Lesson 7: Putting it All Together on an Ocean Cruise: Build Your Own Study Now!
7-4 Weeding, Trimming, and Reaping the Harvest
DOWNLOADS:
Activity Packet
passport
Ship Plaque
Time to roll up your sleeves and work this weed patch of resource material into a good looking unit study. Sit back, take some time off to get perspective on what you've gathered. Let a few approaches bounce around your brain. Then sit down and scribble down or draw up your plan.
To this point I discussed a scientific approach. In case you prefer a lighter approach, let's take a look at a cruise ship study. For younger students, the "FUN!" connotations associated with a cruise ship will likely make the "WORK" aspects more palatable. You take your study down the path which best seems to fit your children's learning style. These sections are designed to give you an idea of how to think through your own tailored study. They are NOT meant as set-in-stone paths you must take. Free up that wonderful imagination of yours! You're kids'll love you for it!
Now, back to sea . . . . The cruise ship could be the living room or various rooms in your house with the ports of call being other rooms or the great outdoors. You could even schedule mini field trips and excursions making your car the ship. Just put your imagination to the task! I think I'll set up the basement as the cruise ship, sectioning off various areas to be parts of the ship, the rest of the house and yard the ports. A map of the "ship" along with the map of the cruise route would be a good project for middle students. If you haven't already done so, give your ship a name on a paper Ship Plaque to set the stage right at the gangplank. Oh, by the way, a good gangplank could be some rope strung between two pairs of chairs which each vacationer must walk through to pick up their "Activity Packet". This could be your outline or script of what you want to do in the study. Click on the Activity Packet for a sample you can use.
And how about a passport You may want to introduce younger students to the concept of passports. The passport could not only be a prop to strengthen the cruise simulation, but you can also use it to stamp a box representing each planned group of educational activities as completed. If you put a summary about the work achieved at each "port" inside the folded card, the passport can be an excellent record keeping tool for such studies. Your children will also be encouraged to complete work just to see another stamp put in their passports. . . And how ‘bout using some of those fancy stamps your kids love? Don't forget a passport photo of each passenger and ship staff. If you have enough participants, some may want to be cruise ship staff instead of passengers. Give your children the freedom to play the roles they want. You then fill in the open-but-necessary positions . . . even if it means YOU are the one and only passenger!
The cruise will have scheduled "activity times" defined in the packet at various locations on board. Someone could create large, computer-generated labels like: "The Promenade", "The Bow", "The Stern", "The Ball Room", "The Main Dining Room", "Pool side", etc. In each location, appropriate worksheets, reading material, or activities could be arranged attractively. ( I usually copy or rip out pages from my workbooks. Alternately, the book could be the activity director's guide. A list of numbers corresponding to possible pages could be displayed for creative ways students can select one or two.)
Good reads could be put in various ports and ship rooms or perhaps a "Book Store" or "Souvenir Shop". You could gather appropriate items around the house to sell as "merchandise" on board ship or at shops in the various ports. The children could go on a hunt through the house in advance (not knowing what they were gathering the items for). Then they would be able to "buy" the "souvenirs" of their choice with play money or their "checkbook". An older volunteer could create a library checkout system or a bookstore sales system to help develop practical skills. Both have been carryover activities to add a real-world simulation to many of our studies over the years.
Now you'll want to plan you ship's route. For our European cruise, the route will start in Liverpool, England (a historical seafaring town which we can delve into through a National Geographic magazine we have). Then we'll cruise down the coast of France, Spain, into the Mediterranean stopping at European and African ports. As we stop in ports of call for various countries along the route, we'll select activities and reads which are already set in that location and hopefully have some tie-in to the location (like a National Geographic article on Calais when we reach that port). As we complete the required number of activities at the location (say two of six possible worksheets or one book or chapter from a selection), we stamp the passport or check off the Activity Planner.
For meals onboard and in port, consider a new meal matching the cuisine of the country you're in. Your children are more receptive to trying new foods under the proper setting.
When the last port is reached and the ship sails into home port you may want to have a bucket of confetti ready to dump on your passengers as they disembark the ship walking down the old gangplank. A fun touch which your older students may enjoy setting up to torment the younger!
Once the basic cruise framework is set up, I guarantee no one will want to dismantle it after just one cruise. With a whole world to explore, there are many more possible cruises to take.
Bon Voyage!
Some Final Thoughts
- Be flexible. You cannot foresee every contingency, so be open to changes in your plans.
- Let your students in on the planning. They'll get so much more out of the study.
- This is a great activity for a crowd. Consider inviting grandparents, neighbors, and other home ed families along for the fun either the whole cruise or a port or two. Your older children may even be willing to stage a cruise for a youth group in your community.
- Be part of the fun. You've done your research, made your plans, now sit back and enjoy the fruits of your labor . . . and your children, too.
