When I Grow Up....

The next piece of curriculum I am going to review is the "When I Grow Up I want to be a firefighter". My kids loved this unit study! It is geared for 4-10 year olds and is a great value at $8.95 for the ebook. You can purchase it and download it from http://www.thehomeschoolmagazine.com/ I love using ebooks because I don't have to wait for them to be delivered. If there is a topic my kids are interested in I can find something on it and download it right then--before they move on to the next interest. Thus, I am maximizing learning time by having them study stuff they are interested in. This ebook could not have come at a better time since my 4 year old is at the "I wanna be a fireman" stage--I think all little boys go through that stage!

I had my oldest read a good bit of the material to the younger two--and they love this!

It was easily read right from my laptop to save on paper and ink! It took about 4 days to get through all the reading. The younger ones lost interest with the reading fairly quickly, but as long as we did it in short spurts they really enjoyed learning about all the aspects of being a firefighter. There was so much more than just reading material in this ebook. All subjects from graphing for math to creative writing and even quizzes to test their understanding. Of course I didn't require the two year old do any of this. She did enjoy the coloring pages while the boys were working on their assignments. The oldest, Paul, had several of the activities in his workboxes each day and I worked through the activities orally with Zach (our 4 year old). Both ways worked very well, and both boys learned alot. I loved the fact that Molly also felt included and was on the same topic as the boys. After we finished most of the unit we did some of the suggested games, and that was definitely a hit! We did an obstacle course in the basement where they had to climb over and under obstacles to save the baby giraffe from the fire.

We also got to show how tough and brave we were by putting out the fire, which meant popping the balloons by sitting on them. In reality, I guess Paul was the only one tough enough to extinnguish the fire. Zach is terrified of noises so he ran upstairs screaming when I even mentioned popping the balloons, and Molly just stood and watched.

This unit was so much fun. The kids learned about so many aspects of firefighters and had fun too. I love anything that all three of my kids can do together and all learn at their own pace, and this definitely fits the bill!