Funtastic Unit Studies { Review }

I love unit studies and lapbooks, they have always been my favorite way to teach while my children where small. I'm going to introduce you to a new resource to put in that new school year pile!

Funtastic Unit Studies sent me Science Unit Studies for Homeschoolers & Teachers for ages 4 - 13 by Susan Kilbride to review with my kiddos. This book retails for $16.95. 

This wonderful book was actually written by a homeschool momma to pass along to other homeschool moms that need some help and ideas for some fun unit studies.

There are 20 chapters which means there are lots of science fun inside! The first 10 chapters are geared for the younger children between ages 4 -7 and the last 10 chapters for the older kiddos 8-13. Let me point out though that I never look at age recommendations in science or history because as long as it is fun I want my kids to learn it and enjoy it. Each of these lessons can be altered for the older or younger kids in your life.

It is recommended that you begin in chapter 1 and continue in order because each lesson builds upon itself. I'm just going to keep it 100% real, because this was a review and I needed to see how the book worked in a shorter amount of time I did not go in order. 

At the beginning of each chapter there is a materials needed list! For our units each item was very easy to get our hands on. Some items like a baby food jar we didn't have because we no longer have babies in our home but we easily substituted a small mason jar for it.

Each study is estimated to take about 2 weeks to study.

The first unit we completed was Chapter 1: Our Senses. This unit is for ages 4-7, my children who helped me with this unit study are 10 and 12. 

The lessons are divided up into parts.You complete 1 part each day however because my kiddos are older and we just had the time we completed almost 3 parts in a day. 

The activities where very fun and had visual and hands on aspects in each part of the lesson which is my favorite way to teach! The kids really enjoyed the review of the senses fill in the blank story, it was a favorite in this lesson.

The next unit we completed was Chapter 11: Insects for ages 8-13.

My kids have studied about insects before and some of this was simply a fun review. This lesson broke down animal classification, definition of an insect, life cycles, parts of the body, communication and defenses.

The awesome part about the study of this unit was that we had caught a cricket in the basement and we needed one for the unit. The next awesome part about it being spring is that we had seen several different insects that had molted out of the exoskeleton and had been looking at some for several weeks around the house. 

We did alter a few of the activities because of the awesome findings that we had around our home but over all we stuck to what the book had for us. 

Each of the two unit we completed took us a week to finish. We had a lot of fun and loved learning with this book.

Personally, for me as the homeschool momma/teacher I loved how everything is organized for me. All the lessons have a material list to begin with. Then each part is scripted for you and the activity is clearly outlined on what to do. This is very easy to follow!

Here are some samples so you can see if you would love this book as much as my family did;

Here's a link to a page  that has two free pdf units from the book:
http://funtasticunitstudies.com/science-unit-studies-book/

And here's a link that has some other, unrelated, freebies:
http://funtasticunitstudies.com/lessons-and-activities/