Intro to our Renaissance Unit Study

Time to start another school year! We took a long 3.5 week break after our Ancient Maya and Rainforest Unit Studies. This year I want to try to run our year in unit studies. I only want to plan for 5-7 weeks at a time, then take a week or two off to regroup and plan the next unit. I want most things planned before we start so that my evenings aren’t spent coming up with ideas for the next day or week. This method worked SO well with the Maya and the Rainforest – hoping to replicate that success while learning about the Renaissance.

The overall plan will be as follows: My 10 year old will use the 5th Grade Amplify Renaissance Unit for her ELA portion. It’s all content based so she’ll read grade level text and write about the Renaissance, with a lot of focus on the artists, which is right up her street. My 7 year old will continue with the Amplify 2nd grade skills unit, finishing it by the end of this unit study. She’ll probably hear the Amplify Renaissance reader read aloud, so she’ll get some of that background knowledge just by being around. Both girls will have their own Renaissance themed novel to read and respond to.

Our history and science work is going to focus on the Renaissance scientists. We’ll be doing lots of experiments, hearing scientist biographies, and learning why these ideas changed the world. I’ll be incorporating quick-writes and The Writing Revolution style sentence and summary activities so this will serve as the writing portion for my little one, and extra practice for my big girl.

With our friends we’ll be doing more Renaissance science experiments, geometry and art inspired by Renaissance artists, and at least a field trip to the Renaissance Fair. Maybe more!

Math-wise, my big girl is trying out a couple of different pre-algebra textbooks. OpenStax is an open source college level Pre-Algebra course. It’s easy to read, and there are LOTS of examples. However, it’s not very deep thinking. The questions are all pretty easy. She’s going to pair that with the AoPS Pre-Algebra book. Super wordy, really in depth and mathy, not too many problems but so good for seeing the deeper workings and patterns in math. We’re in no rush. She likes the OpenStax for flying through (about a quarter) of the problems in each section. I want her to have that AopS experience. If it takes us 18 months to get through both books…no big deal. My little one will continue with Montessori math work.

So that’s the plan. Check back for all our resources and a wrap-up!