In putting together our various ocean themed units, I decided to break them up into smaller blocks as we worked through these topics over the years. You can explore the units on turtles, whales, and our general ocean block.

Our blocks are made up of lessons and activities. Sometimes lessons are reading from ‘living books’ or presenting an oral lesson I have prepared or working through an illustration for the main lesson book.

Lesson activities and hands-on projects are some of the best ways to learn and remember information and skills. They are memorable and meaningful.

When putting together a block, I usually source material from our personal library, or I shop for new books and projects. A couple book hauls are included here which include some new books we are using for this block. Additionally, I share the process of how I put together our Ocean unit and what types of books I look for and lessons I intend to do.

Sometimes our blocks have one chalk drawing, sometimes more. In this case, we have three chalk drawings, but unlike other drawings, these don’t have a video tutorial. Instead, I share the process and the illustrations.

More than seeing the books I plan to use or the book hauls, the review videos are so important in seeing what worked and what didn’t work or what we didn’t get to and why. Here you see the resources we loved and why. Or, the resources we didn’t care for and why. Since we use a lot of books, I’m sure to share them in detail so you can choose the best resources for your lessons.

These are arguably the most beautiful books you've ever seen. The books by Katie Scott are magnificent! The vintage looking illustrations evoke a sense of being in a natural history museum. It's captivating and inspiring at the same time.

Why buy books when you can get them from the library? It's a question I get often, since I tend to buy our books for homeschool rather than check them out from the library. But it wasn't always like that. I used to check them out from the library in the past, too. Why the change? And is it right for you?

It's time to start a new unit and this time around I'm writing my own main lesson block for a study on the ocean. Ocean study is broad, so I'm focusing our work on local coastal plant and animal life, tide pool, tides, the Native tribes of the region, and the explorers who first discovered the Pacific coast. I've made this main lesson block both broad and specific, encompassing science, history, geometry and poetry.

It's finally here!! This curriculum is for sale and right now it's ON SALE!! Currently it's available as a digital download which is actually advantageous because I have filled this curriculum with dozens of links to books, resources, Pepper and Pine videos and much more. Check out the my website for more pictures and samples of the curriculum.

Welcome to our mini unit on Sea Turtles. This was truly a mini unit lasting less than a week and specifically only 2 days.

Welcome to our unit study on Whales! Or as we've learned, cetaceans. We are diving into this unit to study a select few marine mammals and to do so, we've sourced a variety of books that we are thrilled to share with you. We may not use all these books, in fact, for sure we won't be using some books in their entirety. Be sure to check back at the review video for a complete review of these books and resources.

Our Ocean Main Lesson Block begins with the exploration of the California coast and Sir Francis Drake.

A little detour on Sir Francis Drake’s journey takes us to the South Polar region for a lesson on Antarctica. This is a good time to do a mini unit on whales or penguins.

In our holistic approach to our Ocean Main Lesson Block, we included some geology lessons about the formation of California and plate tectonics.

Want to see what worked and what didn't for our Ocean Main lesson block? I'll share the resources we used, the projects we did and even show you the main lesson book my son completed.

This was the fastest unit we ever did and for that, there are a few things that worked vastly different from our other units. In this review, I talk about the various books and resources we used and how our projects and activities progressed.

Shorty units have their pros and cons. For one, we can get through a unit before anyone tires of it, but we rarely have enough time to dive deeply into a unit that's short. In this case, we did this unit in about three days.