Unit Study Week-Detectives and Mysteries

The case files are ready.

The credentials are ready to be filled in.

The kids and I have been looking forward to this week. We're going to take time to follow and interest and see where it takes us. 


The goals:
-To learn about and do something fun 
-To follow an interest that we all share


To prepare, the kids spent the last school day last week covering math, grammar, piano practice, Latin, and Spanish. These are subjects that won't get much coverage with the detective unit.


Subjects that will get a lot of coverage this week are Reading, Writing, Vocabulary, History, Science, Logic, and PE.


I did some looking for resources online and have four major sources:
Squidoo
Homeschool Share
Scholastic (and search detective)
FBI (fun and games section)


I added other activity ideas as the inspiration hit.


I've inter-library loaned a couple of non-fiction books about detectives and science projects related to detective work.


I've also collected our dozens of detective books and inter-library loaned some more. These include Cam Jansen, Jigsaw Jones, Encyclopedia Brown, Concord Cunningham Scripture Sleuth, High Rise Private Eyes.


I'll report back on the activities we use.


Activity #1 For Fun: Watch G-Force, Disney's (PG) movie in which an elite team of special agent guinea pigs has to save the world. The kids really enjoyed the movie despite a few scary parts and typical PG-ish humor. It was a good way to get a "spies in action" feel. We also talked a little about detective-themed words like what a "mole" is (not the mammal).