The new homeschool year is in full swing, and we are happily busy with learning, growing, and fun activities.
But with my scraps of free time, I am working on a few projects.
First, I am creating a Pirates of the Caribbean unit study (meant to run a week or two) that I want to make available for free. It will include reading, writing, crafts, history, science, and trivia and scavenger hunts specific to the attraction itself.
Throughout the year, I am going to be creating a grand, year-long unit study all about Walt Disney World encompassing all the Parks and the many themes and attractions. My goal is to carry my children through the curriculum for next year and then take them to WDW for their very first time.
Another project I am working on revising and updating is my global "it's a small world" preschool- kindergarten curriculum. Right now, it's pretty bare bones (just read-alouds and some geography), but I want to include phonics, writing, arts and crafts, memory makers, songs, and extra magic moments so that it can be a near-complete curriculum for preschool, TK, and kindergarten.
Sometime soon, I also want to put together a proper Disneyland unit study (like the ones we have done for years) for all ages and grades as another near-complete curriculum and make it available to others.
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:
By now, most people are familiar with the hit song "The Fox (What Does the Fox Say?)" by Norwegian artist Ylvis, who went viral when his video debuted in 2013.
And if not, have a listen.
Aidyn loved it at first listen and has since played the song a gajillion times and even recorded his own lip-syncing video of "What Does the Fox Say?". And like any good homeschooling parent, when my child is obsessed with something, I turn it into a unit study. Ha, ha.
I scoured the internet for a pre-made WDtFS unit study and only found cutesy ones for younger children, so I scraped some ideas together and created a fun, age-appropriate study for Aidyn.
Language Arts: Introduction to Satire
In case you weren't aware, Ylvis released a children's book based on his YouTube viral video, but recreating all the silly fox sounds rests all on your shoulders.
So I asked Aidyn to read it to me.
We talked about how goofy the song and the lyrics are...
...and that the song is a satire of pop songs with insanely stupid lyrics somehow topping the charts. I gave Aidyn a very simple definition of satire: something that makes fun of something else to make a point. In this case, it's a song that makes fun of other popular songs to prove that society gravitates toward silly songs based on how catchy they are.
For fun, we read other children's satires like:
The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs is a fractured fairy tale of "The Three Little Pigs." Author Jon Scieszka could be satirizing victim mentality, as the wolf blames his harmless cold and the pigs' rudeness for their own demise. Aidyn loved hearing the other side of this familiar story.
We also read another of Scieszka's books, The Stinky Cheese Man and other Fairly Stupid Tales.
Now this is a FUN read. Familiar fairy tales are not only distorted but laugh-out-loud funny to read.
We also watched Spaceballs because it's hilarious and why not? to learn more about satire and parody.
Language Arts: Read-Alouds:
We read more serious fox stories like Red Fox Running by Eve Bunting.
Wendell Minor's paintings in the book are truly beautiful.
We also read a chapter book called Ereth's Birthday (by Avi), a poignant story of a grumpy porcupine who cares for three fox kits when their mother dies.
Language Arts/Vocabulary: Morse
"But if you meet a friendly horse, will you communicate by Morse?"
Aidyn wasn't sure what "morse" meant, so we read Radio Rescue by Lynne Barasch. The story follows a young boy who, at the age of 10, became the youngest licensed amateur wireless radio operator in 1923.
In a world of tablets, smart phones, and computers, we don't usually hear about Morse code and "ham" radios, but Aidyn found it fascinating.
He even practiced "tapping" his name in Morse code with a guide at the back of the book.
Social Studies/Geography: Norway
Because Ylvis is Norwegian, we learned a bit about Norway with this book:
We talked about the geography of Norway, its mountains and fjords, the weather, its rich history and royal family, the Sami ethic group that lives there, the food, and their languages. Aidyn was especially interested in the Sami people and did some copywork about them.
Science: Fox study and What Do Foxes Really Say?
We used Foxes by Sandra Markle to learn about foxes.
Aidyn picked his favorite fox fact for copywork.
He worked on handwriting with fox facts.
And then, we answered the question: what do foxes really say?
We learned that foxes actually make a lot of different sounds from barks to purrs, mating calls, and gekkering. Aidyn busted a gut when we heard a fox "scream" in the video.
Art: Drawing foxes
We spent an afternoon learning to draw foxes with the help of a couple YouTube videos:
Makin' Memories: Baking fox food (aka Blueberry Muffins)
In our studies, we learned that foxes love eating berries, so we made some yummy blueberry muffins.
Even Jack got in on the fox fun--even if all he did was dress up!
We had a blast turning Ylvis's song into a fun and foxy unit study! We're guaranteed to remember all we did whenever we hear that silly song (which I'm sure will be at least 547 times a week until Aidyn finds something else to annoy me with share with me!)
This unit study is inspired by Walt Disney World's park Disney's Hollywood Studio. We have never been to Disney World but are playing with the idea of a 2015 vacation there. Our unit studies are our fun and educational way to build excitement for that adventure.
In Part One, we explored the earliest experiments with both film and animation and we made our own zoetrope. In Part Two, we focused on films and filmmakers of the early 20th century, including Georges Melies, Mack Sennett and Charlie Chaplin. We also toured the Disney Animation building at Disney California Adventures.
Last week, we focused on film and animation in the 1920s, which was a booming time for the industry with the popularity of Charlie Chaplin and the creation of Mickey Mouse in "Plane Crazy."
This is a media-heavy unit study. I created a playlist of important film/cartoon shorts of the period. After we finished with our core school work, Aidyn and I snuggled on the couch and watched the videos. I introduced each with a snippet of history, but mostly I encouraged him to reach his own conclusions and to compare/contrast what he was viewing.
~The 1920s~
Below is the playlist we watched together:
I tried to pick cartoon shorts with significance to the history of animation, but I also included a few fun cartoons. This list can easily be shortened or expanded.
"Summer"~ Silly Symphony (1930)
"Midnight in a Toy Shop"~ Silly Symphony (1930)
"Mickey's Orphans" (1930) (nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short in 1932 but lost to Disney's other cartoon "Flowers and Trees.")
"Flowers and Trees" (1932) (first commercially released film to be produced in the full-color three-strip Technicolor process. Won the first Academy Award for Animated Short Subjects.)
"Parade of the Award Nominees" (1932) Originally unintended for public viewing. First cartoon with Mickey Mouse in color.
"Building a Building" (1933)
"The Wise Little Hen" (1934) First debut of Donald Duck.
Popeye, circa 1930s
Betty Boop in "I Heard" (1933)
Mickey Mouse in "Gulliver Mickey" (1934) Inspired by Gulliver's Travels.
"The Tortoise and the Hare"~ Silly Symphony (1935)
"Three Orphan Kittens"~ Silly Symphonies (1935) Won Academy Award for Best Short Subject (Cartoon) in 1935. Contains use of racial stereotype that could prompt discussion.
Mickey Mouse in "Thru the Mirror" (1936) Inspired by Alice through the Looking Glass.
"The Old Mill"~ Silly Symphonies (1937) First use of Disney's multiplane camera, later used with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Won 1937 Academy Award for Best Short Subjects: Cartoon.
"Ferdinand the Bull" (1938) Inspired by book of the same title.
Mickey Mouse in "The Pointer" (1939)
1930s timeline:
We learned how Walt Disney created Mickey Mouse:
We learned about the animation process in the 1930s from a Paramount newsreel:
The Invention of Hugo Cabret
We finished reading Brian Selznick's amazing book, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, which beautifully weaved our entire unit study (thus far) together. The story takes place in a Paris railway station in the 1930s. Hugo Cabret, orphan and clock keeper, also keeps secrets, but a meeting with an eccentric old toy tinkerer and his goddaughter allows him to reveal his deep need for human connection and the realization of his purpose. This book is not exactly a novel any more than it is a picture book or graphic novel. Whatever it is, it's poignant and dream-like.
We hosted an intimate Family Movie Night last Friday and watched the film, Hugo, which also married many of the things we learned about during our unit study like Georges Melies and his early films, clips of Harold Lloyd in Safety Last!, the first on-screen kiss, Charlie Chaplin in The Kid, and other early films like "Train Pulling into the Station."
Hugo movie trailer:
First Full-Length Animated Feature: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs~
We concluded the 30s by learning about the first full-length animated feature. We learned that most people thought Walt Disney was foolish to embark on this venture to make a movie out of a cartoon. He nearly bankrupted their business without even knowing if their movie would succeed.
The One That Started It All: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Part One.
Part Two
We watched a video from the bonus features DVD about the voice talents and animation from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs before Aidyn couldn't take it anymore and HAD to watch the film. We snuggled up and watched, remarking here and there what might have happened had Walt listened to his naysayers and gave up on his dream to make the first animated movie.
Well, that's all for the 20s and 30s! But we are continuing our film and animation unit study through the 40s this week (and possibly back-pedaling to look into The Wizard of Oz). Check back for more!
