We used a pre-made unit study by Amanda Bennett because homeschooling while taking care of a 4-month-old baby is HARD I was too lazy to make a unit study from scratch. Turns out, we had a blast!
Read on and look on to see what we did AND to find even more chocolately goodness (in the form of resources for learning about chocolate).
We started each day with a cup of hot chocolate with little floating marshmallows, how else?
Social Studies/History/Geography:
Because cacao trees grow in places within 20 degrees of the equator, we learned a lot about rainforests, especially the Brazilian rainforest and its Amazon River.
We watched videos and read about the layers of the rainforest, even sketching out our own rendition:
We learned all about cacao trees, cacao pods, and the process of turning those football-sized pods into what we now as chocolate. We read about the Mayas and Aztecs involvement with chocolate and charted its journey from the Americas to Europe.
In doing so, we read about Milton Hershey, Henri Nestle, and John Cadbury.
Reading:
Having already read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl and The Chocolate Touch by Patrick Skene Catling (both of which I recommend), we found another choco-centric book like:
Memory-making:
We learned about different kinds of chocolate: dark chocolate with high cacao precentages, milk chocolate, and white chocolate, which we learned can't be considered a chocolate at all.
And, of course, what kind of chocolate unit study would be complete without SAMPLING all the chocolately goodness. We ate more than a fair share of Cadbury Mini Eggs,
Hershey's Chocolate Bar,
Lindt Lindor Truffles,
and Nestle's Milk Chocolate Syrup for glasses of creamy chocolate milk.
We visited the local Ghirardelli Chocolate Outlet and Ice Cream Shop:
Aidyn and I enjoyed this chocolate unit study and wish we could've spent even more time delving into the rich history of chocolate. I highly recommend Amanda Bennett's Chocolate Challenge Unit Study, if you would rather not piece it together yourself.
If you'd like to take you chocolate adventures further, check out these fun links to more chocolately goodness:
"Sometimes this absent arm became more present than the other one, insistent, vigilant, as mocking as a guilty conscience" (Echenoz 104).
Anthime finds himself in war-torn France, hunkered down in putrid trenches and dodging scraps of shrapnel blazing toward him and his comrades. What I enjoy about Jean Echenoz's little novel is that it doesn't pretend to be the only war-novel around. Echenoz is clear that he is dropping us readers into trenches we've seen before, although they are no less terrifying. Some scenes are described so beautifully and matter-of-factly that it seems I'm seeing a photo of World War I more than I am experiencing it as a reader
But 1914, in being only a slice of WWI accounts, reminds me that the past continually haunts us. We carry things no longer visible and swear they cause us just as much pain as when we could stare them in the face. And, if we let them, they will nag and irritate and loom over us. Just as a severed arm can deliver a soldier from out of the frontlines, trauma (even an accident or chance of mishap) can yank us from where we were, transplanting us elsewhere. But why, no matter how thankful we are to be removed, do we insist on looking back? Why can't we forget?
Should we even forget?
I doubt I'm alone when I say that things (namely, people and places) that are lost cause the most pain. Nostalgia, though sweet, is bitterly painful. Etymologically, it's a "painful homecoming" (OED). It's not so simple to avoid nostalgia or remembering what has passed. It's simply what makes us human, vulnerable little energies that live out our lives and disappear, causing the same void in someone else's heart.
I was an early and avid reader in my youth. Libraries were second homes, books were comforts, and reading a pure pleasure. I looked forward to English classes and even enrolled in a slew of them in college. Once I spent a few years in college, especially in upper-division courses, reading became a chore. My hobby became intense work. Instead of flying through books, I deconstructed, analyzed, criticized, evaluated, and overworked them. Books could not draw me in like they used to, and my reading list was crowded with books I had to read by this specific date so I could write a paper and be done with it.
I miss books. I've tried a few times to relearn that love for reading. I visited the library the other day, minus a book list and that inner English professor voice that scolds me about which great classics I should be reading. I just thumbed through the shelves and selected a few like flowers.
As a homeschool mom, it's important to me to show Aidyn, through our lifestyle, that learning and self-teaching is rewarding. I want him to feel sometimes like a book has me so engrossed I can't be interrupted. I want him to respect that please-do-not-disturb aura around a reader.
On my first day, I read a little Japanese novella called The Guest Cat by Takashi Hiraide.
"So let us liken fate to a destructive river here as well. The river rages, flooding the plain, consuming trees and buildings before it, washing away the earth and carrying it away to the other side. As it surges, people flee, but ultimately they succumb to the water's momentum. Nothing--no one, escapes" (Hiraide 20).
The Guest Cat is a neat and precisely written story of an unnamed married couple who occupy a guest house in a quaint little neighborhood. They are soon visited by a cat, whom they later call "Chibi," and in her sweet and elegant feline way crawls into their hearts and balances the way they appreciate life.
This book couldn't have come at a better time for me, when my life feels like it's in flux, twisted by events out of my immediate control. Hiraide communicates this simple beauty of allowing fate (whether in the form of a guest cat or having to relocate from his home) to move you. Fighting against fate is useless. Fighting against any current in life beats us down, even if we are victorious in the end. In just "going with it," the narrator finds peace, connection, and meaning.
During one episode of everyday struggle, the narrator focuses on triangular surveying as a means to find a new home within eyesight of a beautiful zelkova tree near the guest house. He "was merely seeking comfort in the thought that something as serenely transparent as an ancient surveying method might be applicable to this place of loss and bewilderment where [he] now found himself" (87). We, too, are in the middle of a search for a new home, and in the stress of dealing with our current property management, reading this book has brought me peace. The Japanese way of focusing on one singular event at a time and always spotlighting nature calms me. It gently reminds me to focus on the simple joys in the midst of this stress.
It would be an understatement to say I have been extremely busy these last few months. Along with homeschooling, I finished my Bachelor's degree, we moved to a new home, and I have been training for a half-marathon. Whew! The first couple of weeks my camera disappeared and half the time I forgot to take pictures.
So here is my Fall Catch-All post about everything (mostly) that we've been up to this season (things are beginning to calm down now, so I'll be posting more regularly)
Fall/Cranberry Thanksgiving Unit Study Fall words~
Fall books~
Beyond Turkey by Debbie Herman and Ann Koffsky illustrated a fair depiction of the Mayflower's journey to North America, the Pilgrims' settlement and their feast with the Wampanoag Indians.
Thanksgiving wouldn't be complete without reading Wende and Harry Devlin's beautiful book, Cranberry Thanksgiving.
We love the Magic Tree House series, and Thanksgiving on Thursday did not disappoint. The book is filled with Mary Pope Osbourne's research of the Pilgrims' settlement, lifestyle and clothing. It also fairly represents their relationship with the Wampanoag Indians, making no hesitation to admit Squanto's enslavement prior to the first Thanksgiving.
Fall Fun~
Reenacting the first Thanksgiving and building a Pilgrim house
Playing the "Sailing on the Mayflower" game
We also watched a Charlie Brown cartoon: The Mayflower Voyagers Netflix streaming. Here's a slip on Youtube:
Autumnal Apple Treats (Honeycrisp apples doused with lemon juice, slathered with peanut butter and topped with autumn granola mix and cinnamon.
Field Trip Friday (the Fire Station!)~
We toured the local fire station with about 70 children and parents from Aidyn's home-based charter school. My camera wasn't cooperating with the lack of light in the building so I only have a few photos. The kids checked out the fire engines and fire truck and opened each and every compartment. They toured the living quarters (kitchen, bedrooms, living room, etc.) and peeked down the firefighter pole door. Aidyn said his favorite part was looking at how far down the drop was and wished he could have slid down.
What the Camera Didn't Capture:
~a beautiful and relaxed Thanksgiving holiday
~our Thanksgiving Tree we made with branches and fabric leaves (w/ words of gratitude we wrote on them)
~a beyond messy house
~a stressed out mother/wife/student/runner/worker
Storm in the Night/Weather Mini-Unit Study
We read the beautifully illustrated story, Storm in the Night by Mary Stolz (illustrations by Pat Cummings). This is the perfect cuddle-up-and-read book, especially during a storm.
We recorded the temperature from places all over the world. First, we would find them on the globe and then look them up on weather.com.
After learning the basic water cycle, we made a cloud in a bottle!
Then rain in a bottle! (links at the bottom of post)
We read about rainbows and different types of clouds and painted our own with white paint and cotton balls.
We also worked on winter words, and Aidyn learned to spell some tricky words, including "icicle"!
Wish I had more pictures to share!
Forecast for the Future~
I am in the middle of a huge undertaking, but we're only in the pre-planning/dreaming stages. We are heavily considering making a trip to Walt Disney World in January 2015 (we'll need a year to save for it!). This will be a first-time experience for the whole family and the furthest east any of us has ever traveled.
As we have done in the past for Disneyland, I am planning a long unit study on Walt Disney World, which includes four parks and many, many different learning opportunities. Of course, most of the unit study will have little to do with the actual parks and will touch on themes within the parks, but I would like to include some stuff about Walt Disney.
I asked Aidyn which park he wants to focus on first, giving him a quick rundown of what each entails. He chose Disney's Hollywood Studios, which will have us learning about:
the history of animation
the history of film
early Hollywood of the 1930s and 1940s
early film and television stars such as Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, Lucille Ball,
classic films such as The Wizard of Oz and Singing in the Rain
sci-fi flicks of the 1950s
stage shows
and more!
In the meantime, we will be playing a little catch-up, reading holiday books, and enjoying the winter break together.
We're weeks away from a family vacation, at the end of which I will be running a half-marathon in support of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (as a tribute to my late father).
I am still actively fundraising for the charity, so if you are interested in donating, please visit my page: Paula's Donation Page.
Links for the unit studies above:
Both Cranberry Thanksgiving and Storm in the Night are FIAR books.
Halloween casts an eerie glow on our reading. We choose spooky books and read in hushed whispers. We flip through old favorites and delight in the dark and creepy tales. We let scary books creep in and give us a little chill.
Here are some of our favorite Halloween-time stories. None of these specifically name Halloween, but they each illustrate the spookiness of the season.
The Ghost-Eye Tree, by Bill Martin and John Archambault, takes readers to a quaint country home where two children must walk to town in the dark to fetch a bucket of milk for their mother. They dread passing the ghost-eye tree, so named because it appears to have two glowing eyes that stare at the children and branches that reach like arms.
This story has enough suspense to keep us turning the pages and enough subtle creepiness and realism to give us the chills. This is by far Aidyn's favorite spooky tale, and he loves cuddling up and reading it with me every year.
In a Dark Dark Room and Other Scary Stories, by Alvin Schwartz, is packed with intricately illustrated drawings and scary tales. Many of the stories have moments that cause us to jump but all in good fun. Some of the stories are pretty creepy and macabre, and so may be unsuitable for some children. However, Aidyn loves the stories, even if he remembers the little twist endings.
Bony-Legs, by Joanna Cole, is another favorite. A Russian folktale, Bony-Legs isn't exactly scary, but it has fantastical fairy tale elements that feel creepy as you read (like a witch that eats little children). Despite the creepiness, there are a wealth of messages within the story, like the themes of charity and bravery.
Yesterday, after reading the trio of spooky stories, we talked about elements of horror fiction, what makes these stories particularly creepy, what kinds of vocabulary created scary images, what kinds of illustrations gave us the chills, and the elements of fairy tales (fantasy--talking animals and things in 3s).
I invited Aidyn to think of his own scary story, and he came up with one on the fly and told it to me in his best creepy voice. We then took the idea to the dining room table where I supplied him with paper, a pencil, crayons, markers, and some Halloween music for inspiration.
He wrote out his story and drew the illustrations. We talked about the use of color in the three books to help him decide what kind of pictures he wanted to include with his story. I also congratulated him on his use of words like "grabbed" and "tossed" because I could visualize those action much better than if he used words like "picked up" and "threw."
Hard at work.
When he finished, we took a little break and talked about covers and titles. We remembered titles of some of our favorite books and movies and analyzed the covers of the three books we read as far as their titles, cover drawings and placement of credits. He decided to title his work "Frightening Monster."
We love cuddling and sharing stories, and I am so excited that Aidyn's becoming a little storyteller himself.
In other news...
Because of my crazy school schedule, moving, and my training for a half-marathon, I am behind on posting. We have done a light chocolate unit study and are in the middle of a Roald Dahl unit study. I hope to post soon, though there won't be many pictures (the camera was lost for weeks!). We're also developing some exciting plans and a possible Destination Disney World unit study for next year. Check back to see what we do!
A la The Well-Trained Mind, I had Aidyn select the books during this library haul based on categories. Doing so helped him to learn the locations of certain sections in the library, and he enjoyed being able to pick all of the books himself. He chose one of each:
1. a science book
2. a history book
3. a biography/autobiography
4. an art/music book
5. an imaginative storybook
6. a book of poetry
7. a classic novel
(I was also going to have him select a how-to book, but the art book he chose fit the bill.)
Here's what he chose:
1. Science- Volcanoes: Journey to the Crater's Edge
2. History- Eyewitness Books: Castle
3. Biography- Lost Boy: The Story of the Man Who Created Peter Pan
4. Art- Fast and Funny Paper Toys You Can Make
5. Imaginative Storybook- Dr. Suess's Daisy-Head Mazie
6. Poetry- Nightmares: Poems to Trouble Your Sleep
7. Classic novel- The House at Pooh Corner
Excited about the books he had chosen, we immediately dove in and started reading. He wanted to start the poetry book, so we shut off all the lights, closed the blinds and lit several candles to create a spooky atmosphere. He arranged a blanket and pillow on the floor, and we read spooky poems.
David snapped this picture of us
As our school year is coming to a close, we're going to transition to summer reading and simply enjoy every story and subject to which we are drawn.
Are there any books you are looking forward to reading over the summer? I'd love to hear them!
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