Having two children with four years and various abilities between them, makes homeschooling a fantastic journey for me. Despite being four years, almost to the day, apart, my children have some similar interests; not identical, but definitely similar. One of their common interests is King Arthur. My daughter loves the thought of chivalrous knights and fair maidens riding horses. My son longs to be a knight on horse fighting a dragon. See what I mean? Similar, not identical.
This makes Social Studies pretty fun for us. This year my daughter is spending her school year learning about various countries around the world. My son is spending his year learning about the various warrior culture associated with the part of the world she studies. So far we studied Mongolia and Genghis Khan; Japan and ninjas/samurai; Scandinavian countries and vikings. Our next trip will be to the British Isles in order to study knights and castles of the Middle Ages.
As a setup project for the unit study, my kids have been given jobs as travel agents. My daughter is in charge of designing a tri-fold brochure all about England (then she'll do Ireland and Scotland). My son will be responsible for creating a post card for each country, as well as "trading cards" of famous people, indigenous animals and the flag of each country.
Once we get through the current day in these places, we will travel back in time to see what they were like during the Middle Ages. I am going to be putting together the nuts and bolts of the unit each afternoon while they are off playing. I do know that I am going to be looking to find a way to make the Unit Study fun and engaging for each of them at their own level. I'm thinking that my son will complete his study by making a lapbook and my daughter by notebooking her way through. I will post updates and pictures as we go along!