U is for Unit Studies {featuring Ferdinand}

I really love unit studies. They come in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes related to a theme, sometimes related to a book, and sometimes just related to a subject. I am pretty sure it's my favorite way to homeschool. But, they do exhaust me, and we don't always have a unit study going, just when the opportunity arises such as a review or a movie that is centered around a book. They are worth it though. Those always tend to be the most memorable lessons and experiences we have together.

Back in February we went to see Ferdinand the movie as part of our unit study of Ferdinand, and we had some fun with the book too using a curriculum called Five in a Row. Using Five in a Row is a nice way to do unit studies because the curriculum has a lot of great ideas all figured out already. Of course I like to throw in a few of my own as well.

We thought of words to describe ferdinand...

We found Spain on the map, and put our story disk on the map...

We read a little about Columbus in our new (to us) pop up book...

We, of course, read the book several times. We listened to it too!

We found our favorite pictures in the book, and discussed why...

Of course I can't remember why now...

We used some drama cards to act out the story...

We made some yarn bumble bees...

That turned out way cute...

Because there is a bee in the story...

Someone added some personal touches to their bees, like emoji faces instead of googly eyes...

That might have been mostly due to the fact that I couldn't find the googly eyes at the time.

Ferdinand likes to sit and smell the flowers, so we talked about what Alex likes to do...

We completed a lapbook...

Part of this lapbook had some vulture elements, so we learned quite a bit about vultures... (yes there is a vulture pictured on several pages in the book, but there are no vultures really in the movie)

It was a fun unit study. Here are some of the links for the resources we used:

Lapbook from Homeschool Share
Yarn wrapped Bees from Pinterest

I also have some ideas pinned on my FIAR pinterest board.

I am linking up to Homeschool Review Crew's Homeschool Blog Link Up.