Texas Mini Unit Study

I am very excited about the resources listed below to put together a Texas unit study. Here's why. I took Texas History in the 12th grade. I moved from Virginia to Texas my senior year and it was a requirement to graduate from high school. I wish I could say I learned a lot in that class. But I didn't. I remembered facts about the Lone Star State long enough to pass tests and quizzes. And then I promptly forgot.

Why am I sharing all this? I guess because what I just described about my experience in school is what drives me to find interesting learning materials for my children.

Texas Unit Study Activity Books

• Learn About TX Birds
• Learn About TX Dinosaurs
• Learn About TX Freshwater Fish
• Learn About TX Indians
• Learn About TX Insects
• Shrimply Fun: Shrimp Fishery in the Gulf of Mexico
• TX Endangered Species

Texas Unit Study Books/Booklets

• Frankie the Free Tailed Bat
• TX House of Representatives
• TX Tracks - animal tracks

Texas Unit Study Coloring Books

• Healthy Communities of Brownsville TX
• Indian Years
• Kids' House - TX state symbols coloring book
• TX Wildlife Management Area
• Symbols of TX at TX State Parks

Texas Unit Study Lap Books

• Remember the Alamo - bottom of the page below the ads

Texas Unit Study Videos

The Time Tunnel: The Alamo (1966)


Our Texas History (1963)


Texas Unit Study Websites

• Kids' House - TX House of Representatives

Tower of Babel Study

Scripture - Genesis 11:1-9
Reading and coloring book - Tower of Babel mini-book (middle of the page)
Bible Study for 11 year old - The Beginning: Y1Q1 (pages 19-20 of the pdf file)

Working on a Seperate Homeschool Blog

Per my husband's suggestion, I am going to start a separate blog that contains all of my homeschool information. Right now I'm trying to think of a title. Then I'll figure out whether I'm going to move my homeschool posts from here to there, or whether I'll just start fresh on the HS blog and maybe link back to this blog.

We'll see.

Free Text Books for Homeschool

I have been taking a look at the Robinson Curriculum, Accelerated Achievement, Old Fashioned Education, and the Ambleside Online Curriculum. Of course I am most impressed with OFE and AO because they are FREE. But actually, all of the curriculums have a lot of the same books in their reading list. A few years back I really wanted to buy AA; but, now I'm glad that my husband asked me to hold off on the purchase.

Truth be told, our homeschool style is quite eclectic and I tweak every educational material that we use. So, I no longer see the need to pay for one particular curriculum or method. We just use what works for each individual child.

What I do appreciate about all of the curriculum mentioned above is that the texts used are in the public domain (code for FREE). And a lot of the content lines up with the values that we are instilling in our children. So, I've picked some books here and there and am using them this year.

I am listing the books and links below that we are currently using. That way I can keep all of the titles in one place. I will add more books as we get to them.

Bible

Math

• Ray's Arithmetic: Primary Lessons
• Ray's Arithmetic: Second Book
  

World History

• Beacon Lights of History (vol. 6) - Renaissance & Reformation
  

Free Homeschool Spanish Curriculum for High School Students

I was absolutely astounded when I started looking for a homeschool Spanish curriculum. Wow, you can spend a small fortune teaching your children another language.

Free Spanish Book and Teacher's Manual
So, I was happy when I came across a free student book for learning Spanish. The book is called Poco a Poco. It was written by a University of Texas foreign language instructor in 1922. Don't let the date fool you. This book is still an excellent resource today. And here is the teacher's manual to go along with it. Over the summer my son went through a few of the lessons on his own. I just printed out a new lesson each time he completed one.


A Self Teaching Approach to Spanish
He enjoyed it so much that I decided that he'll take Spanish I this year. We will be using Getting Started with Spanish: Beginning Spanish for Homeschoolers and Self-Taught Students of Any Age. This isn't a free book but I like that the book was written with the self learner in mind. I think my son will do well using the approach taken in the book. And we will use the links provided to listen to the proper way to pronounce the words.

Free Videos to Learn Spanish
I'm also going to see if we can incorporate the excellent set of free videos available on Learner.org called Destinos - An Introduction to Spanish. If you are completely unfamiliar with Spanish then the videos alone may not be adequate enough to teach your high school student Spanish. However, you can buy used workbooks to accompany the series for just a few dollars on Amazon.

• Workbook/Study Guide I (Lessons 1-26) to accompany Destinos: An Introduction to Spanish

• Destinos: An Introduction to Spanish Workbook/Study Guide II (Lecciones 27-52)

As of this post, you can buy each workbook (used) for less than $10 plus tax.

Mini Nutrition Unit Study

Here is another study that you can make long or short. All of the coloring and activity books contain different information. So you could pick just one or a few for a short study of nutrition. Or you could take a few weeks and go through all of the books with your children.


Activity Books

• Bright Futures - overall health w/ 1 page on nutrition
• Building Blocks for a Healthy Future - health & fitness
• Fuel Up with Milk
• Look at Me: I am Healthy - overall health w/ 1 page on nutrition
• Power Panther Pals - excellent book for children who work independently

Coloring Books

• Apple Wise Guys - nutritional benefits of apples
• Fresh to You: Improving Eating Habits to Last a Lifetime
• Fun w/ Foodella
• Guida's Milk & SuperCow - dairy
• Having Fun at Your Local Farmer's Market - healthy snacks
• How We Get Our Milk
• J. Slice Saves the Planet from Professor Junk Food
• Milk Matters w/ Buddy Brush

Comic Books

• Adventures of Buddy McNutty - peanuts

Crafts

• DLTK nutrition crafts
• First School health & nutrition activities

Online Games

• Nourish Interactive - parents need to set up free account for child first
• Nutrition Explorations

VideosThis video teaches that it's fun to try new foods and can be applied to the lesson very easily.

Here's one on Nutrition and Nasa.



Websites

• Dairy Council of CA
• Dole Superkids

Animal Unit Study

Our family will take a trip to the zoo soon. So we're going to spend a few days doing an animal unit study. All of the coloring books look great; but, we'll probably only get to a few.

Animal Unit Study Arts and Crafts

• animal masks - bottom of the page
• DLTK's animal activities
• Enchanted Learning animal crafts

Animal Unit Study Coloring and Activity Books

• ABC Animals
• Arkansas Mammals
• Birds
• Endangered Species
• Feeder Birds Activity Book
• Florida Animated Alphabet (wild life)
• Florida Scrub
• Fort Wayne Children's Zoo Activity Packet Gr. 1
• Immunize by Two (zoo theme)
• Indian River Lagoon
• Learn About Texas Birds
• Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy
• Lynx: Spirit of the Forest Activity Book
• New Mexico Endangered Species
• Oregon Zoo Birds of Prey Activity Book
• Ranger Ralph's Dartmour Pony
• South Asian Monkey Coloring Book
• Story of the Harness Horse
• Texas Tracks (Animal Tracks)
• Texas Wildlife
• What to do at Brookfield Zoo
• Wild Animals of the Congo
• Wildlife Activity Book (Tennessee)
• Wildlife of New Jersey

Animal Unit Study Lapbooks

• 50+ animal lapbooks at Homeschool Share

Animal Unit Study Reading Book

• Oregon Zoo Presents: Illahee the Salmon & Taima the Bald Eagle

Mini Unit Studies

I am not an expert in using unit studies. I just learned about the idea of studying one topic at a time and trying to incorporate all of the major subjects into the learning. So, that's what we do. The more that I do mini unit studies with the children, the more that I find that the three R's seem to get covered pretty naturally without having to force anything. For example, it's not unusual for activity books to have all three of those elements in them.

I'm convinced that there is enough free educational material online that I don't have to pay for unit studies for homeschooling my little ones. Now, I do use textbooks for middle and high school. But mainly just for science, math, and foreign languages. Everything else I find from searching on Google.

So below you'll find the topics that we have studied so far or will be studying in the near future. Some topics are only a day long. And some take up to a week to cover. It really depends on how many resources I find. I'll add to this list as we do more unit studies.

Mini Unit Studies

• Abraham Lincoln
• Adverbs
• Agriculture 
• Animal Habitats
• Animals
• Beef 
• Birds
• Cotton
• Dental health
• Dogs 
• Eggs 
• Gardening
• Ham radio
• Magnets
• Money
• Nutrition 
• Peanuts
• Solar system
• Telling time
• Texas
• Thanksgiving
  
• Trains
• Water cycle