Saturday, July 2, 2011

Our First Unit Study: America the Beautiful

With the boys begging for more school activities, I decided to incorporate some simple unit studies into our days. Aaron definitely needs a challenge, and Andrew is happy to be a part of any activity we can include him in. Eventually, I want our boys to have a good understanding of both America's and China's history and geography, as well as the states of Illinois and Texas. I thought that celebrating the 4th of July all month long would be a great first unit study. We're keeping it simple and doing the activities as a sort of birthday party for America. Aaron is getting really excited about celebrating America's birthday, and Andrew loves our patriotic decorations.

I found so many awesome resources online that I thought I would share them in case anyone else wants to learn more about America this month, or anytime of the year.

The blog 1+1+1=1 has an awesome calendar you can print that teaches history facts. You can also print out activity sheets that accompany the calendar to reinforce the facts in fun ways.

2 Teaching Mommies provides a free printable 4th of July activity pack. These preschool worksheets and activities teach basic skills using fun patriotic graphics.

Homeschooling in Heels has a really cool lapbook pack available to download and print for free. I think we are going to have to wait a year or two for this one, but it still looks well done.

Currclick has a free ebook about why we celebrate this holiday in the first place.

Kidzone has free coloring sheets focusing on state history and geography.

DTLK has a lot of 4th of July activity sheets and games for kids.

Apple 4 the Teacher also has a ton of coloring sheets and other activities focusing Independence Day and American history.

Family Fun has some neat craft ideas. Including printouts for a patriotic paper airplane and patriotic pinwheel that look fun.

We have also been trying to learn more songs together as a family, and I think we will try to learn some patriotic songs this month. And perhaps we will work on the pledge of allegiance with Aaron as well.

There are so many awesome resources out there to pick and choose from. It is great to be able to pull together activities that are right for each child's level and tailor what you want to focus on. I pulled bits and pieces from a lot of these resources. I may add more if time allows, and the boys are still interested. We'll see what we all end up using this year, and can always save things they aren't ready for yet for another year.

So far we have just done a few days of the calendar cards and some of the activities from 2 Teaching Mommies. Aaron has enjoyed them a lot and asked to do more. I plan on making traditional American food for tomorrow's official birthday party, and we may try to make other special treats and/or crafts throughout the month. I want to make this learning experience lots of fun for our little guys.

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