Advantages of Pets In Homeschool
Meow, Ruff, or Squeal?
In Our Case,
"Wheek, Wheek, Wheek!"
It's more than likely that living within your home is a furry, feathery, or scaly creature that has made itself part of the family. With the wide array of animals out there, the makings for them to become a part of your homeschool studies is opportunistic.
As most families do, we started with a small critter as my daughter's first pet. We spent a generous amount of time playing, petting, and feeding her little piggy. With the interest and passion developing to care for, and maintain our pet, this vested curiosity began to strike inspiration in me as to creating a unit study with our piggy, Miya, the star attraction.
Thus, our Veterinary Unit began to take shape. With my huge animal lovers in mind, I built a lesson including animal health, anatomy, and the tools involved in veterinary practices, and my pets (or rather kids ) squealed with excitement!
So whether it's hairy, scaly, or covered in feathers, it's time to shine the learning spotlight on our homeschool pets! Read on to check out how we incorporated our pet into our lesson.
*Get The Veterinary Unit Lesson Plan Complete With Learning Activities, Worksheets, Games, And More HERE!*
For our Veterinary Unit, we opened our learning office, starting first by working on a patient chart that I created. By logging Miya's stats, they were already practicing weight conversion, measuring, and writing skills- not to mention patient care!
Throughout our week, I was sure to include learning games all themed around animals and veterinary practices. We practiced core learning topics such as; interjections and adjectives, measuring and graphing, spelling, and more while engaging in themed games and activities. By utilizing a few animals from the abundance of stuffed animals my kids' own, hands on learning was readily available.
*Grab the "Next Patient Please" graphing and charting game HERE!*
Having been forunated enough to own a Sea World pass, I was able to get them a behind the scenes tour of the Rescue Center. It was here where they gained tangible learning experience and fun, getting to know the procedures and processes of caring for ocean wildlife, and the amazing people who devote their lives to the cause.
While I would love to share more about this tour, photography was not permitted during the Rescue Tour. Photos shown are from lessons our tour guide gave us of the tide pool exhibits within the park.
Our weekly reading included the endearing story of Lisestte the Vet by Ruth Macpete, along with informative readings all about veterinarians and animal care. To gain knowledge of vet tools, we played an easy to prep activity in which they matched the equipment to its name, which also helped to grow their vocabulary. As common in all of our weekly units, we included a kitchen creation- this time pet themed- in order to keep our creativity, fun, and kitchen skills growing. Paired with a Write the Recipe template I created, they were able to put their sequence writing to use as well.
Grab my similar "Write the Recipe" activity HERE!
This was such an immersive and engaging lesson that all began because of our sweet little homeschool critter. There is far more learning to grow on this topic, that it is certainly one lesson we will make a follow-up appointment with!
Get The Veterinary Unit Lesson Plan Here!
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