Intellego Unit studies

[swellmomma]

Those with experience with these what did you think? Are they well done? How do they compare with lapbooking from HOAC? I am thinking of doing 1-2 over the summer with the kids, Globetrotting with folk tales, and The Renaissance Era: Art, Architecture & music. As well as the health grade 9-12 and human body units in the next school year.

 

Has anyone used those titles? Are they well done? How much time per day did you work on them, and how many weeks did the unit take to complete?

[swellmomma]

:bigear: anyone?

[annlaura]

Curious too, especially about the folktales. So if you do them, please come back with a review. :)

[Writerdaddy]

I have bought the K-2 World History (egypt and indus valley) and the K-2 earth and space units, and so far used the Egypt part.

 

I do not know if the various units differ widely in content, but here is how I would describe what I got:

 

basically, the units a series of web links to online content, interspaced with some hastily constructed not terribly bad or inspiring workbook pages (fluff). Somehow it miraculously adds up to about 100 pages, by fluffing it up with useless things. For instance, in the spelling words page, is bunch of text saying its a good idea to look up spelling words and then a link to an online dictionary. I thought it would identify potentially tricky words with definitions, but no, just a one page link to a dictionary and encouragement to do it. There are pages with long lists of materials to gather for the many activities they suggest.

 

The links are of varying quality. My kids loved a website where you can use your keyboard to type in hieroglyphs, for instance. One web-page about life in ancient egypt was a lackluster text to read, not better than SOTW. A low quality youtube video about egypt was in there, along with other stuff.

 

All that being said, some of the activity ideas were good and some of the links as well. For me, the $15 I paid was worth it for someone to find a few good links. If you are looking for something substantial, the units I purchased will not cut it at all. But if you are looking for fun enrichment activities this is great stuff.

 

Note that everything I said here may not apply to the units you are considering.

 

all the best,

 

Alan

[Lily_Grace]

 

basically, the units a series of web links to online content, interspaced with some hastily constructed not terribly bad or inspiring workbook pages (fluff). Somehow it miraculously adds up to about 100 pages, by fluffing it up with useless things. For instance, in the spelling words page, is bunch of text saying its a good idea to look up spelling words and then a link to an online dictionary. I thought it would identify potentially tricky words with definitions, but no, just a one page link to a dictionary and encouragement to do it. There are pages with long lists of materials to gather for the many activities they suggest.

 

The links are of varying quality. My kids loved a website where you can use your keyboard to type in hieroglyphs, for instance. One web-page about life in ancient egypt was a lackluster text to read, not better than SOTW. A low quality youtube video about egypt was in there, along with other stuff.

 

All that being said, some of the activity ideas were good and some of the links as well. For me, the $15 I paid was worth it for someone to find a few good links. If you are looking for something substantial, the units I purchased will not cut it at all. But if you are looking for fun enrichment activities this is great stuff.

 

Note that everything I said here may not apply to the units you are considering.

 

all the best,

 

Alan

 

I would agree with this. We used Astronomy 6-8 over the past 3 months. Each unit was laid out with a KWL page (what do I Know, what do I Want to know, what did I Learn), a page with necessary materials, and then the actual unit, consisting of links and occasional worksheets or questions. Each unit ends with a project to do that shows what is learned. There are several options for the project and you can make up your own, too. For example, my son created a model of a planet, a board game, a powerpoint presentation, a poster, and did a speech.

Not all of the links worked for us (overseas/out of region), but we were always able to find substitutes.

 

Overall my son really enjoyed it and learned a TON. It had a good balance of online learning and the occasional hands on activity, but the activity always was something creative and added to the lesson instead of being a demonstration of what was already learned.

[houseofkids&pets]

Have you seen the thread re: the Intellego Astronomy unit? Sorry, I don't know how to link that thread to this post, but it was pretty recent. It was a freebie download for a short time, but I think that special is over. I did download it, but don't plan on using it until the fall, so I don't have any feedback for you. However, on the other thread, there were some positive responses from people who have used it.

[ErinD]

I don't find it's "fluffed out" at all. We've used a number of the Intellego units and enjoyed them very much. The author has spent a lot of time pulling together links for sites and videos that tie in (and if a link is broken and you let her know, she is VERY prompt to fix it). That content, combined with the activities, led to a good understanding of the subject studied. We do often substitute different notebooking pages for the ones offered, but that's a personal aesthetic preference and certainly the ones provided would be fine.

 

We have used about 10 of them so far, for different ages, and enjoyed every one (especially the Great Lakes unit!).

[WIS0320]

We've used two units for science, Astronomy and States of Matter. I've used pieces of the American Symbols unit.

 

I like Intellego a lot. I made my own lesson plans based on unit topics for both history and science this past year and Intellego was well worth the $ spent for good solid hands on activities (with supply lists) and internet links. I'm busy, I don't have the time to spend to look at every singe possible link for units we're studying and having those ready to go based on what we were learning that day was exceptionally helpful to me. The activities we've done were good and typically not fluffy but generated genuine learning experiences.

 

I think Intellego is rounded out nice with books that are on the grade level of the student using the unit. I like that it can be ramped up or down based on the need of the child using the unit study. It IS hands on for a parent and it isn't scripted.

 

I really like that it isn't the typical lapbook/cut and paste projects that most unit studies seem to be. We tried one from Hands of a Child on dinosaurs and I found it to be an incredible waste of time. My kid doesn't learn about dinosaurs from cutting out pictures and text blocks and gluing them onto a folder.

 

We are using the units on Virginia and Globetrotting with Cinderella this summer. We are using the K-2 World History units (all 3) during next year when we study ancients.