 Welcome to the Waldoch way. I'm Jessica and today's video is going to be a look inside our brand new mini beast unit study. We are so excited to be releasing this in time for the spring so that we can all get outdoors and enjoy nature with our kids in our home schools. So here is the table of contents. Now I'm not going to read this to you but I will leave it here so that you can pause the video if you would like to see it or I will also leave a link in the description box that's going to have the table of contents so you can see a list of everything that's included. We have our unit study resources. Every single one of our unit studies includes some sort of page like this. This one has nonfiction reference books, read alouds, poetry, tons of games and hands-on activities. I like to do this. These are always resources that are not required but would be great additions to the entire length of the study. They would also make great morning afternoon or bedtime basket additions or just fun stuff to do. Strew, using your spare time, whatever, and however you homeschool, they're there for you. Then we have our mini beast sensory play ideas. So there's a sensory bin idea as well as a printable play-doh mat idea which I will show you in just a moment. And then we have the introduction to mini beast lesson. Now most of the lessons are set up very similar to this. We have a supplemental book list. Again, this is supplemental. It's not required. Everything that you need will be included in here. A YouTube playlist with a QR code so you can click the link or scan the code, whichever is more convenient for you. And then some kinds of hands-on activity. This is going to be a mini beast hotel so that you have mini beast to observe during your mini beast unit study. And then here we have the non-fiction reading. So this is going to give you all of the information about the mini beast and what you're going to be doing. We have a mini beast family tree so you can see how they all kind of work together. Insects versus mollusks versus the mirror pods and the antelids and arthropod and all of the whole thing. And then there is a sorting activity where your kids will be able to sort insects versus non-insects just to start with to kind of familiarize them with what is an insect versus what is not. And then here are the cards for that sorting activity. There's always some kind of review page so in this instance they'll be matching the different mini beast groups to a definition of them. And then we're moving on to another lesson. So the next lesson is going to be who studies mini beast. Again, that supplemental book list, the YouTube playlist, a hands-on activity which happens to be a mini beast scavenger hunt, that non-fiction reading page that you don't need anything else, a who studies mini beast word search. So this is just all famous entomologists and their names to just kind of familiarize your kids with them. And then we have a spotlight on a famous entomologist, Jean-Henry Fabry, a coloring page of him, a biography of him. And then here is that mini beast scavenger hunt that I was talking about. It's already created for you. So you could just take this outdoors and let your kids see how many of them they can find. And then for each of the groups, which there are going to be five groups of mini beast discussed in this unit study. Insects, arachnids, myropods, gastropods, and anilids. There is an introduction to them. Now each of the introductions and subsequent lessons also have discussion questions. So you can really kind of make sure your kids are comprehending, which you guys are studying. And then for each of those groups, there is an example life cycle. So you're going to see for instance, an insect life cycle. This is the ladybug. And there's going to be a page for your kids to write down the stages of development. So they're familiar with them before you move on into each individual insect. And then again, a word search. So they can start kind of getting familiar with all the different types of insects or some of the different types of insects. And then we move into specific insects. So here's ants. For the ant lesson, you again have that supplemental book list, a YouTube playlist with clickable link and QR code. And then some kinds of hands on activity. You have that nonfiction reading, discussion questions, a coloring page. You have the anatomy of an ant. So this is just kind of a poster that you can use for an example. And then there's one for your kids to label. Now in the back in the appendix, there are the labels where you can cut and paste. So if your kids are younger or if they don't love writing, they can still get all the benefits of knowing the anatomy of the insects and the mini beast without having to write. And then there is a maze. I really like trying to include some sort of critical thinking kind of logic kind of things. And mazes seem like a great way to do that. And then a research page. So they get to choose their favorite to type of ant, list some fun facts, their habitat, their diet, their threats and their protections. These boxes I left large so that if your kids don't love to write, they can write the five fun facts and then they can draw pictures and it's still research. Then here's another example. So this is bees and wasps. Again, it is set up very similar. The only difference is when there's two that we're comparing. So bees and wasps in this case, there is going to be a coloring page and the anatomy pages and the mazes for each of them so that you can be familiar with each one of those. And then you will just have the research where you will choose either your favorite bee or your favorite wasps. So that's how that works. And then like I said before, each of the groups has an introduction. So this is now introduction to arachnids, nonfiction page, discussion questions, the life cycle, stages of development for the kids, word search. And then we get into the spider lesson, which is set up just like we said before. Now there was something here that I did add because the lesson that they're doing is why don't spiders stick to their web. So here's where they can learn a little more. So sometimes there's something a little extra and pretty much the rest of the unit study is set up very similar to that. Each of the groups has an introduction before you get started. And then each of the specific mini beasts has a very similar layout. So here you can see scorpions. And now once they don't necessarily have a hands-on project have Pinterest boards for craft ideas. And then there are like an additional learn more about them kind of something that was interesting. So there's definitely tons to learn about each of the mini beast. And then when we get to the appendix, there's a few fun extras. So this is an unscramble that mini beast page, which is just like I said, something fun. It would be great to do as a review to remember the ones that you studied or something you could shrew for your kids, something to get them excited about starting the unit study. There are writing prompt ideas. There are also some figurative language sheets. If you're something that's something you're wanting to teach your kids, it's something that I've been wanting to do with Emily. So I added them. They're all mini beast related and themed. So here we have metaphors and similes. And here we have hyperboles and personification. And then these are those labels for the anatomy. So you could cut and paste instead of writing. And then there is also an answer key. It's always really important to me that I try to include as much as possible to make our unit studies available to the widest range of ages as possible, because I know that there's homeschool families that want to be able to homeschool a preschooler all the way up to a middle school or high school. And they want to be able to do it together as a family. And so one of the ways I do that is with a ton of extra printables. This is one of them. These are lifecycle Play-Doh mats. They are one of the sensory activities. And as you can see here, they have the little tracing kind of cut out. So you could even just have your kids trace them if you wanted. But if you laminate them, they can use Play-Doh to fit into those little spots. And then they can make the lifecycle with Play-Doh. So it is something fun for younger kids. And it's also educational. And it's letting them be included. In addition to the Play-Doh mats, as an extra, I also have an A through Z mini-beast craft. So every letter has a different mini-beast of some kind. And it looks similar to this. And so your hips can color the letter, trace the word, and then cut these pieces out and create a craft. So here is an example. S is for snail. And here is the finished snail. So again, a way for your younger kids to participate and learn right alongside. This is everything that they would need. It's their A through Z tracing and a fun craft. So it's really appealing for them. Another fun extra we have for the younger kids is mini-beast color by number. So we have the alphabet, insects, A through Z to work on their alphabet. And then we have color by numbers to work on their numbers one through five and their colors. And there are a ton of different ones to choose from to keep them interested and having fun while they're learning and while you're doing mini-beast with them. The last fun extra we have for your younger kids are mini-beast pattern blocks. Now we are obsessed with pattern blocks. Even at almost 11 years old, Emily still loves them. I made sure to include two different types. So you have the color version, which makes it a little bit easier if your kids are just starting out because they're just matching the color and the shape. And there is also a black and white version, which makes it just a little bit more difficult because there's no color and they're just having to match the shapes. There are tons of different ones in these too. So lots of fun to be had to help your kids with shapes and color and spatial reasoning. And then at the bottom when they finish them, they will write down how many of each different pattern block they use to complete it. So also working on that counting and number skill. And it would not be a Waldoch way unit study if there were not games included. And so this is a look at some of the games. But now let's dive into each individual one. First up, we have mini-beast Sudoku. And there are three different levels. So you can pick depending on where you think your kids are at, or you can have them start with the easy and go to the hard. So we have a four by four puzzle, a six by six puzzle and a nine by nine puzzle. And included are going to be the little cutouts that fit that specific one. So of course I picked up a ladybug and it doesn't go anywhere. We're just going to pretend you would just have your kids figure out the puzzle and put them wherever they go. Now what I like about this is that because these are just movable pieces, they're not committed to anything and they can go, oh no, that doesn't go there and kind of move it around. Makes it a little bit easier. And if they want to commit, you can always have them glue them down. Next up we have mini-beast memory. So you would just lay all the cards out and then you would flip two over to see if you got a match. If you didn't, you would flip them back over and everybody would just keep taking turns trying to find matches for the mini-beast. The next game we have is mini-beast bingo. So you would just pick a card, that's a mantis, cover it, and you should also probably cover the free space. Pick another card, beetle, millipede, moth, and then obviously whoever gets the row filled first as a winner. The next game we have is a mini-beast find it fast kind of game. We are obsessed with spot it and we wanted something very similar and so this is it. You will just flip a card each and then you will try to find the match as quickly as possible. In this case, it's the millipede. I found it. I would collect them. Each of us would then flip another card and we're going to try to find them again. So every card only has one match which makes it very difficult but not impossible. And the last game that we have is a trivia-based game because I absolutely love being able to review what we've learned in a game-based way and with play. I think that is the best and so in this case you would roll the dice. We're going to pretend that said four. You would move four spaces. That's green so I would get a gastropod trivia card. The question here says, how long do snails live in the wild? So let's pretend I just say five years and then I would check for number 11 on the answer key and it says two to five years.