This year for history, we're just doing a bunch of units of early history. We recently wrapped up a couple of weeks on the stone age (mostly because I found a couple of books I knew my kiddo would like). Here's what we did.
Books and Worksheets:
Review:
The components of this game are wonderful! The first time I played, we spent a long time oo-ing and ah-ing over the cool looking beetles (a sentence I never thought I would write). The tiles are thick and sturdy, as is the central playing board. I also think it is my favorite die of any of my games. The only thing missing was a player sheet. The game isn’t overly complicated, but a score sheet that breaks the score down by color would have been helpful. We just did it ourselves on paper.
Gameplay is simple and can be explained in just a few minutes. The game itself moves quickly, as well, making it easy to play multiple games in a row or include it with others on game night. Nothing about the mechanics is groundbreaking, but I feel like it is a well designed, enjoyable game that I could play with a wide variety of people. The whole thing is beautifully made and its simplicity will allow it to be played easily and often. It's a nice one to have in the collection.
Honk!
Fashion Police
I will say, this game definitely plays differently than anything else in our collection! The templates are sturdy, as are the pattern cards. I like that the pattern cards also serve as the theme cards. The various edges around them provide additional options for designing your outfits. I feel like this game, like many party games, is one where no one really cares about the points, you just laugh and have fun while you play.
While the box says ages 6+, I don’t really see us playing with our 6 year old at all. While he could create outfits, a lot of the themes are just too nuanced or grown up to understand. Teens to adults would work better. Also, even though it says you can play with 2, I think you need at least 4 for it to work well. I see Fashion Police being a good lighthearted game for when we have gatherings with “non-gamers” since it is easy to understand and play. I don’t see myself selecting it for just my husband, teen and I to play, though.
This year for homeschool we are doing units for science rather than a purchased curriculum. I looked at the Next Generation Science Standards and divided the standards into units that made sense together and then broke those even farther into units that made sense for my learner.
We started with a unit on sound, followed up by some time spent on music. The music is not at all part of the standards, but I knew he would enjoy it.
This unit really only covers the standard: 1-PS4-1 - Plan and conduct investigations to provide evidence that vibrating materials can make sound and that sound can make materials vibrate.
We started by watching this video and discussing:
