*We received access to a few middle grade homeschool unit studies from Funda Funda Academy in exchange for this review of the product. However, the opinions expressed are solely our own.*
If you have been part of our community for awhile, you know that I like to create lots of homeschool unit studies for our family and readers. But, to be honest, there is just not enough time to create all the ones I want to. Which means that every now and then I like to pull in homeschool unit studies from other creators.
It is always interesting to see how other educators create their homeschool unit studies. This summer, we started the Stock Market Unit Study from Funda Funda Academy and participated in their Stock Market Contest! We had fun, learned a lot, and now have some skills to apply to real life. Here is a review of our experience.
Here are my quick pros and cons of their unit studies and then check out the rest of the review below for details:
Pros:
- Created for 4th-8th graders, which is can be a hard age group to find unit studies for.
- They are web-based where everything is easy to access from one dashboard.
- Each one has an introduction explains how everything is laid out so there is no confusion.
- Self-paced so complete on your own timeline.
- Variety of activities, including games and puzzles, makes the unit studies fun.
- Comprehensive…go in-depth into each topic.
Possible Cons:
- If you don’t want web-based studies, these aren’t for you.
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Who created Funda Funda Academy?
Meryl van der Merwe is the founder of Funda Funda Academy. She homeschooled her 4 children and has been a homeschool co-op teacher for many years. She is a computer programmer by training who loves traveling and reading. She created Funda Funda Academy to provide fun, engaging, and in-depth courses and unit studies. They currently provide semester long online classes, self-paced classes, college prep, short programming classes and unit studies.
The Middle Grade Homeschool Unit Studies
Each of the homeschool unit studies at Funda Funda Academy are self-paced and designed to be completed in four weeks. However, we found there was so much great information in the Stock Market Unit Study that we could spread it out for several weeks. In fact, we plan on circling back to it and completing more when my son is older.
Each unit study is web-based. You log-in to your account to access the unit studies. Each unit study has four modules with several lessons in each one. Lessons may consist of videos to watch, articles to read, assignments to do, or games and puzzles to play. At the end of each module is a Module Project. The idea is to complete one module a week, but you can spread them out or complete them faster if you like since the unit studies are self-paced.
Funda Funda Academy states their unit studies are appropriate for 4th-8th grade, which can be a difficult age to find unit studies for. We found the Stock Market Unit Study could be used into high school as well.
The Stock Market Unit Study
We finished off this past school year with Funda Funda Academy’s Stock Market Unit Study. They were holding a summer Stock Market Contest where we could “buy” stocks and compete against other students for small prizes. The Stock Market Unit Study helped us get ready to make our purchases.
The first module of the Stock Market Unit Study started with the basics…What is a Stock?, What is the Stock Market?, etc. along with vocabulary the student needs to know to understand the material. There were a variety of videos (our favorite way to learn) including some behind the scenes interviews on the floor of the stock exchange. The final project for the first module was to make a poster of one of the vocabulary words you learned.
The second module taught us about the history of the stock market and in addition to the articles, videos, and games, there was a printable quiz and a project in this section. The third module taught us how to create a portfolio, This is where we had fun thinking about what stocks we wanted to buy for the Stock Market Contest, which allowed us to “buy” stocks through an online game platform.
We watched how our portfolio performed over several weeks learning about the ups and downs of the stock market. Unfortunately, we did not win the contest as we lost almost 8% of our portfolio over six weeks! But, that is ok because next year we will learn some more and try again.
We are saving the fourth module for the future as it teaches about mutual funds and other advanced topics. I love that we can come back to this homeschool unit study over and over again to refresh our memories and learn new information.
Try a unit study…
If you would like to try one of Funda Funda Academy’s Unit Study for FREE, their Introduction to Game Programming is available as a sample. Or you can use the code PEANUTBUTTER to receive $10 off ANY of their unit studies!
Being a big election year, their Electing a President Unit Study would be great one to try! Start by learning about the structure of the government in the United States and the Constitution. Then learn about how we elect a president, including how the electoral college works. Finally learn what the role of the president is in our government.
Many of our readers will also enjoy the North America Unit Study since that is one of the continents I have not covered yet in our country unit studies. And check out the many science unit studies in the Funda Funda Academy shop.
Have you tried any Funda Funda Academy unit studies? Let us know which ones you liked!
