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6 Unit Study Resources: Mountain Men – Explorers of the West

September 16, 2017 | Leave a Comment
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Whether you’re studying about the American Frontier, fur trade or mountain living, you’ll bring history alive through studying the tough life of mountain men.

Today, I rounded up six unit study resources to grab for a mountain men unit study. Besides explorers and fur traders, they were some of America’s first trail blazers.

Mountain Men Trailblazers

This 3 page teacher’s guide has vocabulary words like ploo and rendezvous along with teaching skills of self-sufficiency and hardiness. I also like that it incorporates learning about the importance of rivers to mountain men. So, you can add a bit of geography, history, and science.

Next, this super helpful 39 page free teacher’s guide is chock full of information.

It has a unit on fur trade, mountain men lifestyle, and legends of the mountain men. And even though it mentions items in a trunk, it’s really helpful in understanding artifacts and every day items used by mountain men. Read about the items they used and a few them look like they could be easily made.

This next fun free 51 page guide talks about the importance of being able to identify animal tracks along with the animal tracks labeled.

It has a handwritten letter which is a primary source and a lesson about beavers.

Hands-on History and Geography

More units like the Language of a Trapper, Rendezvous, Mountain Man Tales, and Indian Wives of the Mountain Men are a few of the fun and interesting units in this expansive free 57 page guide.

This is an interesting read for your middle or high school kid. While it doesn’t have pictures, it’s the diary of Jedediah Strong Smith, a mountain men. It describes the perils he faced each day.

Lastly, this website Mountain Men: Pathfinders of the West has a lot of background information about the fur trade and the ways of the mountain men.

Download them and add to them a unit study about geography or use them for a mini unit study.

Also, you’ll like my posts:

Hugs and love ya,

Day 4. Ancient Greece (Hands-on Science) 3 EASY Activities

July 8, 2017 |
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I have a secret I’ve been keeping. You already know my love for living books, unit studies, history, and hands-on activities. But you may not know that we’ve been using Beautiful Feet’s History of Science this year. Besides the excellent literature they cull through so that I don’t have to, we love the easy hands-on science activities. These activities are geared for middle school, but a high school student that has a science aversion would be engaged too. While studying the ancient civilizations, grab these ideas for an Ancient Greece hands-on science unit study.

We have been learning how far ahead of their time the Greeks really were when it came to science. We loved reading about Archimedes. I had already studied about Archimedes with my first two sons before I had discovered Beautiful Feet literature. So I was really tickled that I have it for Tiny.

Even though it is written for a middle school level, a living book is written like a story and draws in a reader of any age.

To engage your kids, look at these questions to ask and have your kids write in their notebooks.

►Who was Archimedes?
►What elements did the Ancient Greeks believed that made up the universe?
►What do we know today about the elements that make up our universe?
►What is surface tension?

Ancient Greeks and their Perception of Matter

Next, grab these simple things that you probably have lying around your house because these activities are so quick and easy that you want to include all of your kids.

tall glass bottle
gauze pad
rubber band
bowl or glass with water
steel paper clip
dishwashing liquid
food dye
a couple of droppers
milk at room temperature
shallow pan

Then move on to each activity.

ONE/ Understand what is surface tension. Then do this simple activity.

Place a steel paper clip in a glass or bowl. (Yes, I can do that.)

Why does it float? Which is more dense, the water or paper clip?

How to Teach Hands-on Science Through Living Books

TWO/ Why is the gauze leakproof?

Fill a glass bottle with water. We added food coloring so it could be easier to be seen if it spilled.

Add the gauze over the top and secure with a rubber band. Turn it upside and see what happens.

Why won’t water pour out through a gauze enclosed top? It is held inside by the surface tension of the water.

THREE/ How to break surface tension? Understand that certain substances can break down surface tension.

This next one is a great activity to include the little ones because it has an instant ewwww and awwww moment. Grab a shallow glass pan.

Add room temperature milk.

Choose two food color dyes, get two eye droppers and some dishwashing liquid in a small container.

Then use one dropper to add two food coloring choices. You notice it stays in a circle or really doesn’t break the surface.

Then use the second dropper to add dishwashing liquid and you get immediate action. The colors start to swirl and move.

The colors spread around because the stronger surface tension around the edge of the dish pulls the milk and food coloring outward.

Try a few different colors. It really is an engaging activity. You’ll want to try it again and again.

These easy hands-on activities are a simple way to look at how scientist of the past looked at ancient discovery.

We have a few more things we have been doing with our History of Science and I can’t wait to show you more.

I’m doing an Ancient Civilizations hands-on history series and you’ll want to look at these other ideas:

Day 1. Ancient Egypt Civilization (Hands-on History): Narmer Crown.
Day 2. Ancient Mesopotamia (Hands-on History): Cook Sebetu Rolls.
Day 3. Ancient Rome (Hands-on History): Paint a Jester.

And look at these other ways we’ve used Beautiful Feet literature and I’ve a super discount coupon you’ll find only here. Be sure to share the coupon too.

When We Used Beautiful Feet Books as our History Spine, Medieval History for Homeschool Middle School, and Medieval Chemistry and Homeschool History – Fun Hands-On Activity.

Hugs and love ya,

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Visit Tina Robertson’s profile on Pinterest.

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John Muir Spring Unit Study (and Hands-on Geography Ideas)

February 27, 2017 |
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

No matter the age, most children still have a love for picture books. Recently, we read John Muir, America’s First Environmentalist and loved that book. It looks like you could use it for about middle school down to elementary. It’s just a great book no matter which ages you use it for. Not only are the pictures beautiful but a short biography read gives us a needed break in our day. Today, I decided to do a quick John Muir spring unit study as a way to celebrate spring and our love of reading picture books.

Look at this roundup and ideas for a multi-age unit study. Don’t you love including all of your children?

John Muir – the Inventor, Environmentalist and Explorer

After reading the short biography, you find out that John Muir was not only an adventurer and nature lover, but an inventor. What a great way for a young person to spend his time.

Download this 2 page pdf to learn about a few of his inventions.

LANGUAGE ARTS

Grab some quotes for this 2 page pdf for copywork or write a persuasive essay about John Muir’s stance on preserving nature for generations.

SCIENCE

Nature Journals

For the younger kids, about first or second grade, grab this free 3 page pdf John Muir Made a Difference with a free printable to jump start their nature journal.

Also, look at this hub page by my friend Barb for nature journal ideas and tips. You’ll love this round up.

And if you haven’t already downloaded this free WHOPPING 968 pages of Anna Comstock’s Handbook of Nature Study, it’s a must have for studying about science and nature.

For your high school kids grab this free 8 page pdf lesson about Campsite Conversation which teaches about different points of view regarding how the environment should be cared for.

Glaciers

This is a helpful one page worksheet with questions and answers for key to learn about glaciers.

Wilderness and Remote First Aid

John Muir spent much of his life in the wilderness exploring. No doubt he had to have some knowledge of how to care for his health. Add in a slant about health care in the wilderness with this free 121 page guide for teaching about the wilderness and remote first aid.

GEOGRAPHY

In California

For about third or fourth grade, grab this free 4 page pdf John Muir in California to study about California landmarks.

For your high school kids, grab this free 6 page pdf John Muir’s Vision Lives On which is about land issues and how to preserve the natural beauty and issues surrounding that.

Around the World

You’ll love this free printable board game for learning about the places John Muir traveled. Around the World in 76 Years.

Backpacking and hiking

The reason John Muir knew that the wilderness needed to be preserved was not only because he spent time outdoors, but he spent time hiking and exploring.

Grab this free 245 page unit study about backpacking and hiking.

HANDS-ON ACTIVITIES AND IDEAS

►Learn about the power of ice.

John Muir had a love for snow and blizzards and soon his obsession turned to glaciers. Look at this easy hands-on idea of how ice shapes mountains.

►Make an easy sand clock.

Also, he loved his inventions and was interested locks, water wheels and clocks. Look at this easy hands-on sand clock.

►Make a yummy metamorphic edible rock recipe.

Spending much of his time outdoors as he investigated mountains and cliffs, look at this easy Metamorphic Edible Rocks & Notebooking Pages.

►Make a simple compass out of things around the house.

And then learn how to make an easy homemade compass.

►Do this easy hands on activity with an egg to see how a plant digests their prey.

Also, Muir had a love for plants. Look at this easy hands-on activity to see how carnivorous plants digest their prey and grab the free notebooking pages.

►Make an easy pendulum clock.

Muir made a machine that helped him to rise from bed because he was focused on time. Make this easy pendulum clock.

I know all your kids will love this short picture book. Be sure to add John Muir, America’s First Environmentalist to your collection and use it for a fun nature unit study.

Are you still in a spring sort of mood?

I have a couple more free unit studies you can do which have lapbooks. Click here to grab my North American Robin Unit Study and Lapbook, then strawberries are the very first spring fruit, so grab my Free Strawberry Unit Study and Lapbook and if that is still not enough, grab this Toads and Amphibians Lapbook and Unit Study.

Happy Spring!

Hugs and love ya,

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How to Build the Alamo: Day 5 Hands-on Learning (Free Texas Unit Study)

January 20, 2017 |
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Learning how to build the Alamo was another fun change to our schedule as we have continued in our series of hands-on homeschooling learning. We thought it would be fun to sketch a quick layout of the Alamo as we read about it.

Having studied about the Alamo before, we pulled out The Alamo, An Illustrated History, book by George Nelson and the other book, The Alamo, an Illustrated History by Edwin Hoyt to study a bit of the architecture.

We also looked at how to build the Alamo on ehow and Tiny liked that model.

We gathered a few supplies and needed some more:

4 sugar cube boxes and we only did the outline of the wall. If you decide to do the interior walls as well, you will need double or triple that depending how thick you want the walls on your model.
we used an old pizza box
glue gun and glue
marker
ruler
spray paint of your choice
couple of straws

Again, though this project looks easy like simply gluing a bunch of sugar cubes together, but it really did require planning, calculating and deciphering to understand the bell shaped parapet.

Looking at the pictures The Alamo, An Illustrated History to view old drawings of the Alamo to learning its history helped to get an idea of how to build it.

Tiny really had fun making this. We grabbed some Spanish moss and miniature cactus after Tiny painted it and otherwise he really loved the break in our schedule while focusing on understanding the history of the Alamo.

I created a Texas lapbook with my older set of boys and it is a subscriber only freebie.

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This Texas lapbook is a subscriber only freebie! This means you get access to the exclusive area for subscribers and can download this printable there.

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Look at these other ones we have done.Day 1: Make a Hair Hygrometer, Day 2: Desert Sand Art, Day 3: Make Zopf (Swiss Style Bread) and Day 4: Exploring Edible Cactus (Learning about the Desert) and 365 Days Hands-On Homeschool Activities – One for EVERY Day of the Year

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Exploring Edible Cactus: Day 4 Hands-on Learning (The Desert)

January 14, 2017 |
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Because we are learning about life in Texas during the time of the Alamo and we have an upcoming desert unit study, we took time today to read about cactus. Exploring edible cactus was the next step because we have never tasted it and if anything involves food we are in.

First, we found a few sites and pictures to learn about cactus.

Look at this page that shows anatomy of a cactus from the Cactus Museum which is a good overview.

(pic attribution)

Then we focused on the saguaro cactus (Carnegiea gigantea) because it is one of the prominent plants in the Sonoran Desert.
Here are some of the things we learned and some things we already knew:

►It’s the world’s largest cactus.
► Cacti don’t have leaves; they have prickly spines.
►It can live up to 200 years.
►One of the coolest things is that it is a habitat in itself. It provides food, water, and shelter to many different animals.
► The saguaro cactus saves and stores huge quantities of water in its roots and stems.
► In spring time, white flowers grow on the saguaro.
►The term tree is used to describe how high it can get, which can be up to 60 feet tall.
►They are found only in the Sonoran Desert.

Look at these two books where we got a lot of helpful information.
One book is for a younger child and the other is for multiple ages. Even the book for younger kids was still full of helpful facts.

Next, we picked up some cactus at the grocery store because Tiny has never tasted cactus.

Looking around the kitchen to see what we could cook with we used just a few ingredients.

First, we started by scraping the edges of the cactus with a sharp knife.

We also used a vegetable peeler to be sure we got all the spikes off and cut off the edge and dark spots. I rinsed it several times.

Then we sliced it into pieces.

We boiled it in some red onion, fresh garlic and salt and pepper for about 20 minutes or so until it didn’t look slimy any longer.

Instead of eating it by itself, we think anything tastes better with guacamole and we’re almost sure they had guacamole when the soldiers were in the Alamo (just kidding).

We grabbed some fresh avocado, salt and pepper and tomatoes to make an easy guacamole.

After we boiled it, it came time to the taste test.

Uhmm, Tiny’s face says it all.He didn’t really care for it. I never really have liked the flavor. It’s a texture thing for me, but we always don’t mind trying new things.

Tiny said it’s not as bad as he thought and adding spices to it really helps. It does taste like a mild green bean.

We put it in some great tasting guacamole with chips and had a few more bites.

We had a fun morning reading about cactus and trying a bite or two of it.

Then, I found this wonderful illustration, which has pictures of several different cactus. How many can you name?

Look at this link to see the names of them.

We are loving our hands-on learning on different topics. Look at these other ones we have done.Day 1: Make a Hair Hygrometer, Day 2: Desert Sand Art, Day 3: Make Zopf (Swiss Style Bread) and 365 Days Hands-On Homeschool Activities – One for EVERY Day of the Year
Hugs and love ya,

Don’t forget to follow BOTH of my Pinterest accounts for AWESOME pins.

Visit Tina Robertson’s profile on Pinterest.

Visit Tinas Dynamic Homeschool ‘s profile on Pinterest.

Pioneer Living and Cloth Dyeing (Hands-on History)

December 22, 2016 |
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

For our newest unit study about the Alamo, Texas and Mexican history, I wanted to focus on a science activity that pioneers living during that time would do, which is cloth dyeing.

Pioneer Living | Hands-on History

Pioneer living and cloth dyeing go hand in hand though I’m sure pioneers of that time weren’t too concerned about many different colors in their clothes. They normally just had a few pieces of clothing.

However, when they did want color, they knew a lot about nature and how to get the colors they wanted.

Pioneers and Native Americans living on the frontier knew about insects, flowers and vegetables that could be cooked up and used for color.

This method of dyeing cloths has been used from ancient civilizations down to modern times.

In our Ancient Civilization unit study (studying Pirates) we learned about how Phoenicians used a shellfish, called a Murex to make purple dye. The name Phoenician comes from a Greek word that means purple men. Purple has come to symbolize wealth, royalty and high office.

Also, though when we lived in South America, we learned about natural dyeing when we took a family field trip to a family owned weaving and dyeing business.

It is always a fascinating project to learn about and we thought we would try it again with some things we had in our refrigerator and one or two things we bought (I can’t stand beets – yuck) to experiment with.

Look at what we gathered up.

Walnuts. Since we’ve done this before, we wanted to experiment with a different color than black from the opened hull. So we added whole walnuts to some cracked hulls and got a really pretty golden color.
Kale. This was the first time for this and we loved the lighter color and wonder what we could have added to make it brighter or maybe boiled it longer.
Onion skins. We used a red onion because we had them and it made an orange-ish color.
Beets. We loved the lighter color.
Blackberries. We added salt and vinegar to it to get a more vibrant color.
Old or new diaper. Clean of course (wink). We used an old one to cut up into blocks for fabric swatches.

Then we added water to four pots or pans and brought it to a boil.

After it boiled, we turned the burner down and let it simmer for about an hour on real low.

We’re thinking, the longer it simmers, the darker the color after we read about how Native Americans did it.

Then we soaked the cotton fabric in the solution overnight.

There is no limit to natural materials you can use to explore and have fun with. We really had a lot of fun with this.

And, we found inspiration from this post on Pioneer Thinking: Making Natural Dyes from Plants, which categorizes colors by natural material to use. It is a great post to get some ideas and tips from.

Too, you may want to check out my post that goes great with this unit study, which is How To Make An Easy Ink pot & Quill Pen with Berry Ink.

I think all of your kids will love this activity and especially if you let them pick out the flowers, nuts and vegetables they want to use and do some color mixing too.

This is such a great open ended exploration activity to include all ages.

Look here too How to Teach History in 14 Lessons (From Daunting to Doable).

Hugs and love ya,

Don’t forget to follow BOTH of my Pinterest accounts for AWESOME pins.

Visit Tina Robertson’s profile on Pinterest.

Visit Tinas Dynamic Homeschool ‘s profile on Pinterest.

Homeschool History Copywork – William B. Travis Quote

November 9, 2016 |
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Today, I have the first activity to go with our Texas theme which is homeschool history copywork, a William B. Travis quote.

Copywork is a valuable skill way beyond the elementary years and I have continued copywork for my boys all the way through middle and high school.

Even at the middle and high school years, it’s still important to model writing that stirs the emotions. So copywork is not just for struggling writers.

The value of copywork goes beyond just copying the words, but it is memory work, learning history through sayings from people of the past and comprehending important events from the past.

In other words, if I can tie in memory work, history and language arts to a topic, it makes our unit study more complete and appealing.

For an older kid, copywork shouldn’t take the place of a well-researched essay, but it can be a segue to it. For my boys, copywork can be a brainstorming session and every good writer wants an abundance of brainstorming ideas.

As long as you don’t make copywork babyish, teens normally end up still enjoying it.

Using a cursive font for older kids is another way to have them practice and read cursive.

Today, Tiny read The Travis Letter – “Victory or Death” and then did some easy copywork.

Grab this first activity for our newest homeschool history unit study – The Alamo below.

Copywork William B. Travis quote for a Texas or Alamo Unit Study

Also, grab Homeschool History The Alamo – 17 Free Resources.

Hugs and love ya,

Don’t forget to follow BOTH of my Pinterest accounts for more AWESOME pins.

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Hands-on Homeschool History. Add free cards to an O ring. [Set 1]

October 24, 2016 |
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

I have another set ready for the easy and interactive homeschool history on an O ring series that I want to do. Adding the cards today, which are for Ancient Civilizations, I now have 4 sets of cards.

The four I have done so far are Westward Ho, The Titanic, French and Indian War and now Ancient Civilizations.

These cards have very general information and I made them so we can hit broad strokes when studying these topics and as a way to memorize some of our unit studies.

Because I may study some of our history topics several times with each child, I have been wanting to make up these cards to allow my sons a way to study independently.

Too, through the years I have had one son interested in delving deeper into one topic that another son may not be so interested in. A remedy to that problem is to make these O rings which they can grab, and do interactively.

This way if they are not as interested in a topic, at least they know some broad strokes about that topic.

Also, if you want to flesh out your study on these topics, then look at my pages, which match up with these history cards.

Lapbook and unit study for Westward Ho.
Lapbook and unit study for the Titanic.
Lapboook and unit study for the French and Indian War.Lapbook and unit study for Ancient Civilizations Page I and Page II.

You can download the Ancient Civilization cards here.

I plan to do another set soon, so hope you enjoy these.

Hugs and love ya,

Don’t forget to follow BOTH of my Pinterest accounts for more AWESOME pins.

Visit Tina Robertson’s profile on Pinterest.

Visit Tinas Dynamic Homeschool ‘s profile on Pinterest.

6 Unit Study Resources: Mountain Men – Explorers of the West

Mountain Men Trailblazers

Hands-on History and Geography

Day 4. Ancient Greece (Hands-on Science) 3 EASY Activities

Ancient Greeks and their Perception of Matter

How to Teach Hands-on Science Through Living Books

John Muir Spring Unit Study (and Hands-on Geography Ideas)

John Muir – the Inventor, Environmentalist and Explorer

How to Build the Alamo: Day 5 Hands-on Learning (Free Texas Unit Study)

I luv my followers and make it special for them here when I can.

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Exploring Edible Cactus: Day 4 Hands-on Learning (The Desert)

Pioneer Living and Cloth Dyeing (Hands-on History)

Pioneer Living | Hands-on History

Homeschool History Copywork – William B. Travis Quote

Copywork William B. Travis quote for a Texas or Alamo Unit Study

Hands-on Homeschool History. Add free cards to an O ring. [Set 1]

You can download the Ancient Civilization cards here.

My Geography and History Luv!

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