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A night at the museum
- This topic has 28 replies, 9 voices, and was last updated 11 years, 10 months ago by
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OK, just wanted to bounce an idea of you guys – I’m hopeless when it comes to loving to use current media, but I’m also a CM loyalist, so trying to meld the two into a FUN co-op class for next semester. I’ve got 12 50 minute classes, I can pick the ages of my students and the idea I was thinking about doing was A Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian unit study – ok, I know unit studies persay aren’t CM, but let’s not debate true cm methods here – I want to use living books (primarily found via All Through the Ages) to teach about the myriad of historical characters, events and artwork in the movie. I’m even thinking of having them do a piece each week to add to a lapbook and then our final class can be A night at the Museum “costume” party – where they get to dress as their favorite character and bring a snack to share that ties in with the movie. What do you think? I’m thinking ages 6-10 – My oldest is 6, so I’m not as confident about the older ages – what do you think? Would your 6-10 year old enjoy it? Does that sound like a class you’d want to enrole your child in if it was offered at a coop in your area? I don’t want to spend a lot of time planning if it’s not going to be popular enough to hold the class so I really value your input!
Blessings,
Rebekah
I run a CM co-op & would love to have this taught! My 9 and 6 year olds would love it! In fact, I’d love it if you’d share your plans with me via PM and we might offer it in the future!
Blessings,
Christie
I help run a homeschool group with a co-op, as well, and I LOVE the idea. I absolutely love that movie and love history (not that I’m great at it, I just love it) so the fact that I have not come up with that idea myself is just sad:( Oh well, at least someone has.
I would even think about doing something similar next year (especially if you loaned out your ideas:) for a class my middle son’s age (he’ll be nine next year). I have to say, not being rude here, but some of the other history class ideas are just boring….. if you ask me, I think this would be so fun, something all the kids would want to do.
Great idea, I love it:) Please pm me your ideas/plan, as well, if you don’t mind:)
Homeschool Curriculum for life had a unit study on this to download.
My 2 Dcs love both these movies and I would be tempted to do a study on these movies.
Just to add I downloaded the study, it is notebooking pages with some questions to research and ideas for having a party and dressing up as a character. I would be happy to email it to anyone, just PM me with your email address.
I think this is a great idea-for older kids!
However, for my family… the ages you listed are young. My DD11 and DS 10, just now saw that movie. There is no way my kids at age under 10 would see that movie. It would frighten my DD7. I know every family is different, but that is how it is for us. You might find that way with other families in your co-op, too. Maybe you can ask those that are participating in your co-op what ages are appropriate for them?
I will probably use your idea for my family (the older ones anyway 🙂 )
The reason I selected the younger age is because we only have 50 minutes in the class and so in order to cover such a broad scope of characters/events we’ll have to do a pretty cursery overview of each – which I thought might be boring to older kids who have likely already studied a number of these things in depth. In the class description I will caution parents that the movie is rated PG and they should watch it prior to letting their children do so, and watching the movie won’t be a prerequisite for taking the class, just kind of a fun theme to do a class around.
Thanks for the input – it’s super helpful. And YES – if I end up doing it, I’ll send you ladies the books and ideas I compile – I saw that one link Kcoard had mentioned and there are a few others as well that offer free ideas.
Blessings,
Rebekah
My 12yo dd thinks it’s a good idea, but she says she would go a step higher and maybe have it for ages 7-12. (Although, I imagine you could easily manage to include your 6yo if you wanted to do so.) She says it sounds fun, and I quote: “I’m 12, and I think it would be fun, and I know my sister and brother would love it. They are 10 and 11.” Sounds great!
Rebekah,
I would LOVE if you shared your plans for this class with me. I’m already collecting ideas for next year!
Thanks,
Christie
Rebekah – I want to do it. Please!!! I know my 2 12-yr-old boys would love something like this, but so would my 8 and 6 yr olds. When do you plan on doing this? Keep me posted.
Crazy4boys – it’s funny that you should ask, because I’m teaching this class AGAIN this spring at the learning center. Do you know about any of their classes? If you can make it, we LOVE everything we take there, but if you can’t make it, I can send over some links that I found. I’ve got to dig everything out for the spring.
And as an update – I filled two classes the spring I taught this class. I purchased a lapbook – will try to find the info for where I purchased it, but I contacted the creator and she was kind enough to allow me to use it for all my students! I used many of her components as well as some free ones that I found. I didn’t end up using living books, because we just didn’t have time to cover all that I wanted to AND get the lapbook done. Each week, I picked two or three “characters” – events/artwork etc… to cover. I’d do a brief “lecture” on each thing – trying to be interactive and asking questions that would engage the kids. Then they would map each item on their world map (just a small one to fit in the lapbook) and also chart it on a simple timeline. After that we’d cut out the pieces of the lapbook, which they would then add to their lapbook and I would collect the lapbooks and bring them back the following week. As I got to know some of the kids, I’d ask the older ones to do short presentations on one of the subjects for the next week – they were familiar with what I had been presenting, so had an idea of how long and what type of things would be interesting to discuss and then I had extra material to add in case their presentations were too short. Our final class was a dress-up and lots of fun.
Thanks Rebekah! I’ll have to look into the learning center. And I’d love whatever links/information you can find.
OK, the bad news, is that the lapbook we used… is no longer for sale, BUT I “pinned” the woman’s blog and if you’re able to contact her, I bet she’d find a way to get you a copy of her lapbook (or if she’s no longer selling it and is ok with me sending you a copy of my file, I’m happy to do that). It really was the best lapbook I found because it covered so many of the characters. And if you’re able to get it, I can send you the file I made with all of the info – to cut and paste in each mini book. If I was doing it with older children, I’d have them write down facts they remember, but with the younger set it was easier for them to cut and paste the info into each book.
Then I have some additional websites I used for information. I “pinned” them to a co-op folder on pinterest and started each with NATM (Night At The Museum). http://pinterest.com/fullofvirtues/co-op-classes/ Hope that’s helpful.
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