A Heart Full of Honey: Unit Studies

I quickly realised that my children were most happy, and learnt the most, when studying related topics. And if this could also be coupled with something 3D, [my own description for non-writing/text book work :) ] it made for them soaking up information like the proverbial sponge.

These topical studies just naturally roll into one. It is as simple as choosing/stumbling on an interest and brainstorming every avenue until its exhausted... or you are, whichever is the sooner :)

If you are looking for more directed inspiration, try CurrClick for Lapbooks, Topical Studies, and Projects. (They mostly charge a few pence, but some downloads are free)

Find a calendar of International Days to work around. Or choose a famous person to research. Some people that my children found interesting to study were Mallory, Charles, Dickens, Shakleton, Jane Eyre, Alice in Wonderland, and the Greek Scholars.

The good news is that, with us anyway, we always end making some kind of food, the not so good (if you don't have a strong stomach) is that a couple of times we have, through one route or another, wound up tying scatology in there! Google it, is all I'm prepared to say :)

Here are some of our favourites:

Canals

This was a surprise! A delight lead topic emerged from a host of related subjects and we ran enthusiastically with it. Some unit studies open up their own pathways before your very eyes. This was a tangent from the combined studies of the Industrial Revolution, and our family history, which took us to look at Liverpool Dockers and Carters... and not long before canals struck the most passionate chord of all. A lovely friend of ours lives with her three home educated children on a houseboat so we were able to stay a few days to experience life on the water.

The best way to research canals is to get out there in the field and marvel for yourself at this 200-year-old engineering feat.

Wikipedia has many good descriptions and diagrams of locks, towpaths, bridges and canals.
Yout Tube How A Lock Works
Glossary and Explanation - My Learning/Canals
Worksheets
Games and downloadable resources - Canal & River Trust

Visit a Canal Museum

We went to the boat makers

Beatrix Potter

Obviously to start with, read as many of her books as you can with your children, and have them become familiar with the characters. There are also some DVDs available and story CDs. I will leave the reading list to you. There is a Beatrix Potter cookbook for children too. There are many biographies out there too for the grown-ups, to give you an overview on her background.
Look at children growing up in Victorian times and the vast social differences between the classes. Study some of the Christians who brought in reforms for working children. Study child labour, clothing, food, transport, and recreations of the day.
Find the Lake District on a map. Learn about the area and the sheep farming there. Include a map in your scrapbook.
Have your child write a piece about their favourite, and least favourite characters.
Have them write a short topical letter. Beatrix' stories began as a letter to a friend.
Paint a watercolour of the scenery in the Lakes.
Write out, and make an old fashioned recipe. (Like Roly-Poly Pudding)
Make a vocab list of new words
Keep a literature list of books read
Take a look at some Victorian fine art
Try to catch the Tales of Beatrix Potter Ballet or play or see the DVD
Beatrix was quite a scientist. Study the British wildlife that she used in her stories (red squirrel, fox, badger, hedgehog) and in particular flora, fauna, and fungi.
Maybe join the National Trust, and take a trip to Hill Top (though you dont have to be a member to visit of course) and see familiar buildings from her works, at the village of Near Sawrey where she lived. http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/hill-top/ BTW A Home Ed family can join for a largely discounted price.
Visit the World of Beatrix Potter if you are in the area. Its a place your child will remember forever, if they love her

We arrived at Hill Top on a typical rainy day.

Guess thats why there are so many lakes!

stories. There is a lovely educational room too. http://www.hop-skip-jump.com/ Plenty of wonderful resources on their site too.

page from the scrapbook

page from scrapbook

Scrapbook

While we were there, we took a short car-ferry ride over Lake Windermere en route.
The children made a scrapbook style journal for this project.

The rolling countryside of Cumbria

Extra Resources

Walking with Beatrix Potter A choice of walks through the beautiful Lake District
Nothing is Impossible A biography aimed more at children
The Tale of Beatrix Potter A biography
Beatrix Potter Journal
The Ultimate Peter Rabbit book
Tales of Beatrix Potter Ballet

Owls

Dissecting the pellets

Study food chains
Read Owl and Pussy Cat poem
Label anatomy of the owl
Make an owl-shaped 'lift the flap' book
Go to the museum and look at various species
Bake owl cookies
Try to see a raptor demonstration
Dissect owl pellets. These can be bought off the internet.
Read owl stories
Study nocturnal animals
Have a look at a owl webcam
Make a Venn diagram about carnivores/herbivores/omnivore
Make an owl craft

Looking at rodents' teeth under
the museum microscope

Label the bones from inside the pellet

Resources

Habitat Game

Magic School Bus Habitat Game

Free disection helpsheets
Owl Puke book Guide

Owl who was Afraid of the Dark storybook

Owl who was Afraid of the Dark online story

Owl who was Afraid of the Dark worksheets
Owl web-cam

Barn Owl Trust

Owl skeleton at the museum

Owl Babies storybook

Percy Park Keeper The Owl's Lesson storybook

Barn Owl non-fiction

Owl crafts

Seasons - Autumn

Seasons Flashcards are a great resource to bring out again and again

Study migration and visit a Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust site if you can WWT

Paint a windy day

Pumpkin Lapbook

Do bark/leaf rubbings

Find out why leaves change colour

Look at different breads from around the world and make some of your own

Inside the Pumpkin Lapbook

Learn about Harvest Festival/Rosh Hashanah/Thanksgiving

Make a leaf wreath or other craft (there are plenty to Google)

Learn about hibernating

Visit a Red Squirrel sanctuary and learn about them

Learn about wind

Go and see a Scarcrow Festival.

Go on a nature hunt Nature Dectectives

Memorise Gen 8:22

Locate the deciduous forests in the world

Keep a weather diary (or conduct a sub-project about weather) Weather Diary Magnetic boards are fun too

Learn about the Chinese Kite Festival and go fly a kite. Make a paper kite craft using geometric shapes.

Take a walk in the park and identify trees by their leaves/twigs

Find out about Ground Hog Day

Read Autumn poems (Although new poetry can be good, I like to use the timeless classics - more about Poetry Appreciation in another study)

Creative writing: Write acrostic poetry or use the 5 senses to describe Autumn

Do leaf prints

Make a ‘Parts of the Pumpkin Plant’ book

Go pick your own pumpkin and make pumpkin soup

Do some pumpkin maths worksheets maths

Resources

(Also see the Website Page for Nature Studies)

Weather Seeds and Plants workbook (or you could do this in the spring) CGP also do KS1/2workbooks about plants, and other science subjects.

Why do leaves change colour? book

Autumn There are plenty of other books or websites to choose from

I Wonder Why the Wind Blows book

Free Montessori Materials Many topics including Seasons

Origami flower

Spring

Another visit to http://www.wwt.org.uk is called for to study migration. Check your local Wildfowl and Wetland Trust, they usually offer lots of things to do throughout the year. Back home we plotted the migratory paths on a map.

We make a point of learning about festival and traditions around the world, that way you will never be shy of a topic. Spring has lots of festivals associated with it: Chinese New Year [see the post on Gung Hey Fat Choi] Pancake Day, Mardi Gras, Ground Hog Day, Shabbat and Easter. Take part in local festivities, make crafts, borrow books from the library and learn more, and cook some celebration foods. We also went to various museums to look at world cultures.

We planned our garden's fruit and veg plots and planted seeds [this took off into a whole new project of its' own, and also a related project about where our food comes from]

Take part in the RSPB's Big Garden Bird Watch.

Go on a nature hunt in the park with some ID sheets from Nature Detectives

Keep a nature diary of what you see.

Make a collage of the life cycle of a frog and go on a frogspawn hunt.

Visit a farm or city-farm and see the lambs and chicks.

Keep a weather diary - again bringing in a whole new project.

Read some classic Spring poems together.

Frogspawn made of bubble wrap

Tadpole hides beneath the lilypad

Make an origami flower or kite.

Compare sizes of seeds - go to a museum and see some weird/large seeds
ID trees by their buds
Grow a seed in a CD case so you can observe its growth

Books

There are lots of fictional stories. Our favourites, year after year, and child after child, are Percy Park Keeper and Brambly Hedge. Also available on DVD format

Trees

Nature Spotting

Make Bake & Celebrate

Autumn/Spring Watch - for older children or parents

George & Flora's Secret Garden - one of the Eden Project books

Feel the Wind - Scientific look a wind

The Seed - there are many books available about the life of a seed

Life Cycle of a Frog

Weather Seeds and Plants - Lovely colourful workbook

Bats

This was a topic that we stumbled on and never knew we were interested in, until one evening as we were in the garden a bat flew over. I quickly gathered up the children in the car, once I saw their fascination, and drove to a place where I had known of a roost as a child.

Here's how we covered the topic:

[It also spilt over into a topic about Nocturnal Animals and Predators & Food Chains. See Owls and the resource tabs above to start you off]

We joined our local bat group and went out spotting with the rangers, then we hired our own equipment and did a bat count for The Bat Conservation Trust. The BCT has loads of information leaflets and posters and projects you can get involved in. There are local bat walks all over the country.