It's that time of year. The winter doldrums have set in, curriculum seems stale, and learning has lost the excitement that started the year...yep, it's February. I've been in a funk for the past week when it comes to our schooling, taking care of the house, cooking, etc. So to shake off the February Funk, we are dropping our normal curriculum (which we love!), Heart of Dakota, and pirouetting into a fun unit study on Chipette's favorite thing...BALLET!
This Summary Saturday post is a little different since I'm going to be sharing my lesson plan for our 6-week Ballet Unit Study.
Here are the items I've already acquired:
This is one of our core books for our unit study. Luckily our library had this one!
Our ballet project pack that I purchased for only $7 that incorporates a study of ballet with the animated Barbie ballet movies: The Nutcracker, Swan Lake, and The Twelve Dancing Princesses. That's right, we're watching Barbie cartoons for school!!!
A FREE ballet lapbook/notebook that I found online to help create our awesome ballet notebook that we will be working on for the entire 6-weeks.
We will learn about Tchaikovsky and his music since our study will be focused on three of his ballets: The Nutcracker, Swan Lake, and The Sleeping Beauty. I already had the CD (yay me!), but the notebooking pages I found for FREE!
Here are my beginning lesson plans:
Ballet Unit Study
Topics Covered: History of ballet, ballet vocabulary and positions, clothing and shoes, Peter Tchaikovsky, Edgar Degas, Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, and The Nutcracker, biographical study of Anna Pavlova and Maria Tallchief
Academic Disciplines: history, geography, music, art, culture, and language arts
Main Books:
Additional Reading:
Media Resources:
Workbooks/Lapbooks:
- Tchaikovsky Notebooking Pages
- Free Ballet Lapbook
- NYC Ballet Alphabet Book
- NYC Ballet Coloring Book
- Ballet Study Guide
- In the Hands of a Child Favorite Animated Ballets Project Pack
Update: BALLET UNIT STUDY This link will take you to Dropbox where you can download my unit study plans. Enjoy!
One of my favorite benefits of homeschooling is the freedom to learn what we want, when we want in the treehouse,
Chelli
What a wonderful idea! I'm so proud of you for doing what you need to do (take a break and pursue child's interests) and I'm totally going to copy you! :) My four year old daughter would LOVE this and we're going to a ballet performance of Cinderella in just a couple weeks.
ReplyDeleteWe're starting on Monday and both of us are excited too do something different. I'll be posting my actual daily lesson plans so watch for it! I'm incorporating my 4 year old into the study as well.
DeleteThis is great! I'm sure your daughter will look back on studies like this fondly.
ReplyDeleteI hope she does! Putting this stuff together is A LOT more work than just following the Heart of Dakota manual :)
DeleteWonderful unit. Both my girls would love that!
ReplyDeletePopping in from Pre-K corner
Thanks for stopping by, Stefanie! We have greatly enjoyed this unit study. I hope your girls do as well!
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