AFRICA: Maps, Maps, and More Maps

I'm not sure which is more exciting: a blank map waiting to be marked or a brilliant, colorful, already informative map. I love maps!

A great way to get geography down is to spend a lot of time with maps, especially making them. You don't have to do the same type of map over and over--there are lots of things to map! Every time my kids mapped something new, they had more countries and their locations memorized.

Here are some of the continental maps we did with Africa:

Political map - countries
Physical map
Map of major rivers
Natural resource map
Map of products/exports
Political map - capitol cities
Map of average temperatures
Map of official languages
Map of predominant religions
Map of LDS missions
Map of LDS temples
Latitude and longitude with worksheets

After marking some of these maps, it was good to put them side by side and analyze.  For instance, looking at all the maps having to do with religion and churches, it's pretty obvious why the LDS church doesn't have anything going on in North Africa.

Map making leads to familiarity.

Posts from the Past - The October Homeschool

It's been years since I posted these.  I thought I'd pull 'em out and dust 'em off for anyone who missed them before.  Happy October!


October Unit Factory - Ideas for Octoberish unit studies

Mood Music for October - Suggested musical selections for listening enjoyment in October

Tricks with Treats--A Bag Full of Math - Practical, fun math problems with Halloween candy

BIO: Seeds & Memorization

It's likely you've heard this saying before. I created the following picture for our fridge and the kids' memorization.

BIO: Flowers - Reproduction and Pollination

Mmmm.  The air is intoxicating right now with the heady fragrance of flowering trees and bushes. Between the lilacs, the honeysuckle, the flowering pear trees, the cherry and apple blossoms, and many more perfectly perfumed petals, I am in springtime heaven!

I purposely waited for now to focus on flowers and flower reproduction in our biology studies. At the end of our ecology unit we spent some time specifically on bees in general and also on what is happening to them ecologically speaking. It was timed to flow into flowers and pollination.

For this topic, I highly, highly, highly recommend watching Disneynature's Wings of Life!  Someone has put a slightly altered, misnamed, and perhaps pirated copy on Youtube that you can watch for free (see below) but after watching that version I loved it so much I had to purchase it. (Bonus:  as of the date of this post, the multi-format is 43% off at Amazon!)

Before diagramming the parts of a flower, I gathered several different flowers from my yard to dissect and inspect.

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We went on a walkabout looking for pollen, pollinators, and to again identify pistils and stamens on flowers in various stages of life.

Pollen!

More pollen on the stamens and a fertilized pistil.

We could observe the bee's pollen sacs on her legs.

Happy spring homeschooling!

BIO: EYH Ecology - The Genius of Graeme Base #2 and a Refreshing Final Project

At first glance, you probably won't know how the following three items go together.

These three items did come together nicely, however, for a fun lesson. 

Odzala is a national park in the Republic of the Congo. The video we watched centered on a water hole within Odzala, which they call a bai. I had purchased Graeme Base's The Water Hole at the same time I purchased his other books and had been saving it for this unit. With the video using the word bai repeatedly, I wondered if that's where the name for the "new" Bai drinks came from. We'd never had Bai drinks before, so I purchased some to sample as a nice Eat Your Homework addition.

It turns out that bai is the Mandarin Chinese word for "pure" and it's also an acronym for botanical antioxidant infusions. That's what Bai, the company, has to say about it. The drinks are an interesting thing to learn about in and of themselves, and they fit right in with our ecology unit because a main ingredient of Bai drinks is coffeefruit--the part of the plant normally tossed as waste after coffee beans are taken out of the middle of the fruit. 

Anyway, this is how things went:  We watched the video and talked about our thoughts and reactions (because there are some unexpected things you learn relating to some animal's behavior).  A couple of days later we reviewed some things, including the word bai. The bai in Odzala is of course a very important source of nourishment for the animals there, and not just because they need water but because of what is growing in and around that water for food. I pulled out the Bai drinks I'd purchased and told them about my word association and what I'd learned about the drinks. Then, while sipping our nourishing, refreshing Bai drinks, I read aloud The Water Hole.

The Water Hole is, first and foremost, a visually delicious picture book. Base is a wonderful artist and a genius with clues, mysteries, and hidden pictures. The Water Hole is also a counting book, but we of course didn't need to use it for that. I used the book as a little test. We were nearing the end of our unit and in the background of each two-page spread is a geographical clue. My test for the kids was to see if they could name the biome and the location on the planet that each of these pictures represented. It was a fun little activity and they passed with flying colors. (They later examined the book individually, looking for the hidden animals.)

This segued into my assigning them their final project for the unit. Each was to choose a country--any country--and create a PowerPoint on that country from an ecological view. What biome(s) make up that country? What makes up the wildlife? How does it affect agriculture, industry, economy? What are people's lives like as a result? I required a minimum of 10 slides. Later, after each did the research and made their slide shows, they presented them to the family.

BIO: Ecology - For Little Learners

One reason I have stuck with unit studies over the years is that it allows our family to "be on the same page," as in studying the same topic together, while adapting for different ages and stages. 

Regarding the topic of Ecology, Animal Friends is a great introduction for younger children. They will easily see how each animal has its own habitat and diet needs and it will segue beautifully into learning about habitats, ecosystems, and biomes on an elementary scale.

BIO: Ecology - Current Events

Newspapers are another great resource for unit studies.  In just the course of a couple of months there was an abundance of current events directly related to our unit and I shared them with my kids, following that up with a discussion when the topic led to one.

New Tiny Frog Species Found in India

New "Ant-Like" Bee Species Only in Western U.S.

"Feral Hog Apocalypse" in Texas

Wisconsin Hunter of Feral Cats a Target

Hundreds of North American Bees Face Extinction

Rusty Patched Bumblebee First to Be Endangered

Want Ad for Python Killers in Florida

Federal Cyanide Trap in Idaho Injures Boy, Kills Dog

Family Speaks Out After Cyanide Bomb

Cyanide Bombs Common in Utah and West

Group Asks for Idaho Ban on Cyanide Bombs

Utah Prairie Dogs Have Their Day in Court

China's Massive Pollution Problem

China Exports Pollution to Western US

(These last two aren't as current as far as publication goes. I looked them up, having remembered reading about it before.)

Hinckley's Be's

Gordon B. Hinckley's Way to Be! is a classic, and it fits perfectly as the next phase of morning devotionals that coordinate with our BIO year:  "9 Ways to Be Happy and Make Something of Your Life."

I decided to use Hinkley's "9 Be's" inside a mini unit on bees inside our ecology studies. I created a notebook page for each chapter or "be." Feel free to use them with your own devotionals.

Big Thumbs Up for NATURE BOOM TIME

A couple of months ago I came across a gem of a resource. Since I can't get my kids to the Everglades right now (no matter how awesome a field trip that would be and how much I would love to do it) I wanted some good video to watch while we learned about it, and I didn't want to have to pay for it. 

My YouTube search found me a fantastic miniseries that not only helped with our study of the Everglades but also with our entire Biology and Ecology units. Here is the series trailer, which is good to watch because it explains how the series came to be.

There are 14 videos in the series. Additionally, there are "Yeah Buddy, Friday" videos that have some interesting behind-the-scenes, preparation, and epic cross-country trip documentary.

What I love about this is that the Nature Boom Time videos are quality. They are interesting, informative, creative, and energetic. I am blown away (there's the boom part!) by the paper craft inserted for explanation. The time, work, and love that went into that!!! I also love that this is a brother and sister (and their best friend) taking on something huge together. 

It's no wonder Nature Boom Time won an award from and was picked up by National Geographic.

If you like Charlie and Kirby and what they do, they have also done some other DIY videos about other subjects.  Just head to World by Charlie on YouTube. 

Meanwhile, if someone were to ask you what the largest organism on the planet is, I betcha you'd never guess the answer.  Here it is:

Math in Units - Biotic and Abiotic Dimensional Shapes

It is torture to spend gorgeous autumn days stuck at desks (or tables) especially when learning can (and often should!) take place outside. Here is an outdoor math AND science lesson I created for our BIO studies.  (A question I often get regarding unit studies is, "What about math?" We do have a separate math program we use daily, but I am always looking for ways to incorporate math into every single unit. It's important for children to see real world applications of math and to see that math is literally in everything.)

Above is the first page of the scavenger hunt I created. Download the full Biotic and Abiotic Dimensional Shapes Scavenger Hunt Worksheet here. Obviously, the science aspect is determining biotic (living) things from abiotic (nonliving), and the math is identifying shapes and their dimensions. 

Below are a few photos from our scavenger hunt. We were actually able to find most shapes.

Parallel and perpendicular lines

Oval

Sphere

Cylinder

Oval

Trapezoid

Circle, or octagon, if you draw a line to connect every 3 petals

Rectangle

Homeschool--the world is our classroom!

BIO-- The Year of Life

Anyone who has taken my Unit Studies class knows that I like to carefully and prayerfully choose a theme for each school year and tie our units into that theme. This year's theme is BIO.

The theme of BIO lends itself to so much! I am really excited. We will be studying Biology, picking up/continuing with the subcategory of Ecology inside that, adding some Botany, and incorporating Health and Nutrition (which will include cooking for my youngest) and Anatomy. While I will do this on a higher level for my high school-aged kids, it will be Life Science for my youngest; this allows us to be learning about the same things and doing many things together while tailoring certain assignments and experiences to individuals at each level.

We'll also be doing a lot with biographies. I have started a Biography Club including some other homeschooled youth for one thing. We'll be incorporating Family History for another.

Creative Writing is another focus this year, and believe it or not, I've tied that into our year of life as well. (More on that in another post.)

Last but certainly not least, we are learning more about the Giver of Life and the way to pattern our lives after his by participating in the Godly Characteristics Series, and we are spending a lot of time learning about the Tree of Life and the path in this life that leads to Eternal Life.

Here are a few things from our first week. (Some other things will get separate, more detailed posts.)

We of course began with the root bio. Each of the kids had to find 25 words that contained the root and write down the definitions. Using words from their lists and, adding some others, I created some Bio Vocabulary Cards. Then individually they matched words to definitions, I went over additional root words and prefixes/suffixes for being word detectives, and then over the course of a few days they continued to match and rematch until they could get 100% correct.  After that we played Memory with the cards.  Here are the cards I created. (Hopefully the link above will take you to a downloadable set you can use. If it doesn't work <sigh> I'll keep trying to get it figured out.)

We did another whole-brained project, each child choosing what they wanted to draw to represent BIO:

We began a biographical writing series of my own creation. The first two assignments are below. (The first one includes a photo of me; I personalized these for each of us.) These writing assignments are meant to be introspective, journalistic and biographical, and the topic word is chosen based on things we are learning about in our other studies.