Explorations 4 Kids
Truly fun online learning! Make this your online learning center!

Fire Prevention Unit Study
Fire Prevention Week provides lots of opportunity to discuss fire safety with your children.

Free Curriculum and Field Trips
A sortable database for free curriculum and field trip ideas.

Kit Kittredge: American Girl – 7/4/08
Ann Zeise reviews the movie, and offers unit studies ideas to help chidren understand the Great Depression.

Kitchen Unit Studies
Sample using Toll House Cookies as a unit study.

Little House Unit Study
Fun projects for kids to do while reading Laurel Ingalls Wilder Little House books.

Valentine’s Day Unit Study
A jam-packed page of fun Valentine projects for you and your children. A unit study to share with your friends.

Winter Unit Study
Find out about really cold places, about the science of cold, fun in the snow, and winter tales.

Resources

ABC Teach
Some of the themes include: Coral Reef, Rain Forest, Butterfly Centers, Antarctica, Peace Circle, Spring, and Where the Sidewalk Ends Presentation.

Debbie’s Unit Factory
Elementary level units both online and to order. Each unit is designed to appeal to children and includes many child-centered activities.

Free Unit Studies
During the summer of 2019, we released 10 FREE unit studies based upon fiction and non-fiction books to give children a fun way to read and learn throughout the summer.

Happy Homeschool (Used to be Funschooling Unit Study Archives)
Karen Caroe has been publishing her unit studies online since 1997 and has quite a collection of interest to homeschool families.

Homeschool Helper
We have a collection of unit studies, worksheets and other homeschooling helps. All of our units and worksheets are free.

Kids Soup
We are here to save you time and money and to help you build core skills with our ready-to-use creative teaching materials. Primarily preschool and kindergarten activities.

Miksike Integrated Learning Environment
Join in with students all around the world on some project of mutual interest. Webpage templates provided for submitting your work to this site. (A site with a history that goes back to 1994, making it one of the first unit studies on the net.)

Parent Child Education
With years of experience working with children of various ages and abilities, we have many innovative and fun suggestions that will empower you, the parents, with confidence, information and tools to inspire your children to work to their potential.

Tina’s Dynamic Homeschool
This site is about the unit studies and printables I have used in my own homeschool and with my co-op group.

See also Food Chemistry and Cooking Kids’ Recipes for moe free unit studies covering the topic of food.

The post Free Unit Studies from A to Z appeared first on A2Z Homeschool – THE A-to-Z of Homeschooling.

Notebooking
AN A to Z ARTICLE
I became fascinated with notebooking a few months ago. According to what I read from the internet, it was kind of like scrapbooking. By Dana Sorrell.

Academic Club Method
Instead of lectures and textbooks, this format enables a child to become an active part of whatever topic is being studied. Children make, do, act, chant, build and live the material that they could not learn by reading.

The Joy and Ease of Learning Through Child-led Unit Studies
The great advantages of unit studies are that they can be tied into a child’s interest and that the entire family can learn about a subject together. By Kandi Chong.

Learning Success with Unit Studies and More
Unit studies take advantage of a child’s natural curiosity. By Jane Boswell.

Unit Study Approach
Unit studies, sometimes called thematic units or integrated studies, are very popular with homeschoolers. Unit studies usually use a hands-on approach for effective learning. by Robin Sampson.

What Is a Unit Study? Pick a Topic, Any Topic!
The term “unit studies” is an especially slippery fish of a term, because it can mean so many things. It may refer to a relaxed, interest led frolic through a subject or a traditional approach, using packaged unit studies.

The post Unit Studies appeared first on A2Z Homeschool – THE A-to-Z of Homeschooling.

CSI for Kids is a page for kids who love detective shows, and who dream of being american examiner some day.
About Forensic Science
Careful Collecting of Evidence
Fingerprints
Historic Investigations
How Evidence is Examined
Now Try to Solve These Crimes

About Forensic Science

Crime Lab
Forensics is the application of science to solving crimes, and scientists are getting really good at it. “There’s no such thing as getting away without a trace,” says Jose Almirall. “There’s always evidence left behind.”

Forensic Science Lesson Plans
A 9-week course on Forensic Science for 8th graders. You need to be able to view Power Point (PPT) and Acrobat (PDF) files. As this designed for classrooms, it might be perfect for a co-op class, or use it on your own.

Careful Collecting of Evidence

Crime Scene Investigation
A real crime scene investigation site. Learn how the experts carefully collect evidence so as not to destroy it in the process.

Fingerprints

Dusting for Fingerprints
Fingerprints are coated with powder, then lifted and taken for identification at the lab. This experiment uses cocoa powder.

Fingerprinting
It is easy to take your own fingerprints, though it’s a bit messy with the ink! With enough care, you can find out what sort of fingerprints you have. You can also identify your friends from their fingerprint!

Fingerprint Classification Project
Follow these instructions for a great lesson on fingerprinting and the scientific method. This project is great for gifted or older elementary students or for middle school students.

Historic Investigations

Secrets of the Dead
Crime scene investigations meet history. A PBS series you can also watch on TV.

Forensic History: Crimes, Frauds, and Scandals
by Professor Elizabeth A. Murray
Audible Edition
Audio Sample
Step into the world of forensic science and study the most fascinating crimes and mysteries from the last two centuries in the 24 lectures of Forensic History: Crimes, Frauds, and Scandals. Professor Murray, a forensic anthropologist with nearly 30 years of experience in the field, has crafted lectures that are a remarkable blend of storytelling and science – a whirlwind tour that takes you from the gas-lit streets of Victorian London to small-town America. As you journey around the world and into the past, you’ll re-examine modern history’s great crimes and scandals using the tools and insights of forensic science. In doing so, you’ll learn how cutting-edge advancements in science and technology are applied to investigations and how to evaluate evidence and think like a forensic scientist.
Audio CD

How Evidence is Examined

FBI – How We Investigate
With the lessons learned during these years, Agents are trained to recognize the many tricks that spies use: fake names, secret messages, special hiding places.

Flame Tests
You can be an analytical chemist or forensic scientist in this activity, by finding out what color flames different metals make, and working out the identity of some unknown metal solutions.

Foot to Height
The bones of the feet can tell a lot about a person. What do feet reveal about a person’s height? Forensic anthropologists team up with law enforcers to help solve crimes.

Ink Chromatography Lab
Chromatography is a method of separating out materials from a mixture. Ink is a mixture of several dyes and therefore we can separate those colors from one another using chromatography. Used to determine which pen wrote the letter.

Is handwriting analysis legit science?
What’s the Straight Dope on handwriting analysis? I know that handwriting experts’ testimony can be accepted in court, so there must be something to it. But I have a hard time believing that a smart criminal wouldn’t be able to change his writing to avoid detection.

Operation Crime Scene Investigation
For kids 10-16 years old. This creative, fun crime investigation game includes a step by step organizer guide, all lab documents and evidence files, CSI ID card, award certificates, invitations, thank you notes, support from the game designer & more.

Powder Analysis
A forensic scientist may discover powder at a crime scene. In order to determine if it is illegal or not the crime lab will identify the substance using chemistry.

Teeth Impressions
Practice being a forensic dentist by leaving the room. One student in the room will take a bite of thick cheese or thick chocolate. See if you can identify the individual who took the bite by comparing the impressions with the bite in the cheese or chocolate.

Urine Analysis
These experiments use faked urine, so don’t get squeamish. The tests are for color and odor, pH, and the presence or absence of protein and glucose.

Now Try to Solve These Crimes

The Case of the Barefoot Burglar
At approximately 7:15 a.m., Friday morning, Mrs. King, the seventh grade science teacher, thought something was fishy as she walked down the hall and noticed that her door was open.

FBI Investigates A Strange Flashlight
Follow a case from start to finish as it makes its way through various units of the FBI Laboratory. Every time you see the phrase, “How did they do that?” click on the link to read the details of how that unit processed the evidence.

Kids Mysteries
Mysteries to solve, scary stories, and magic tricks.

NOVA Online | Killer’s Trail
Welcome to the companion Web site to the NOVA program “The Killer’s Trail,” in which a team of experts investigates the forensic evidence in the 1954 murder of Marylin Sheppard, one of the most famous unsolved crimes in the U.S.

Who Dunnit?
Who took a bite out of the candy? Sticky fingers have been found on the broken aquarium glass. Wet footprints lead to the open window. What is that powdery substance next to the broken piggy bank? Answering these questions is what forensic science is all about.

The post CSI for Kids appeared first on A2Z Homeschool – THE A-to-Z of Homeschooling.

Our haunted house meets all the state requirements for being a haunted home school. We need your help to make our ordinary homeschool into a haunted home school for Halloween. Will you help?

History

Why, we’ll start with collecting some rubbings from tombstones. Be careful! Remember that is someone’s loved one under there! Place your rubbings over boxes or boards set out in your front yard.

Learning Comes Alive At The Cemetery On a cemetery visit, your child will discover fascinating facts, perceive connections, draw conclusions from comparing names and dates, and become more comfortable with this most integral facet of human life and culture.

The Real Prince Dracula Yes, there was a real Dracula, and he was a true prince of darkness. He was Prince Vlad III Dracula, also known as Vlad Tepes, meaning “Vlad the Impaler.” The Turks called him Kaziglu Bey, or “the Impaler Prince.”

Read The Legend of the Jack-O-Lantern and find out how Irish immigrants brought this story to America. According to Irish folklore a man named Jack, well known for his drunkenness and quick temper got very drunk at a local pub on All Hallows Eve. He met the Devil outside the pub because the Devil wanted his soul. Jack asked him for one more drink but he didn’t have the money to pay. Perhaps make a skit of it and act it out on Halloween!

Many, Many Mummies Some famous Incan mummies included children. At times of a drought or a famine, a a child would be offered to the gods as a sacrificial gift. Modern people love their pets and so did the Ancient Egyptians. They also loved them enough to make sure their beloved Fifi made it into the after world through the process of mummification!

Visit a Haunted House! A directory of haunted houses in the US and Canada. Some may be in historic buildings.

Visit a ghost town like this one in Bodie, California, that I and a bunch of other homeschoolers enjoyed one cool October day.

Drama and Costumes

Next, with a little science and art mixed together, we’ll work on some special effects from Halloween – Special effects.

Eric Baker: from Grady College to Walt Disney Imagineering
It should come as no surprise that the son of a building contractor and a junior high school art teacher, would spend time sewing and designing his own Halloween costumes at 8-years-old and molding his own Yoda masks a few years later; or, that he would grow up to work in the design playground of Walt Disney World.

How to Write a Horror Podcast
Today, we’re going to take you through coming up with horror podcast ideas, outlining your first season, and some strategies to add sounds to accentuate your storytelling. Sound good? Let’s get scary.

Top 20 Creepy Spooky Homemade Halloween Props & Decorations
From body parts in jars to floating candles, you’re sure to find some homemade Halloween props & decorations to jazz up your next Halloween party.

45 Simple, Last-Minute Halloween Costumes That Don’t Require a Trip to the Costume Store
You can come up with some very cool last-minute Halloween costumes using stuff you probably already have in your closet—with a quick trip to your craft stash for a few basic supplies.

Plan a ghoulish party and invite all your friends to come and get Goosebumps.

Home Economics

Cleaning your home in order to make it look neglected can be great fun. Just throw sheets over everything. Now, go into the kitchen and make some Gory Goodies for your family, friends and neighbors. There’s Drinks, Dips, Snacks, & Appetizers, Breads, Main Dishes, Desserts and Other Good Ideas.

Kraft has a witch cake recipe and some other spookie Halloween concoctions, too.

10 Last-Minute Halloween Costumes You Can Pull Straight From Your Closet The solution to finding a great costume for less? Creating looks with items you already own. Not only is this option budget-friendly, but it’s also sustainable (you avoid buying things you probably won’t wear again). For this, you’ll want to stick to iconic characters that are easily recognizable.

Science

Set up a mad scientist’s laboratory, and invite the trick-or-treaters to watch in amazement as you perform a variety of glowing and eerie tricks from Dr. Grovenstein & Igor’s Halloween Lecture Notes.

The Evil Mad Scientist of Silicon Valley has some real cool Halloween projects that involve some simple electronics anyone from about 10 years old and up can do. Components are available on the site to buy.

This is a good time of year to find skeletons for part of a unit study on anatomy. How about studying the nature of blood as well.

Have you observed how your pet handles Halloween? We love the holiday, and our kids especially love the sugar-induced frenzy of free candy, but our pets are not always so keen on the never-ending doorbell that preludes tiny monsters with chocolate-covered hands. It’s up to us to make sure they feel comfortable and ensure their safety. Along with your scarecrow and infinite bags of candy this year, make sure these five tips are on your checklist.

Before you carve your pumpkin, have children guess if a pumpkin will sink or float when out in a tub of water. Have them justify their guesses. Put the pumpkin or pumpkins in the tub. What happens? How do the children explain this? Does this hold true for all pumpkins, or does it vary? Why?

Art

Crochet a Pumpkin Bag
The Treat Me Crochet Bag is a free crochet pattern for a pumpkin treat bag. In Fall pumpkin colors this pumpkin treat crochet bag would make a fantastic treat bag or accessory to your costume!

Set up black lights around your house. Beneath the lights “paint” some spooky pictures or things like “Boo!” using liquid Tide. The stuff that makes Tide “whiter than white” will also make it glow under black light. [Note: Tide may be effective in repelling ants around your home when washed off the walls.]

How To Carve a Pumpkin for Halloween: The Easiest Method Before you lop off the top of that pumpkin and grab a handful of gooey squash guts, take a look through our basic guide to carving the best Halloween pumpkin. Follow these steps and you’ll end up with a cute and classic jack-o’-lantern with easy, no-fuss cleanup afterwards.

Olaf Pumpkin-Carving Template
Create your own jack-o’-lantern inspired by the lovable snowman from Disney’s Frozen. The great thing about this version of Olaf? He won’t melt.

Grab our Spongebob pumpkin carving pattern. Cut out the black parts.

World Culture

Costumes need not be scary. Consider wearing the native costume of a person from another country, perhaps those of your ancestors or of a land where you might have a penpal or want to travel to some day.

Careers

Dress up in the uniform or usual attire of someone you aspire to become some day.

Health

5 Makeup Tips To Save Your Complexion This Halloween
Prepping your skin is a crucial step anytime you do your makeup, but especially when you want it to last through all your Halloween festivities!

PE

Consider having a Run Like Hell race with your friends, in costumes, around a local cemetery. They really do this in Cincinnatti!

Literature

Years ago children used to sit by the radio and listen to spooky stories on the Mercury Theater. Today, you can download these old shows and listen on your computer.

Another favorite series children love are the Tales of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

Older students will enjoy reading Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Black Cat,” which first appeared in the United States Saturday Post (The Saturday Evening Post) on August 19, 1843, serves as a reminder for all of us. The capacity for violence and horror lies within each of us, no matter how docile and humane our dispositions might appear. – By Martha Womack. Another spooky favorite to read on Halloween is “The Tell-Tale Heart.”

Read the Legend of Sleepy Hallow, Washington Irving’s classic American short story.

Read some Ghost stories and strange folktales of the American South, told by the region’s most celebrated storytellers along the moonlit road.

Language Arts

Halloween Jokes can help teach parts of speech and things like homonyms and words with two meanings. Why didn’t the skeleton want to go to school? His heart wasn’t in it.

Write a story about fall on this lined fall paper for primary students or on this lined stationery for older kids. Here’s two other papers to choose from: candy corn Halloween paper for beginners and slightly older kids.

Music and Sound Effects

Consider some eerie music from our affiliate, Amazon.com:

• Halloween Bash
• Halloween – Mannheim Steamroller
• Spooky Favorites
• Halloween Howls

Math

Here’s some Halloween Worksheets, including many for math facts. You could create similar puzzles for your child at their math level.

When you have collected all the candy you can, sort the candy by brand and put in columns next to each other. On graph paper, color one square in a column for each type. Label the column. Does your graph of actual candy bars look like the one using equal sized squares? Why doesn’t it? Come up with a guess (an hypothesis) about why one candy bar was favored by your neighbors.

Pumpkin Facts
Pumpkins make everyone think of fall and fall holidays like Halloween and Thanksgiving. But did you know that pumpkins are healthy to eat? Do you know how long it takes a pumpkin to grow? Did you know there are many different kinds of pumpkins?

Estimate how many seeds are in your pumpkin. Put the first handful of seeds in a 1/4 cup measuring cup. Count them. Put these seeds and all the rest of the seeds in the biggest measuring device you have in the kitchen. How many 1/4 cups of pumpkin seeds is in that cup or bowl? Multiply the number of seeds in the first measurement times the number of 1/4 cups in all. You will have a pretty good estimate of the total number of seeds your pumpkin had.

Activism

Donate half your candy to a worthy children’s shelter or shelter for battered women and their families.

Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF and help the world’s poorer children.

Five Reasons Why Humans Need Halloween
HScientifically validated reasons to celebrate the scary things in life.

The post Halloween Spook School appeared first on A2Z Homeschool – THE A-to-Z of Homeschooling.