A Little Fun with March Madness Unit Study and Star Wars

We are using the enthusiasm of NCAA tournament as a unit study to explore healthy debate habits, math concepts (decimals, probability, statistics, percentages, mean, median, mode and averages, writing algebraic expressions) and geography(history, geography and culture of a state, city or region).   Using inspiration and concepts from the following resources:

Selena @ Look We Are Learning has nice worksheets for young children.
Byrdseed : Academic March Madness
The Compass: March Madness Lesson Plans

Some families are even using brackets to learn the Presidents. (Washington vs Jackson).

While searching for ways to make this interesting and fun I have found that Lucasfilm released a Stars Star Wars March Madness bracket pitting the Light Side of the Force against the Dark Side. The March Madness competition being played out in the bracket will be held online, where fans can vote on who should win each day’s face-off. I know most of us have had our fill of Star Wars, but this is proving to be an interesting and engaging discussion. The whole mythology of Star Wars lends itself to great character character analysis.  Plus it is just fun. 
 analysis. Plus it is just fun. ;-)

Blessings,

The Learning Power of Lego

Via: Online College Advice

Lego Logistics: Storage and Building Project

Okay so the Lego collection had gotten a little out of hand in our house. Each time Ironhide wanted to play or build he had to spread tons of Lego into the middle of the floor. We had them in a 4 drawer container but they were so jumbled it took hours to find parts. It was not a creative environment.

Then one bright November morning I saw this lovely low cost Lego organizing system in Family Fun Magazine.

This design could utilize the drawers we already owned and give Ironhide a proper building space for all his creations. I wanted to do this project that very weekend but the entire family came down with strep so it had to be postponed until after Thanksgiving.

When December I arrived I knew the holidays would bring more Lego sets so the entire family sat down for what we thought would be an hour of Lego sorting. We were so very wrong. This pile looks manageable in the photo but in real life this was a big job.

It took two adults sorting and one kid kinda sorting kinda building 4 HOURS to turn that pile into these six neat drawers. I have to admit it has been a long time since we sat down as a family without the TV on and just talking working on a project together. I loved every minute of it.

(Hubby's enthusiasm turned to dogged determination by the 2 hour mark and by hour 3 he was promising never to purchase another Lego. He was kidding.)

Christmas was mere days away so I only had a $25 budget for this entire project. So the next day I made my supply list and headed for the stores.

Project Materials	Qty Needed	Price Per	Total Cost	Actual Cost
Neon Green Duck Tape	3	$6.00	$18.00	$6.00
Lego 15 X 15 base plates	2	$15.00	$30.00	$0.00	We owned multiple green base plates with fit.
Sterilite 4 Drawer Storage Cart	3	$25.00	$75.00	$0.00	We already had them.
Industrial Strength Velcro	3	$4.00	$12.00	$4.00	Coupons!
Plastic Drawer Dividers	8	$5.00	$40.00	$0.00	I made my own with leftover presentation board and Duck tape.
2” Thick Presentation Boards	2	$7.00	$14.00	$7.00	(The original designed called for wooden board but we thought thick sterofoam was a better solution saving time and money. If it didn't work we could always go back later and get a board.)
Total			$189.00	$17.00

But again illness sideline my team and we put the project on hold until after the Christmas.

We were blessed with lots of new Legos that needed a home so we got right to work to keep the sorted Legos in their new proper homes. In order to get this into his room we did a complete room re-organization. We moved shelves, rebuilt beds and brought in new bedding. Once Ironhide saw the work space he just help to build there was no more design time he had to build. He said “It's like a home make over show!”

We still have to label the drawers (he didn't like the Duck tape plan) but we have one happy kid. He has been at this station everyday since it was built. He even completed a set that had missing pieces because now all he had to do is look in the color drawer.

His birthday is coming soon so we may end up expanding the work surface.

This was a blast to do and gives him a creative space.

Lego Quest- 2 Brick Challenge

We completed our first Lego Quest Challenge. It was fun for the whole family.

Lego Fun: Lego Quest

Can not wait until September and the fun starts!

Week in Review: Wee Gillis, Migraines and Flag of Scotland Built From Legos

Pardon the corporate jargon but last week’s key learning was “learning happens all the time”. Praise God for the opportunity to homeschool first and for most. Last week was a struggle for both mom and student with a healthy dash of only child homeschooling guilt on my part. But let us start at the beginning….

We started the week learning about earth’s core in Co-Op. TS came home with a model of the earth made of clay and our job was to cut into the layers and discuss it as a family. It was so AWESOME!

However by midnight I felt like my planet was cracking in half. I had a blinding migraine headache. It was not your typical sinus relative migraine this happened after I took new allergy meds. First I had the chills, and then the migraine and the pièce de résistance I broke out in bumps and hives all over. After talking to the allergist apparently I had an allergic reaction to the allergy meds. So much for Mom being proactive and preventing down town.

The most I could handle was Read-A-Loud of Bring Me Some Apples and I'll Make You a Pie: A Story About Edna Lewis. We then drew “What-Ifs” of the story.
The week got better as we had a wonderful time on a nature walk and started Wee Gillis. In order to get fine motor skills into this unit I incorporated Legos. I built the flag of Scotland out of Legos, took a picture of it and challenged TS to rebuild it from the picture.
He had a BLAST! Now he wants to do all the flags of the world. Hmmmmmmmm let me work on that.

For Math we did more Horizons but also worked more on graphing. Then we read Stuart J. Murphy’s Lemonade for Sale introducing bar graphs. We took a Slinky and graphed how many stairs we could get it to go down. (I had so much fun with this….)

Additionally we:
• Daily Journal
• Handwriting Without Tears
• Redefined Chore Expectation Chart
• Workbook Reading Comprehension

I am now designing basic Capitalization Rules Chart Jedi style.

Blessings!

Lego Education Rocks!

The good people in the Education Division of Lego forwarded me my FREE Lego Education kit from the spring. We moved and it didn't get forwarded via the regular mail. After clearing my email box I realized "Hey, where are my free Legos?" So I sent a quick email and three days later free Legos.

We were to late for the contest but had a good time building some of the challenges.

Thanks Lego you live up to your name.

Lego Defined: The name 'LEGO' is an abbreviation of the two Danish words "leg godt", meaning "play well".

Wrapping up summer with a Lego-fest

We Love Legos!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

During our exploration of our new environment we discovered the Lego store. Joy pure and utter joy! Dad and son were beside themselves. As were most of the kids in the store. This was a great find. As most of you know TS has been a Lego kiddo for about two years now. He takes the kits assembles them and then pulls them apart to make his own wonderfully inspired designs. So imagine his extreme pleasure to find this wall of spare parts.

(This photo is especially for my THL sister KK !)

"Mom I can create anything!!!"

Fine Motor Work Day 20 - Lego Racer and Stomach Virus

TS awoke last week with a pretty serious tummy virus which left him completely out of it for about 24 hours. Thanks to the kindness of friends we got supplies delivered to the front door. Love Homeschool Moms!

It was a long day filled with comforting, cleaning, comforting and more cleaning.

Exactly 24 hours later I became the next victim. You can't help but hold and kiss your child when they are sick but it will come back on you. TS was feeling better by then and was just weak but ready to get back to doing something. Thank goodness I prepared for Sick/Allergy Days and bought Legos when they were on sale.

TS assembled Lego Racer for six hours! He followed the directions, combined them, invented his own and built a city. I was so tired and weak and guilt ridden (I am praying to get over that.) but proud to see him work this much with his hands.

Fine Motor Skills Day 17 -Legos

We love Legos. In the last two weeks we have built cities, hybrid cars that run on brussel sprouts and the space ship from Disney's Space Buddies.