Homeschoolers should take a few moments to view and listen to Gary DeMar (American Vision) interview Kevin Swanson about Christian homeschooling and more. Though brief, I found it encouraging and worth sharing here. Be sure to take 15 minutes and check it out.
On October 31st, while many folks in America and elsewhere are participating in Halloween activities, Protestants across the world will be celebrating and remembering an event that is arguably far more important and worthy of recognition: The Protestant Reformation. On that October day in 1517, the monk Martin Luther and his mallet (to borrow from author Stephen J. Nichols
In commemoration of the contributions of Luther the men that followed in his steps (Calvin, Bucer & Zwingli to name a few) and the rich theological tradition that was born from their bold and sacrificial efforts, North Creek Presbyterian Church, located in Coconut Creek, Florida, will be kicking off their first ever Reformation Day Celebration. The event will be held this Sunday, (October 26, 2008) at the church and will, in addition to its regular 10:30 Sunday morning worship service, feature a special service at 6:00 p.m., celebrating “Reformation Sunday”. This evening service will feature the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, who, according to Francis Schaffer
For more details about this unique South Florida event, go to the North Creek church site to read the full press release.
For all of the homeschoolers that are reading this, I would like to suggest that the Protestant Reformation is great subject matter for the development of an intriguing homeschool unit study. With a bit of effort, you can easily use a Reformational theme and cover a wide variety of subjects, including: history, government, law, church practice and doctrine, science, vocations, literature, music, art and more. To help get you started, there is a great resource produced by Doorposts called A Night of Reformation, which was designed to help churches create fun, fellowship events that help teach about the historical era, personalities and teachings of the Reformation. This simple, yet well-produced resource can be of great help in the development of your own informative, fun and unique unit study for your children.
Have you ever conducted a unit study on this important event in history? If so, we’d love to hear about it. Please share in our comments section. Of course, if you can also attend this Sunday’s event at North Creek Presbyterian Church, we’d love to see you there. Semper Reformada!
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UPDATE: The morning sermon (10/26) from North Creek Presbyterian Church is available using the audio player below. This sermon is a continuation of a series on the book of Phillippians. To hear all of the sermons in this series, go to the North Creek sermon audio page on their web site.
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My wife and children recently completed another unit study as part of their homeschool lessons. As mentioned in a prior blog post, they’ve been learning about select states within the U.S. This particular unit study focused on the state of Wyoming. Out of all the things they were taught, one of the items that the kids found most fascinating were the geysers found in Yellowstone National Park. So, in order to make the lesson more real, we concluded their studies that week by making our own “Old Faithful” using a couple of packs of Mentos, a few 2 liter bottles of Diet Coke and a cool little gizmo called the Geyser Tube
We captured our backyard geyser fun on video and thought we’d share it with you by including the YouTube video found below. We hope you enjoy watching this as much as we enjoyed doing it! It was a good amount of fun and the really kids loved it, as you can tell from the background comments in the video. Enjoy!
If you wish make your own Diet Coke and Mentos candy geyser, here’s an easy to follow “how to” article that I wrote for eHow.
Blog writing duties this time are brought to you courtesy of my wife.
At a recent homeschool association meeting, one of the guest speakers presented ideas that homeschooling moms could use to “shake up” their homeschooling routine. One idea was to temporarily set aside your regular curriculum and teach a unit study for a week. I decided to give it a try.
At first, conducting a unit study seemed like quite a bit of work, but I have found that using an occasional unit study can be a valuable and memorable learning experience for my children that can cover multiple areas of study in one themed, educational “package”. It also adds fun & variety to the weekly routine. I write this article to share my experiences in the hopes that I can help and encourage other homeschooling parents to consider using unit studies as well.
This year I am teaching our children about United States geography with a focus on select states. Using this a starting point, my girls and I recently conducted a unit study on the state of Hawaii. To get ready for this, I took a trip to the library to gather some books and then spent some time doing research on the internet.
I found two great books that helped tremendously. 
The first was Hawaiian Volcanoes National Park
A is for Aloha
Hawaii. I was able to use this book to teach the children about the history and culture of Hawaii, as well as a number of other facts.
The thing I like most about unit studies is the ability to teach multiple subjects with a common theme. Here’s a few of the subjects and activities we conducted during our Hawaiian unit study.
Science
To teach science, I taught the children about volcanoes and followed that up with a hands-on experiment to help reinforce the lesson. Using the instructions found at TeacherVision, we created our own mini volcano in our backyard! This experiment was easy enough to involve all the children and they were not disappointed. They loved it!
Geography
Using assorted maps of Hawaii obtained from here and here, I was able to teach the children about key islands, landmarks and cities. I also used blank maps to quiz them on what they learned at the end of the week. The older children could use those same maps to point out the latitude and longitude of each of the Hawaiian islands and key cities. Art For our art project, the children made their own leis out of paper, plastic straws and string. Instructions for this simple, yet fun craft were found at DLTK’s Crafts for Kids.
Spelling & Vocabulary
Using words from the texts that I used used for this unit study, I was able to compile and teach an assortment of words associated with Hawaii. I had the children define and memorize them in anticipation of a spelling test that I gave them at the end of the week. Our oldest child was also given the assignment of writing a short story after having read the book, Island of the Blue Dolphins
Celebration
To cap off the week, we had a Friday night Hawaiian “luau” together as a family. The kids couldn’t wait for Friday to come. The children assisted in planning the menu and meal. We prepared shredded pork, fresh sliced pineapple, salad and a tasty macadamia nut cream pie with coffee. The kids decorated the tables with hibiscus flowers and assorted backyard flora as well as candles. We ate the meal outdoors on our patio, while playing a Hawaiian instrumental soundtrack. We also took photos for their homeschool portfolios. Needless to say, this meal event was a hit.
Our kids will never forget their week long unit study of Hawaii. We’ll likely do another soon. A unit study may seem like a lot of work and an interruption to your normal teaching schedule, but when you consider that you can integrate science, geography, art, science, grammar, literature and spelling into a single, themed education event, it is well worth the perceived sacrifices. As an added bonus, each child can participate. And, if you craft it properly, they can each be challenged at their own level.
What are your thoughts?
The other night my wife asked me to put together a quick homeschool weekly lesson planning form based upon a template she had used in the past. It didn’t take long to create it and the result seems to be working for her. So, in the interest of sharing homeschool resources with those of you who may need them, I’ve made it available here.
You can download it in your choice of Microsoft Word, Apple Pages and Adobe PDF formats. We hope this template helps you in your homeschooling efforts. If so, please let us know! We’d love to hear how it helped you.