A Gather Round Homeschool Review: Asia…Will You Love It?
We are half way through our second year of homeschooling with Gather Round Homeschool and I’m ready to get going on these unit reviews!
So far I’ve shared with you how we used and what we loved about Oceans, Space, Europe, North American Birds, Christmas…and today I bring you review #5…ASIA!
Asia was the second unit we did and the first connecting continents. It really got us excited about continuing through the rest of them! We love trying to make new recipes so you’ll see that we had a heavy food focus in our unit…if that’s up your alley then read on! But read on even if it’s not…we did more than just eat. 🙂
My hope in writing this post is that it will help you in some way, whether you’re already a regular Gather Round user or you’re still trying to decide if it’s a good fit for you.
So let’s get to it!
A Gather Round Homeschool Review: Asia
what we did
PREP:
Before I start any unit, I spend a little time doing the following:
- Order student books from Barnes and Noble Press. (Or print and assemble student books however you’ve already planned to! I often don’t print the teacher’s manuel anymore…I connect my device to the television and read it from there so everyone can see the pictures really well!)
- Create a YouTube playlist to go along with the various topics throughout the unit. (Here’s the one I made for this unit!)
- Check out books from the library and go through my own books.
- Buy and books/games/puzzles/etc. that I want to use
- Scope out potential field trips
- Gather ideas for enrichment activities and/or projects
Remember, though, that one of the beautiful things about this curriculum (and homeschooling in general!) is that you can keep it super simple or add in whatever interests you and your kiddos. All that’s necessary for this unit is the Teacher’s Guide and Student Books. If you are a busy more or dad that doesn’t have a ton of time to add in a bunch of extra things, that’s ok!
Don’t let it discourage you from doing it! 🙂
EXTRA SUPPLIES/MATERIELS:
GATHER ROUND HOMESCHOOL ASIA UNIT ACTIVITIES:
FIELD TRIPS:
Sadly, there were no field trips in this unit.
Google maps street view is a fun way to take virtual field trips to these countries, though! My kids really enjoy getting to see some of the major landmarks this way. For example, we did the street view of The Great Wall of China and it gave the view that we were walking on it ourselves. Just an idea!
Also, see what you can find in your area. Find and try some Asian restaurants. Visit an Asian market. Or if you are in Florida, then check out Epcot and Animal Kingdom at Disney. Get creative! 🙂
RECIPES:
As I mentioned before, this unit was full of cooking for us and we tried a LOT of new recipes! We tried to make something for almost every country, whether it was a dinner, snack, or dessert.
This is something that is absolutely not necessary for a fun and interesting study of Asia, but I enjoy cooking and baking and like to teach my girls some skills along the way. These “Connecting Continents” units have been a great way to do incorporate that!
*Disclaimer: several of these recipes were not a hit with the kiddos, lol. BUT they all tried them!
What we thought
This was our first continent study with Gather Round and we all really enjoyed it!
Between the food, the music we listened to, the activities, and videos we watched, it really felt like we had a decent tour of the whole continent.
Not only did we learn about the things you would expect, such as geography, history, landmarks, animals, and maps…but also volcanoes, imports and exports, monsoons, story writing, currency, parts of a ship and so much more!
It’s been nearly a year and a half since we completed this unit and my girls still have a good understanding of many of these things, especially since we’ve touched on many of them again in other units.
Now a lot of people would likely feel like there isn’t enough language arts/phonics in this unit, and I wouldn’t disagree. However, that isn’t a deal breaker for me.
I can easily add some in if I feel any of my kids need some extra practice with certain skills and I’ve personally come to a place where I’m just trusting the process. I think kids can pick up on so much language arts naturally through read-alouds, reading, and writing (even copywork) that I’m trying not to overwhelm them with tons of extra work pages to do just for the sake of saying we’ve done them! But that is a decision that every family gets to make for themselves…and part of what makes homeschooling so awesome. 🙂
I would absolutely recommend you give this unit a try in some capacity!
Whenever you plan on doing this unit, make sure to check out this post for some organized resources to help you plan!
I also have resources for North American Birds, Space, Europe, Oceans, Africa, Earth Science, North America, Human Body, South America, and Australia & Oceania.
For other Gather Round Unit Reviews check here.
If you have any questions about how we went about this unit, don’t hesitate to ask!
If you’d like to follow along with what we are doing in our homeschool, then make sure to hop over to Instagram and follow me there @theleadlearnermom! I try my best to update regularly…but it doesn’t always happen. 🙂
Best Wishes and Happy Planning,
