Skip to main content

5 Days of Literature Unit Studies ~ Activities



We have the featured piece of literature. We have the study themes chosen. We have checked out our corresponding books from the library. And now we need to put together some daily activities to reinforce what we have been reading.

Let's face it. Very rarely are we the VERY FIRST one to be forced to come up with some activity ideas for something we are studying. MANY have forged before us. And, I take advantage of those persons of inspiration DAILY! What in the world did we do before the internet?? I shudder to think.

Like I previously stated, I knew that I wanted to do some activities with The Secret Garden around the themes of "gardens", "tea parties", and "plants". I specifically wanted to do a full plant unit.

So I Googled.

And I came upon a FREE plant unit study by Susan Kilbride at FuntasticUnitStudies. This study was one chapter from her book Science Unit Studies for Homeschoolers and Teachers (which I just received complimentary from Ms. Kilbride in return for a review. It will be coming soon.)

This plant study was PERFECT for us! I was able to add it to the end of our other list of activities I had taken from Inside the Secret Garden to come up with about 28 days of activities (one per day)!

I had also found some other great activities, like flower pounding and balloon botany, just by Googling my themes with the key words "lesson plans" or "activities".

For Charlotte's Web, same thing. One place you can always go to, especially if you enjoy lapbooking, is Homeschool Share. Although it did not have a specific unit on Charlotte's Web, it did have units on farming, pigs, and spiders. So, I browsed through the activities, printed off puzzles, coloring pages, and lapbooking components, and created my own Notebook of activities. After we listen to a couple of chapters of Charlotte's Web, and read a couple of picture books, Brynne typically does one or two activity pages.

For our Ice Age (movie) unit, Googling pulled up a great book (that our library had) with some geology activities. I also came upon a great activity using Oreos.

Really, folks, the possibilities are endless. It just requires spending a little time Googling, taking notes, bookmarking (or pinning or clipping) websites, and then making your calendar of assignments for each day of the unit.

I don't do Pinterest. (Don't judge ... I don't do Facebook either). But, I do know that many find the most amazing ideas with that resource.

Tomorrow I will share the last thing I do when planning a unit study on a piece of literature. Make sure you browse through the other posts in this unit and leave comments on each so that you can be entered to win my The Secret Garden prize pack.

Here are the other posts in this series, in case you have missed them:
Day 1 ~ Choosing a Piece of Literature
Day 2 ~ Choosing the Themes to Study
Day 3 ~ Choosing Corresponding Books from the Library

And also see what other great 5 Days series are being shared on the TOS Crew blog. I have gotten some AMAZING ideas for next year!

Photobucket 

Comments

  1. More great tips :) I especially like what you said about the possibilities being endless...they truly are! Ideas abound everywhere on the internet and in the library, if you know how to look.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Homeschool Share is one of my favorite resources! What DID we do before the Internet?

    I linked to your series on my Classic Books for Girls post today:

    http://embracingdestiny.blogspot.com/2012/05/5-days-of-classic-books-for-girls-heidi.html

    I love making our own lapbooks and literature unit studies, so it has been fun reading your posts everyday. I only recently started on Pinterest, but truthfully I don't really know what to do with it. ;0)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thank you for sharing great tips! :) We love lapbooks and unit studies.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I am really enjoying this series, Nicole! I am glad to see that early in your homeschool journey you discovered freedom, it took me several years!!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

We all know that in this crazy world of homeschooling, we need all the (adult) support we can get. Please leave a comment if you so wish!

Popular posts from this blog

ABCya

Eli's reading resource teacher shared a website with me yesterday that I would like to pass along. It's called ABCya . There are separate educational sections with fantastic games for ages kindergarten through 5th grade. I browsed the 2nd grade level, and it includes age-appropriate games about Letters, Numbers, Shapes, Geometry, Patterns, Mouse Manipulation, Art and Holiday games. There are lots and lots of fun and creative games for children to play. They are fun, but oh, so educational. Eli's favorite, in his short time playing it, was Create a Car . A lot of the games also have Apps available for purchase (99 cents for most of them) for the iPad and iPhone. I have been looking for another free website for games similar to Starfall , for some time. I think I have found it. I can feel confident having Eli and Brynne play these games.

Cells ~ It's What's for Dinner

Dawson made edible cells on Friday. He made an animal cell pizza ... and a plant cell chocolate chip cookie ... He reviewed what he's learned about cells the past two weeks, and I had dinner made by someone else. Win, win!! I am linking up at Science Sunday at Adventures in Mommydom.

Last Child in the Woods ~ Chapters 1-4

Welcome to our book study of Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv. To be honest, I have no idea what this "study" is going to look like. I imagine that when we get together I will post about all of the things that caught my eye. And I would ask that you leave a comment, or a link to your own blog post in the comment, about what caught yours. This isn't anything formal, ladies, just a place to talk about what we have read. I have now read the first four chapters of Last Child in the Woods two times. It is just so good. Several things have specifically hit me deep, but in general I just realized that "times, they are a changin'." Things aren't the way they were when we were kids. Chapter 1. Gifts of Nature ~ "When I see birches bend to left and right ... I like to think some boy's been swinging them." ~ Robert Frost What is your definition of nature? What feelings, visions, senses does it conjure up? For me, it's not a