirror! I also loved the idea of taking time to do some "Nature Study". Paddington arrived at the Brown's house to find a tortoise, birds and plants in the garden. What can we spot in our own yard? Shall we take a walk and see how many types of birds we can spot? Shall we name the types of trees we see?

Day 5, Maths Day, starts with discussion of parallel lines. Parallel lines never touch, but I would love to discuss with him how, as you look down the train tracks, they look like they get closer together (but don't actually). I actually live near a train station, and I would probably have hopped in the car and driven to the station for a little field trip. We would have a snack in the station cafe (just like Paddington did), and would also discuss the parallel train tracks and look at them. Coming home we would do some work with paper, pencil and ruler, learning about shapes with parallel lines. Day 5 also has a suggestion for making a shaving foam map of Peru, but in a more permanent form. I love it!

The pages following Day 5 include wonderful recipes to try out (Strawberry Tart and Marmalade). One ingredient might be hard to find in the US, so I'd substitute if I had to, no worries! There is information on snacks in Peru, and ideas for more things to do. I would totally want to take my little guy to the bear section at the zoo to see the bears from Peru.

The Paddington study is full of appendices with all sorts of information and material to use to complete your studies. There are maps for coloring and marking up, flag pictures for coloring and learning what each country's flag looks like, mini book templates you can use in your study, information about migration (immigration, emigration), passports, a notebooking page about Andean Bears, and loads of facts about England, Peru, Andean Bears and population migration.

Branch Out World has many unit studies of this type available, so follow the link and check out your options. If you are still thinking about what you will do this fall, and how you will make learning fun, check out this Paddington Bear unit study. 

Other members of The Old Schoolhouse Homeschool Review Crew also rewed this product, and you can find their reviews by clicking the link below. Go check out their photos of projects they actually did with their kids!

Heroes of History -- Douglas MacArthur: What Greater Honor - A TOS Homeschool Crew Review

In April I received word that the Homeschool Review would be doing a review for YWAM Publishing.

From a selection of titles, I decided to request a book from the Heroes of History series, Heroes of History- Douglas MacArthur.

In mid-April I received a paperback edition of Douglas MacArthur - No Greater Honor in addition to a digital download package the Douglas MacArthur - No Greater Honor Unit Study Curriculum Guide in a zip file. There were choices for Classroom, Homeschool, and Small Group studies. The zip file contained Part 1, the Unit Study; Part 2, with fact sheets and mapping exercises, and intended sections of "Meet the Authors" and "Reader Reviews" which weren't functional yet. (When the materials were sent to the Crew Reviewers, YWAM had not finished everything yet.)

I found the zip-file method confusing. I was referring to the Unit Study on my computer rather than printing it out and I kept losing the materials on my computer. I finally figured it out and got the files saved where I wanted them.

So I dug in and started reading General MacArthur. I had had a vague sense that Gen. MacArthur was someone important in World War II, but as I began reading I figured I must have been confused. Douglas MacArthur was born in 1880. My Dad, who served in World War II, was born in 1925, so MacArthur was 45 years older than my dad. Military personnel can retire after 20 years, so I figured I just had remembered incorrectly.

It was fun reading about the life of Douglas MacArthur. Born an Army "brat", he was living in Texas at the beginning of the book, in an era where horses were the primary mode of transportation. Growing up, he had a strong desire to attend West Point, and from there go into the Army as an officer. My almost-adult son plans to attend college to become an officer in the Air Force, so this was hitting very close to home. MacArthur went through hardships and additional years of preparation in order to qualify to get into West Point. His story reminded me of my father-in-law's story, who had to attend an academy-preparatory school after high school in order to qualify to get into the Naval Academy in 1948. I don't think my son would be willing to do extra years of schooling and preparation in order to get into one of the military academies!

MacArthur graduated from West Point and began his military career in 1903 and was assigned to the Philippines as a member of the Corps of Engineers. The Corps built an important dock, and they were to seek out local Guerrilla rebels. The second task almost ended badly, as a rebel bullet fired at MacArthur came so close as to leave a hole in his cap! After his time in the Philippines, Douglas had to battle his way back to health from a bad case of malaria, with relapses.

I see this is becoming verbose, and I don't want to reveal the entire contents of the book here in this post. To clarify, though, about my earlier confusion, MacArthur was, indeed, a big deal in World War II, as well as in World War I, not to mention the Korean War! His military career spanned over five decades! So my initial understanding of who he was was not incorrect, it was just incomplete. He was very active, very decorated, and ultimately a 5-star general.

MacArthur's role in World War II in the Philippines brought back to my memory that my World War II veteran step-father fought in the Philippines, no doubt under General MacArthur. Unfortunately he died eleven years ago, so now that I would have better understood his role in the South Pacific campaign, I am not able to ask him about it.

For many of my readers, the life of General Douglas MacArthur, 1880 to 1964, is "ancient" history. I remember in my childhood not understanding why World War II was such a "big deal" to my dad. Now, though, I think about 13 years ago and how, even though that is a long time, it still seems like only yesterday. Well, the European campaign of World War II (where my dad served) had ended only 13 years before I was born, and my dad had only been out of the Army for 9 years. For him it was "only yesterday", and for me it was from before I was born.

I was alive when MacArthur lived. I was born under the Presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower. Reading this book was very enlightening and very educational. While this book is written for approximately ages 9-12, I'm glad I got to read it as an adult.

The Unit Study material will be very helpful for you when working through Douglas MacArthur in your home school. The 84-page study guide is separated into eight chapters, with three appendices as follows:

Introduction

Chapter 1: Key Quotes

Chapter 2: Display Corner

Chapter 3: Chapter Questions

Chapter 4: Student Explorations

Chapter 5: Community Links

Chapter 6: Social Studies

Chapter 7: Related Themes to Explore

Chapter 8: Culminating Event

Appendix A: Books and Resources

Appendix B: Answers to Chapter Questions

Appendix C: Social Studies Reproducibles

Key Quotes has lots of famous quotes from many people and these quotes are suitable for copywork and memorization. Display Corner suggests ways students can collect era-related memorabilia and keepsakes. Chapter Questions, Chapter 3, have their related answers in Appendix B.

Student Explorations gives many ideas for essay questions, creative writing, hands-on projects, audio visual projects and so much more, giving real meaning to the term "Unit Study". Community Links talks about finding meaningful field trips to accompany the unit study.

Related Themes talks about more ways to expand the unit study. Culminating event... Well, I don't give out spoilers. Appendix A is for more study, and Appendix C was sent as a separate file. It includes a notebooking page, maps to reproduce, and a timeline.

YWAM Biographies are an excellent addition to any home school. They have many, many titles. Other members of The Old Schoolhouse Homeschool Review Crew reviewed this and many other biographies by YWAM.To see other product reviews, please click the button below.

Early Settlers - A TOS Homeschool Crew Review

In late March I learned that the Crew would have the opportunity to review unit studies created by Homeschool Legacy. I was selected for the review, and was sent a digital download of Early Settlers, which was a good fit for where we are in our history studies. I was able to open Early Settlers on my iPad in iBooks, and I love that flexibility!

Homeschool Legacy is a small family company. A mom, making unit studies for her family, decided to make a business out of it and make the unit studies available to other families to benefit from, while using it to bring in some money to the family coffers. I like that. Small business is what America is all about -- the land of opportunity!

What I especially like about Homeschool Legacy studies is that they have woven into them suggestions for families to work, simultaneously, on Boy Scout merit badges and American Heritage Girls badges. Early Settlers offers a plan for both boys and girls to work on their respective reading badges. My son doesn't have the Reading Merit Badge yet, so it sounded like a great way to integrate school work with getting another merit badge. He had his Scout Master sign off on his blue card, and we were on our way!

I started by printing out part of the unit study. (I am definitely not one who likes to use more of my printer ink than I have to.) I hole-punched the pages, stuck them in a 3-ring binder, and headed for the library. The introduction page to the unit study states, "NO PREP WORK IS REQUIRED - Even the library lists include alphabetically and numerically arranged Dewey decimal numbers!" I did, however, find that my library had some of the books labeled differently (Dewey decimal numbers) than the unit study pages. Also, not all the books recommended in the unit study were in our library system. Having the call number, though, enabled me to look for substitute titles.

Rather than give a blow-by-blow description of how our weeks went, I'm going to change direction here. After telling you a little more about Early Settlers, I'll tell you our experience with the unit, the good and the bad, what we liked, and what could be improved.

Early Settlers is a 6-week unit study designed for grades 2-12. My son is a 9th grader. The study focuses on a slightly different topic each week:

    Week 1: Roanoke, NC;

                Week 2: Jamestown, VA;

                Week 3: Holland;

                Week 4: Plymouth, MA;

                Week 5: Pennsylvania; and

                Week 6: New York

Early Settlers (and other Once a Week Unit Studies) are designed such that readings are spread out through the week, and then one day is set aside for additional activities. As with many products, you can tweak this to fit your family - do your unit study day a different day than the author, or even spread the activities out over the week and not do a specific day. We chose that latter method as we are scrambling to finish our school year and did not have one day per week which we would be able to use to focus only on the unit study material.

               
What we liked:
We really liked the way working through the weeks of the study helped us put early American history into a proper timeline in our minds. We have studied this history previously, in a piecemeal way. We were able to remember that "In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue", and that the pilgrims came to Plymouth in 16-something, but the lost colony of Roanoke was lost to us... and Jamestown is still in Virginia, but we didn't remember that it was the first successful colony, that Roanoke happened before Jamestown, or even that Roanoke was in North Carolina. (We have one in Virginia, too, which makes things very confusing.) So working through this study was very helpful to teach us the history it is intended to teach us. Success!

What could be improved:
1. I know that many families doing unit studies have many levels of children, and older children read to younger children, and everyone benefits. But for families with only one child, it would be helpful if the suggested reading materials were listed with indication of appropriate reading level. I know my son can glean good information from a picture book, or a book geared toward 9-12 year olds, but when colleges see his reading list with his transcript they are going to be looking (also) for high school level titles.

2. Documentation should be improved on reading assignments. In Week 2 Hans Brinker was assigned for "Read Aloud". I evaluated the book - 50 chapters, and determined there was no way I could read ten chapters aloud daily, so I handed the book to my ninth grader and assigned ten chapters read to himself daily, and I read other things out loud. I fussed and I fussed, and he had a very difficult time finishing the book in one week. Then we got to Week 3, and the "Read Aloud" assignment was, "Finish Hans Brinker". AHHHH! What? So, Week 2 should have at least said "Week 1 of 2).

3. Documentation needs tweaking on some of the other suggested activities. Week 1 states: "Plan on spending a minimum of four hours reading some of the books listed in your Early
Settlers Once-a-Week Unit Study to your younger siblings." It is an activity to complete the Boy Scout Merit Badge, but the way the unit study presents it makes it sound like it needs to be done in Week 1 whereas it should actually be presented to read to a sibling one hour a week for four weeks.

4. While this unit study states, "NO PREP WORK IS REQUIRED", Week 3 has a tulip-planting activity that states near the end of the instructions, "Provide your bulbs with a cold temperature treatment for 12-13 weeks, making sure they always stay moist. They can be kept in an outdoor cold frame, an unheated attic or cellar, or in the vegetable bin of your refrigerator." This left me totally unprepared. I had not "cold treated" tulip bulbs. I didn't even have tulip bulbs! Elsewhere in week 3 there is a blurb that states: 
*Plan ahead - make the ink (for next week’s unit study day) the day
before so it will be ready for week 4’s activities."
A blurb like that in Week 2 stating, "Get ready for next week by setting aside 8" pot, potting soil and 12 tulip bulbs" would have been so helpful.

Were do we go from here:
My son gave up on working on the Boy Scout Reading Merit Badge. He only needs four specific badges to reach the rank of Eagle, and he is going to focus on those.

While there were things about this unit study that benefited us, there were things that frustrated us. If I were going to do another Homeschool Legacy unit study, I think I would want to sit down in advance and read through every page before I started. If I was planning to help my son work on a merit badge, I would want to own the merit badge pamphlet (I don't), and I would not bother unless I knew my son was interested in earning the merit badge (he wasn't). I would want to try to have in advance all materials I would need for the study, like tulip bulbs and potting soil, ingredients for cookie recipe, whole walnuts for home-made ink, etc. I don't just have these things around my house.

Ultimately, I just don't feel confident doing this type of unit study with a high schooler. I really struggle to know what is enough work for a high schooler and what is insufficient. It takes a special kind of confidence to do unit studies through high school, to decide how much to assign and to glean written work to go into the portfolio my state requires. So, I'm kind of giving this a strong recommendation for families with younger students, and a restrained recommendation for using this with high school students. I think part of this also depends on the way your state laws are written (Maryland is slightly demanding - I started in Colorado, where the home school law now, compared to Maryland, looks heavenly). Also, I want to be able to do well when writing my son's transcript and class descriptions, and I am looking for an "Easy" button, and this is not it. Other moms will feel differently. Each family is different.

I thank Sharon Gibson and Homeschool Legacy for allowing me to review Early Settlers. I hope they will consider my comments and make changes to improve this study! (Many companies we review appreciate this type of input for just this reason.)

Homeschool Legacy has a wide variety of titles available:

Check them out!

Other members of the Review Crew also reviewed Homeschool Legacy units pictured above. To see other product reviews, please click the button below.