Websites
Awesome Unit Studies: Amanda Bennett
17/11/09 14:08
Some of us use an all-in-one curriculum, some of us forge our own paths, some of us use a combination of the 2. I like doing unit studies for 3 reasons: the intense study of 1 major topic creates a long-term knowledge much more than memorizing facts and figures. Reason 2: how will your children learn in college and in real life? They’ll study things in pockets and packages of information. And 3: they make learning so much fun!!!
Personally, I am not very good at creating unit studies. I can research info and give the kids a direction with websites and library books, but what makes a unit study awesome: devoting the time to it. I have very little precious time. So, who do I turn to for unit studies? One source is Amanda Bennett. She has studies for a wide range of ages, grades, and interests. Sign up for her email list and get cool specials that you won’t want to miss. I have her photography unit study, journal, birthday unit study, and others. They are truly worth the money, especially if you have more than 1 child. Check her out!
http://www.unitstudy.com/
Feel free to leave comments about what you use for unit studies and your sources for inspiration. You are welcome here!
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Personally, I am not very good at creating unit studies. I can research info and give the kids a direction with websites and library books, but what makes a unit study awesome: devoting the time to it. I have very little precious time. So, who do I turn to for unit studies? One source is Amanda Bennett. She has studies for a wide range of ages, grades, and interests. Sign up for her email list and get cool specials that you won’t want to miss. I have her photography unit study, journal, birthday unit study, and others. They are truly worth the money, especially if you have more than 1 child. Check her out!
http://www.unitstudy.com/
Feel free to leave comments about what you use for unit studies and your sources for inspiration. You are welcome here!
blog comments powered by Disqus
COOL SITE!!! Legistalker
14/11/09 19:35
Now, we have an awesome opportunity to keep up with our legislators in one easy place! This is really cool for your children who are keeping track of their congressmen and senators in government class.
The paragraphs below are from the East Baton Rouge Parish Library Blog:
Legistalker is a wonderful site for keeping track of members of Congress and the Senate. The site accumulates references to politicians that appear in news stories, on YouTube, also their twitter feeds and the appearance of their names on bills. Click the headline to go straight to the original full story.
Legistalker is easy to use and you can add specific politicians to your ‘watch list’ so you don’t have to search for them each time. You can also subscribe to RSS feeds for automatic updates. It’s a great way to stay informed! Read More...
Writing Book Reports for High Schoolers
06/11/09 12:26
Do your children do lots of reports? In our homeschool, we often use reports as a way to measure work done as well as comprehension. They are a great way to improve writing skills and prepare for college. Here’s my plan for essay and report writing:
Start out young ones with easy book reports. Not every single book, but several throughout the year. I aim for 4-6 which is really about 1 every other month. I keep a list of books they’ve read, which helps them to see how many books they’re reading. This has been a great encouragement to my youngest, who thinks he can’t read very well. When he sees he’s read 50 books, he is excited and wants to read more. But back to book reports: they should be simple and easy to write. Require that your children answer in complete sentences. I have posted a sample of a book report form I made up for my elementary aged children under the heading File Sharing on my webpage. You are welcome to have it and reproduce it all you want.
Another thing I have my children work through is outlining books. There are a couple of really great ones available that we have used and the kids enjoyed doing. Here are some links to them. If you can outline, it makes it easy to assemble a quick essay or paper.
My last book report form is for around middle school. You can use it in 5th or 6th grade if your child can handle the writing. It is a leading form that they fill out step by step. When they are done, they will have enough information to write a good book report from the material they wrote. I use it as a rough draft for their report, then they go back and write a final draft. It works great! Again, you are free to download it and use it as much as you’d like. It is under the File Sharing page and it’s called Advanced Book Report Form.
Now, my son is in 8th grade and he is working on a high school level. I am counting all work I consider high school level and I am in the process of making my own writing and revising checklist. I have yet to find a really awesome, solid checklist, so I’m making one up. I found one site that has a pretty good checklist for essays: http://grammar.about.com/od/correctingerrors/a/editchecklist.htm and another one for writing book reports: http://www.infoplease.com/homework/wsbookreporths.html. When I get a good checklist together for writing and revising, I’ll post it here.
Thanks for reading! You’re welcome to leave comments and let me know what you think or give me your advice about this subject.
Read More...
Start out young ones with easy book reports. Not every single book, but several throughout the year. I aim for 4-6 which is really about 1 every other month. I keep a list of books they’ve read, which helps them to see how many books they’re reading. This has been a great encouragement to my youngest, who thinks he can’t read very well. When he sees he’s read 50 books, he is excited and wants to read more. But back to book reports: they should be simple and easy to write. Require that your children answer in complete sentences. I have posted a sample of a book report form I made up for my elementary aged children under the heading File Sharing on my webpage. You are welcome to have it and reproduce it all you want.
Another thing I have my children work through is outlining books. There are a couple of really great ones available that we have used and the kids enjoyed doing. Here are some links to them. If you can outline, it makes it easy to assemble a quick essay or paper.
My last book report form is for around middle school. You can use it in 5th or 6th grade if your child can handle the writing. It is a leading form that they fill out step by step. When they are done, they will have enough information to write a good book report from the material they wrote. I use it as a rough draft for their report, then they go back and write a final draft. It works great! Again, you are free to download it and use it as much as you’d like. It is under the File Sharing page and it’s called Advanced Book Report Form.
Now, my son is in 8th grade and he is working on a high school level. I am counting all work I consider high school level and I am in the process of making my own writing and revising checklist. I have yet to find a really awesome, solid checklist, so I’m making one up. I found one site that has a pretty good checklist for essays: http://grammar.about.com/od/correctingerrors/a/editchecklist.htm and another one for writing book reports: http://www.infoplease.com/homework/wsbookreporths.html. When I get a good checklist together for writing and revising, I’ll post it here.
Thanks for reading! You’re welcome to leave comments and let me know what you think or give me your advice about this subject.
Read More...
