I totally get what you're saying but I've found great books lists through googling unit studies which saves me time. I then look them up at AMazon to get a rating, then I check to see if our library has it. It does take leg work.

Here's a link to a thread of dinosaur unit studies. http://afterschoolers.yuku.com/topic/1953?page=2

You can get LEGO MINDSTORMS at Toys R Us. You can buy it online. Look for sales or coupons. Sometimes FAO Schwarz has a good sale on them. We own two kits. One time Target (maybe Christmas) had some in the store. I did buy my online from Target and there was a coupon and I got free shipping so check that first.

Your first resource for robotics is http://www.thenxtstep.blogspot.com/. There is a forum where you can post questions and folk will answer. I'm LEGOmom at that site. There is a fun Mars Mission challenge starting now that I think we will do this summer. It's similar to First LEGO League but you can do it alone rather than having a team and you do it all at home. I find this is great for our asynchronous kids. I was shocked that DS then 7yrs old took to programming like a duck to water. His science fair project was to ask the question "Does hot water cool down at the same rate that cold water warms up to room temperature." he used LEGO temp sensors attached to the LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT brick. He wrote the program to gather the data, append it to a file, and download it to the computer. DH ten helped him to transfer it to Excel for graphing. DS then interpreted the graph on his own. My FIL said, given it was LEGO products, the temp curves were perfect (it never reaches room temp - asymptote). I was further shocked when my 5yr old started writing his own programs and began debugging them as well. It's a great tool for logical thinking. I own ALL of the LEGO NXT books so if you have your eye on one, I can give you thoughts on it.

I'm not a crafty person hence we never do crafts. I figure that's what I sent them to preK for lol. Things like mummifying a chicken is just VERY COOL!!! those are my types of go-alongs lol.

I also tie in geography whenever possible.

I think this summer we'll do an Olympics unit, tie it in w/ Ancient Greece, do math to chart the medals the countries get and scoring etc.

When we did early peoples, the boys enjoyed the arch dig I setup in the sandbox. That involved marking off quadrants, drawing them on paper, numbering them, labeling items, discussing what they might have been used for, etc.

Most of my unit studies were when my boys were younger than yours is now.

I have a good dino book. I'll look it up. it shows a dino graveyard (actually I think that's the name) and it asks you to come up w/ hypotheses explaining the graveyard. It then goes through and systematically disabuses each one based on the available evidence.

Is this the MG kid?

Cool stuff! Thanks so much, Dazey! I have to go look up all the stuff you suggested.

I owe you one!

Here is a thread on Creation and Myth http://afterschoolers.yuku.com/topic/2488

I have the Hamilton book as well as the one by Lavitt. THe Lavitt book can be hard to find but is organized by country so it's easy to coordinate w/ country study. I have a couple others. One is the most important or central stories from the 7? major religions.

Yep that's the MG kid. He started programming at 6.5yrs old I think. He within a week, surpassed me and was helping me with my programs.

Dazey,

What's the Mars Mission Challenge?

The talk about Lego's reminded me of a summer class Miami University(Ohio) has for kids. You sign up and get the Lego's sent to your home, you log onto the computer and do the class at home. The recommended age is 8 and up, but I didn't see that as mandatory. Here's a link, Miami University

Since it's done at home it may be open to anyone in cyberworld. Other universities may offer similar things.

Very cool OHG!! Has your GS ever participated in one of these classes??

Not yet. The morning classes don't work well with my work schedule but this Lego class at home might work. Summers are really busy here, though. GS has been at camp since Sunday, he's got 4H & some Jr cattle shows to prepare for.

wow - reading about all these fun units and lego classes makes me want to start homeschooling now!