Unit Study: Dragons

 In March, we chose to study a few subjects that were of special interest to the girls. Pumpkin chose dragons, which is a surprise to no one who hangs out with her on a regular basis. I didn't buy or use a unit study made by someone else, so this was a conglomerate of various Pinterest activities or my own ideas.

Here are the books we read:

Real Dragons, by Jennifer Szymanski
Dragon Noodle Party, by Ying Chang Compestine
Amy Wu and the Patchwork Dragon, by Kat Zhang
The Truth About Dragons, by Julie Leung
East Dragon, West Dragon, by Robyn Eversole
How to Catch a Dragon, by Adam Wallace
Oh no, Little Dragon, by Jim Averbeck
Little Red Riding Hood and the Dragon, by Ying Chang Compestine
The Knight and the Dragon, by Tomie dePaola
Dragons Love Tacos, by Adam Rubin
Three Tasks For a Dragon, by Eoin Colfer
Sir Cumference and the Dragon of Pi, by Cindy Neuschwander

Here are some books that were available for independent reading (which were read cover-to-cover by Pumpkin):

Dragon Storm: Tom and Ironskin, by Alistair Chisolm
The Magnificent Book of Dragons, by S.A. Caldwell
Drake’s Comprehensive Compendium of Dragonology, by Dugald Steer
The Tea Dragon Society, by Katie O’Niell
Behold.... The Dragons, by Gail Gibbons

Here are the activities we did:

After reading a book about "real dragons," the girls each chose an animal from the book to do an animal fact sheet on. We also made clay dragons.

After reading Dragon Noodle Party, the girls helped to make a noodle dish for dinner.

We read several other books about Eastern dragons, comparing East and West on the globe and noting the differences we saw between Eastern and Western dragons (and in other forms of art). We made these origami dragon puppets, wrote haikus, and created oil pastel dragon scenes.

Here is my haiku:

Dragon softly sings
So sweetly in the forest
Wings rustle like leaves

Pumpkin's haiku:

Dragons fly like wind
Past the clouds, over the hills
Bring good luck to you

And Sweet Pea's haiku:

Snow falls in the sky
The snowflakes fall on the hill
Snowflakes land softly

I was very impressed at how little help they needed to create their own haikus. I first taught them how to determine the syllables in each word by clapping each syllable, then told them the form for a haiku (five syllables, seven syllables, five syllables), and then let them have at it. It was fun to see them murmuring to themselves and clapping out the syllables until they got it right.

After reading The Truth About Dragons, and East Dragon West Dragon, which are about both types of dragons, we transitioned into learning about western dragons. We did these sight word coloring pages, and Pumpkin wrote her own dragon story.  After reading Dragons Love Tacos, we played this math game, and of course, made tacos for dinner! We also followed this tutorial to make "dragon eggs" for lunch one day. We loved how they turned out! Here's our dragon egg charcuterie board.

Our final day of "dragon school" fell on Pi Day, and I was fortunate to come across the book "Sir Cumference and the Dragon of Pi," which was a really fun way to explore the concept of Pi. We made dragons out of paper plates, which we first measured to demonstrate Pi. 

And of course it wouldn't be Pi Day without pies, so we made mini blackberry pies!

All in all, it was a really fun way to explore a subject that Pumpkin is so passionate about. It was a very literature-heavy study, which certainly isn't a bad thing, but it was also really fun to try things that we wouldn't normally have tried, like haikus and dragon eggs. Next up is a farm unit study for Sweet Pea!