TOG Y2U3 Trying to decide if Unit Celebration is worth the time?

[daisychics]

I have an LG boy(7year old) that's not really into those things (or is it me?:tongue_smilie:). I just don't want to start planning for it, (the Unit Celebration) if it's not going to be all that. I was thinking that I could help him make a gigantic map of the 13 colonies on a display board, he could write important facts and present it to the Grandparents. Plus, he could show them some games the Colonial Kids used to play and make 2 toys.

We are planning on going to Colonial Williamsburg after the SWB's Celebration in Williamsburg in May too.

Oh and we have some Papercrafts that we will do and the Lapbook. Will that be enough? Sounds like alot when I type it all up. :tongue_smilie:

What did you do? Thanks
:bigear:

[Zee]

I have an only child, too. Ds is 11 and we do not do unit celebrations. We do "projects," like the types you describe and if possible, I look for ways that he can display them. We have an event in our area where kids can present science projects and history displays. This year, I am planning on ds doing a display board with a written research paper based on our current unit. We did a salt map and a mosaic that will be displayed with those things. I think the unit celebration is a lot of work just to show the grandparents, but it depends on you and what your folks are like. We'd rather take grandma to see the event I described or take some things to her house and show her on a project-by-project basis. That's just what works here. So in essence, we are doing things that would be displayed at a unit celebration, but not having a big presentation for it like TOG describes. I think what you have planned is great. It sounds like plenty and if you present it to the grandparents, I think you could call it a unit celebration. HTH.

P.S. My son does want to have a Roman feast at the end of this unit, but again, it is seperate from the other things and will likely be dh, ds, and myself. :)

[Rebecca in VA]

I did unit celebrations when my daughter was in third grade and going through TOG Year 4.

For her first celebration she wrote an original radio play and tape-recorded it. She made an old-fashioned "radio" out of a box and put the tape player underneath it so that it seemed as though the sound were coming from the radio. She wore period clothing (a flapper dress). She displayed all the books and DVDs we had used during the entire unit on a table, and she "presented" the material to us (all together, not each item individually), telling which item had been her favorite. She had studied up and was ready to answer questions and discuss the material from that unit with us.

The second celebration happened after our WWII study. She played the song "Exodus" for us on the piano. Again, she made a presentation to the audience of unit's materials (we owned a great many resources, and we also went back to the library and re-checked out everything we had used from there). She displayed photos we had taken at the WWII Memorial and the FDR Memorial in Washington. She was put through a question-and-answer test by the audience (consisting of two families). She wore an American Girl "Molly" girl-sized dress which I'd found on Ebay.

The third unit was on the Korean War and the culture and happenings of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. She tie-dyed a tee shirt and dressed like a hippie (complete with a feather in her headband). She played a rock song on the drums and discussed whether there was any evidence that Elvis might have been a Christian or not (after all, he sang gospel songs in a heartfelt way). There was another resource display and Q&A period.

For the last unit celebration, she cut out fashion paper dolls of Princess Diana and mounted them on poster board. We had music from the Go-Go's playing in the background as she talked about current events, including the WTC attacks.

So that's what my third-grader did. It was a lot of fun! Last year when I taught TOG Year 1 to a group, we did several fun events, including a Feast of Tabernacles celebration in a booth and some plays, but they weren't as memorable as real unit celebrations.

[daisychics]

I did unit celebrations when my daughter was in third grade and going through TOG Year 4.

Wow your unit celebrations sounds so COOL! Love. it.