Khaju Bridge - Unit Study

During our bridge study, we came across Khaju Bridge which is the oldest bridge in Iran. The boys were so fascinated by it that we decided to turn it into a unit study. 

The boys and I watched videos and read some articles online about this bridge. Some of its amazing features include:

1. Ceramic Tiles

2. A hidden candle image

3. A dam

4. 23 Arches

5. Stone steps for sitting and watching the beautiful views

6. Tea shop

7. A special pavilion that was used by the Shah of Iran

8. Two stone lions

The boys put together a research poster all about what they learned. 

Arches are in a lot of Islamic designs, so the boys and I learned about them and made our own booklet. 

Each arch is decorated with beautiful ceramic tiles. The boys and I made

geometric designs and learned all about this art form. 

Khaju Bridge is an arch bridge. We learned all about arch bridges and made one out of Popsicle sticks. 

You can grab this fun unit study from my TPT store. You can use this during a country study of Iran or a STEM activity about bridges. Click on the image below to grab this unit study. 

Electricity Unit Study

We recently did an electricity unit study with our novel study "The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind."  During this unit study, we covered circuits, static electricity, and wind turbines. 

Books We Read From:

1. The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind

2. Magic School Bus and the Electric Field Trip

3. Electric Wizard

4. Switch on Switch off

We used this Circuit kit for building and learning all about how they work. 

We also learned about simple circuits 

We learned about different conductors. Here we used a lead pencil to create a circuit. 

We made a lemon clock. 

Along with the experiment kits and books we read, my son put together a lapbook. 

You can grab this lapbook from Undercover Classroom TPT store. 

This lapbook kit contains the following interactive parts:

1. Lapbook cover

2. Electricity vocabulary pocket and cards (battery, circuit, closed circuit, conductor, filament, insulator, open circuit, parallel circuit, series circuit, short circuit, switch, volt)

3. Pioneers of electricity flap book (Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Morse, Michael Faraday, Joseph Henry, Thomas Edison)

4. Simple circuit diagram (energy source, electrical path, output device)

5. Types of circuits layered book (series and parallel)

6. Circuit tool kit pocket (batteries and lightbulbs) *

7. Parts of a lightbulb diagram

8. Conductors and insulators interlock

9. Circuit symbols chart

10. Troubleshooting fan book

Cave Zones

Hi guys, today I wanted to share with you more activities we did during our cave unit study. We learned all about cave zones and creatures that live in caves. Here are some of the activities we did. 

We learned about the different zones in a cave and made this tear art showing the light transition in each part of the cave. 

Cave Zones painting in his notebook

We also learned about the different creatures that live in caves. The cave visitors, the cove lovers, and the cave dwellers. 

We also made cave zones in a cup similar to the layers of the ocean. We used a flashlight to see how much light can pass through each cup. 

You can find all these activities and printables in my tpt store. Click on the image below to get grab these activities. 

Cave in a Cup Demonstration

Hi guys, today I wanted to share with you a fun simple demonstration about how caves are formed. 

Caves are typically formed by water. When it rains, the water oozes into cracks found in softer types of rock (limestone). As time goes by, the liquid slowly dissolves the nearby rock and wears it away. This causes the cracks to gradually widen in caverns. As the water level drops, caves and passages that we can explore are left.  

Material

1. Clear container or cup

2. Sugar cubes

3. playdough

4. dropper

5. toothpick

Instructions

Form a wall of sugar cubes on the side of your container. Roll out the playdough and cover the sugar cubes. Seal the sides by squishing the playdough on the edges. Make holes on the top of the playdough using your toothpick. Drop some water on the playdough and observe what happens. If the water is not getting in make your holes bigger. The holes represent the cracks in the rocks. 

This demonstration will show your child how a cave is formed. As the water seeps into the holes and reaches the sugar cubes, the sugar cubes start to dissolve. This is similar to what happens in a cave. As water gets into the cracks it slowly erodes the soft limestone rock. In a cave this takes a long time to happen. Once the water drains away you have an empty space and a cave has been formed. You can make a hole at the bottom of your cup and do it over a sink or bowl. Once the water drains away you will be left with your cave in a cup. 

Sedimentary Rocks

Hi guys, I wanted to share with you a fun hands on activity we did when we learned all about sedimentary rocks, how they form, and how the sediment settles in water. 

We started out by making sediment layers in a jar. We collected rocks, sand, and dirt from the backyard. We add all the sediment to our jar and topped it off with water. We shook the jar and left it over night. We observed how the different sediment settled in the water. The larger pieces like the rock and sand settled first. The mud and silt was the next to settle and all the organic material like the dead leaves stayed at the top. 

We also built the layers out of Lego to add more hands on projects to our science time. We looked at our rock collection and observed all sedimentary rocks under the microscope. We were able to see the different layers and pieces that cemented together. 

My son put all the information he learned about in our scrapbook journal. 

I hope you enjoyed all the hands on activities we did. 

Frog Unit Study

Hi guys, today I wanted to share with you our frog unit study. After completing the story of Musa the the older boys had a lot of questions about frogs so I put together a unit study. Here are some of the activities we did.

Notebooking

Compare and contrast frogs and toads. We used the book Frogs by Gail Gibbons and Nature Anatomy to help with our comparison. This was completed by my six year old. I wrote on the white board as he told me the difference and the similarities and he chose to write one of each.

The older boys also did a compare and contrast Reptiles vs. Amphibians. They also wrote a compare and contrast essay using their notes.

Frog Respiratory System

We also completed a narration page on Frog Anatomy, Life Cycle, and the Frogs Organs. 

Crafts

This craft was for my little ones (six and four). We made a frog fly catcher.

After learning about Pond habitat my son painted a pond using the book Under and Over the Pond as inspiration.

Language Arts

We also tied our language arts to this unit study. My four year old worked on the letter F and the letter P. My six year old used spelling words pulled from the book The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher. We loosely followed a the curriculum A Year of Tales.

We also did an alphabetical order activity using frog related words. 

Life Cycle

Along with all the activities we did my older boys did a frog dissection. They were grossed out and loved it all at the same time. We purchased our kit from Homeschool Science.

I'll spare you the rest of the images.

Arabic

The older boys translated and did copy work from a short reader Naseem and a frog. The younger ones learned the vocabulary word for frog and fly.

Islamic Studies

For Islamic studies the boys and learned three names of Allah- Al Khalaq, Al Bari, and Al Muswir. We watched a beautiful lecture from Shaikh Yasir Qaidh.

That's the end of our unit. It was a lot of fun and super informative.

Water Filtration Project

Hi guys! I hope you had a fabulous week. I wanted to share with you a fun water filtration project the kids and I did. This activity ties into our science and geography units. We followed the instructions in Apologia Exploring Creation with Physics and Chemistry. The boys loved ever minute of this project.

 

We started by going for a nature walk and collecting water from 

our local river. 

Here's the water we collected. 

When we got home we set up our filtration system. I won't go 

into details because it's part of the lesson in the book. 

The boys started pouring the dirty water through the filtration slowly. 

our container was really large so it's hard to see the water

but it was clean. Of course not clean enough to drink because it 

didn't go through the treatment process. 

This was an amazing lesson and the boys got to see first hand how to filter water. I hope you enjoyed seeing this project.

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