Olympics and Food around the World

For those of you studying the Olympics, here is a link to a Time magazine photo gallery called "What the World Eats: What's on family dinner tables in fifteen different homes around the globe?"

http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1626519,00.html

It is fascinating to see the variety of foods and people, and of course, you have to go look up where each of these countries are located. It can also raise many questions, like how many of these families have gardens and how does their weekly food cost compare with ours? The Olympics provide such great learning opportunities in so many areas of life.

Blessings,
Amanda B.
www.unitstudy.com

Don't miss the contest!

Hello!

I don't want you to miss the new TOS contest  - the two prizes are Sony E-Book Readers! The Old Schoolhouse has just opened their E-Book Express section, full of all kinds of books and curriculum from publishers large and small, and they are offering two Sony Readers as contest prizes.As much as I love paper books, e-books are rapidly moving closer on my list of favorites. They are easy to take along on our adventures and I do like the "have it now" quality - no waiting for a shipment to arrive. Here's the link to learn more:

http://www.thehomeschoolmagazine.com/TOSebookexpress.html

Blessings,
Amanda B.
www.unitstudy.com

Olympic globes and bowling!

For those of you with younger students - keep an eye out for inexpensive world globes at garage sales and thrift shops this week and through the weekend. I learned to do this when we first began studying the Olympics - most of ours were purchased for under $1 each. I made sure that we had many globes, so that each child had one of their own to find the country that was competing or being studied, and could see where it was relative to our town. Visual learning is a favorite tool of mine!

However, I learned a powerful lesson about kids and geography and their creativity when I discovered that the children had learned to carefully take each globe out of their stands and use them as bowling balls in the long hall with a set of plastic bowling pins. Imagine - "I got that pin with Australia" or "there goes Africa!" :-) I have learned so much while homeschooling!

Blessings,
Amanda B.
www.unitstudy.com

Summer Olympics are just around the corner...

We are now only 28 days from the opening ceremonies of the Summer Olympics 2008! Kick off your new school year with an amazing adventure with the brand new four-week Summer Olympics Unit Study:

Summer Olympics 2008 Unit Study

This new unit study title has several new features - it includes the Olympic-themed notebooking pages and Word Search puzzles - for a total of 194 pages!

Blessings,
Amanda B.
www.unitstudy.com