Wednesday, December 07, 2005

Our Christmas Unit-study

Before we take our Christmas vacation, we are having alot of fun doing our Christmas unit. I've taken some of the ideas from the Jan Brett unit posted on the 4reallearning board and added and subtracted to tailor it to our more science/nature bent. We are creating a scrapbook/notebook of everything we do and I will post pictures of the pages soon.
Here is the general outline by Topic:

  1. Christmas Math Fun: using the website as a guide and doing a little each day.
  2. The Miraculous Staircase of Loretto Chapel. Then read more about St. Joseph in our saint books.
  3. Gingerbread: Read Jan Brett's Gingerbread Baby and discuss a circle story. Make Story Wheel. Make Gingerbread house and take digital photos to illustrate each step. Make into booklet. Visit National Gingerbread House Competition at Grove Park Inn.
  4. Arctic vs. Antarctic: Use Eyewitness video to take notes on similarities and differences between Arctic and Antarctic regions. Make graphic organizer.
  5. Reindeer: Read Jan Brett's Wild Christmas Reindeer, research reindeer facts. Graphic organizers.
  6. Polar Bears: Read Jan Brett's Whos That Knocking on Cristmas Eve. Research Polar bears. Grahic Organizers.
  7. St. Nicholas. Read all about him and add to timeline and notebook. Focus on his symbols, and St. Nick around the World. Use materials from this great site.
  8. Snowflake geometry and science. Use this site, plus others. Learn about radial symmetry and practice measuring angles with a protractor. Make lotsa snowflakes!
  9. A Christmas Carol. Read the book and discuss story elements (protagonist, rising action, crisis, climax, denoument, etc). Graphic organizer. Creative writing: "What will your Christmas future be like?"
  10. The Christmas Story: Of course. The birth of Christ, etc.

There are alot of other books and activities we will be doing in addition to the basic outline above, but this gives you the general idea of our plans. As usual, we leave open the option of going off on a rabbit trail if the spirit moves us to do so!

We will be having so much fun and learning alot, too. The first couple of days have gone very well. We've done the math, gingerbread and reindeer days so far and have several pages of the scrapbook done. I will post pictures soon.

Hope your holidays are just as joyous!

4 comments:

barbara said...

Wow! What a great unit! Josh and I read the Devlin's Angle article today for Math from your math suggestions and we couldn't stop giggling. I am looking forward to doing a few of the other activities you have listed here too :) I have printed out the Miraculous Staircase article to read on another day. Josh has to comment every time he sees the coca cola commercial with the polar bears and the penghuins about how they do not live in the same regions but one is in the arctic and the other in antarctica lol. We love reading Jan Brett too especially at Christmas. :)

Thanks so much for sharing your unit.

Theresa said...

Glad you liked it. We are having a blast. Did the arctic/antarctic today and it went very well. We are taking tomorrow off as Dad comes home tonight after 3 months in Alaska. Now I gotta clean house real quick!

Angela said...

Thanks so much for sharing this! I have been so focused with finishing up this year, that I haven't even thought about what to do the week before! You have done all the work for me! I am so grateful!

Theresa said...

You are so welcome! I hope you enjoy it as much as we are. I can't take all the credit, as much of it comes from Elizabeth Foss's 4realearning site. I've just modified it to suit us better.
Have a Merry Christmas!
Theresa