New year, new unit study!

Now that we have enjoyed Christmas and New Years it's time to get back into a daily routine of school, chores and family time. And if I am lucky I may be able to work in some time for me! A few workouts or morning runs would be great "me" time right now.

With school just about to begin again I have been taking time to plan, more like outline, our upcoming lessons. Before Christmas we spent a few weeks studying World War 2, mainly Hitler, his past and why he became who he was and why he did and believed the things he did. It was our first time working in a unit study style of lessons. I felt like we all, yes myself included, learned far more with a unit study than we had been when we separated all of our subjects and lessons. So I bet you can guess what we will be doing for awhile. Yep, unit studies. I think the kids will learn so much more and we will be able to dig deeper into any area we decide to. We are also excited to find as many field trips and crafts or activities for each unit as we can. Hands-on will be a big focus this school year!

Monday we are going to start our first unit for the 2013 school year. We will be studying our beautiful state of Colorado! I found some great books at the library today and a couple handy web sites, and even a few fun printable pages for the kids. I have quite a bit outlined for us to research and read about but I am making sure to come up with some fun activities for this unit as well. This unit we are going (if all goes well) to bake an edible map, make a Colorado timeline, take some trips to museums, find and try some old "coming out west" recipes, attempt to make some clothing (very simple), and hopefully take a day hike (weather permitting) as though we were coming out west through the fields. I plan to spend 2-3 weeks on this unit, then I hope to work into a shorter unit on Pikes Peak.

Most of the time I am fairly creative, and my mom also comes up with some great ideas too, but I think I may ask thoughts of you at times as well. Thoughts about field trips, crafts, activities, or
books that may be helpful to what we are studying. If you think of anything I would love to know.

I guess I will ask now if you  have any thoughts about a unit study on Colorado? Places that you think are a must to learn about, important people, books you have read, anything that may be fun or helpful.

Unit study links:  Home Hearts- unit studies
The Homeschool Mom - unit studies