Doctor Who Homeschool Unit

Doctor Who Homeschool Unit

My husband and I like to watch the TV show Doctor Who. It has a complicated plot, it is funny, no nudity and there is not massive amounts of swearing which is a refreshing change from most shows.  We often discuss together the characters and speculate where the plot is going.

As we have done this our kids have been very curious about the show. However, if you have seen the show you know that it can be very scary at times, for example any weeping angels episode. We decided that the kids could watch some of the episodes but we would have to very careful about which ones they get to see, no extremely  scary ones right before bed, one of us is always with them when they are watching and they watch it with all the lights on.

As a result of watching some of the episodes  “Spiderman Jr.” wanted a Doctor Who homeschool unit.  I was hesitant to say yes. He has watched the fewest episodes and I didn’t know if I would have enough source material he could see that wasn’t too scary. I did eventually decide he could have a Doctor Who homeschool unit. Here is what I came up with from images that were available that allowed for noncommercial reuse.  If you print these don’t sell them, the people who shared their images did not give permission to sell them.

Math

 

He kept forgetting which ones he had counted, 

so we had to add check marks above each one. 

Kind of funny that he kept forgetting.

The Silence- write the tally marks worksheet

Silence Tally Mark Worksheet

The Silence- count and clip cards.

The Silence count and clip cards

I created this to help him work on how to use and count tally marks.

Bow ties with cubes

 

 

 

 

 

I printed out a template for making a paper cube and cut it out. After that I traced the template onto black construction paper I cut them out.  Then “Spiderman Jr.” and I glued them together. I cut out blue numbers and glued them onto the cubes.  I then cut out enough red bow ties each box. He then placed the same number of red bow ties in the cube as the number that was on the outside of the cube.

Van Goph Color by number worksheet

Sunflower Color by number

We were focusing on adding the numbers 10-13 into the numbers he is better at recognizing more consistently so I only had these number. More numbers could be added because there are far more colors in the original painting.

Science

We built a sonic screwdriver. We spent a couple of days on this and he had a great time.

Art

Cubist Bow Tie coloring page

We watched some documentaries on Van Goph and Pablo Picasso. We talked about cubism and I made a cubist inspired Doctor Who coloring page for us to color together as we talked about that style of art.

English

Alphabet letter matching

I created a card matching game where he had to match the first letter to the villain or companion of the Doctor. We also worked on identifying vowels and constants.

Doctor Item Spelling Cards

I also created cards were he had to match identical items. One card had the words spelled in it and the other was blank. He had to look at the card that had the correct spelling and write the same letter on the blank card to practice writing his letters.

History

Match the Sonic to the Doctor cards

For fun I had him match cards I had made of the doctors sonic screw drivers to the doctor who used that sonic screwdriver. It was a chance to work on timelines and understanding that things come in a certain order.

“Spideman Jr.” and I had a lot of fun doing this unit. After he finished each day’s work we watched the episode that went with what we had worked on that day.  

Skylander Curtains Part 1:

Skylander Curtains Part 1:

Winter Curtains-Water Element

 

Just like when I realized that my garden lacked true function, beauty and a cohesive vision. I had the same realization about our family room. I have been aware that we needed to go further in our attempts for organization.  The controller organizer was working beautifully. However, this area of our family room working so well caused the other areas of dysfunction to come into sharper relief. 

If I were to create a cohesive theme for decorating while organizing our family room, what would it be?  Each person in the family is very different and we have always counted that as a good thing. However, this does pose a problem when you are trying to design a room that is well organized and visually appealing.  I kept thinking about each person in the family and all I kept coming up with was differences in tastes.

I finally found two areas of common ground; area number one-the gospel of Jesus Christ and area number two- gaming. I will put a caveat in area number two, I am not a gamer. I like to play video games but I am very, very picky about the games I am willing to play.  The rest of my family plays games together with me often watching while I do a project in the same room. This is one of the ways we have fun together. They progress the story line , level up characters, and make fun of the villain/s together.

I decided to go with the gaming theme for the family room because it is where we play games. Gospel discussions usually happen in the dining room.  So I went looking on-line for ideas that would create the organization we needed and be beautiful; “From a certain point of view” Obi-Wan Kenobi. If you can have function and fun in the same item then why not?

In the end, I had pinned a ton of images to my Family Room board on Pinterest. My husband and kids then went through all the ideas I had come up with for the family room. I didn’t want to decorate it like just one type of video game, that’s boring for me as an artist. My husband didn’t want the room to have a little bit from every single game the family had ever played. We narrowed it down with some compromises. It would be more than one game inspired but it would stay mostly within Nintendo games. With the exception of some nerdy stuff that is just too cool to leave out, for example some Star Wars and Doctor Who decorations we both wanted to add.

So after analyzing the family rooms dysfunction, the worst area was the consoles. They are all over the kid’s school desk, which is not good for doing homework.  I decided I wanted to make some Donkey Kong shelves for organizing the consoles. However, I also wanted to change the curtains because what I had up currently didn’t remotely match.  There was also the common complaints of a glare on the tv during gaming.  Since I didn’t know how much space the curtains would need and I didn’t want the consoles to overheat if the curtains covered them . I decided the curtains needed to come before the console shelves/organizers.

As a result I started thinking about gaming curtain designs. I looked around on-line for ideas and I didn’t find anything I liked. So here is what I came up with for our family room. A valence inspired by the Skylanders portal.  The curtains that hang from the valence will change once a season and will be inspired by an element I feel is a good representation of that season in color.  The water element was what we both thought was a good choice for winter curtains.

 

Before

 

After

If you are interested in seeing how I made the curtains and valence read below.

Step#1

I removed the old curtains and then my husband measured how wide our windows are and added six inches to each side. Then we figured out how much wood we needed to build the valence boxes. We then bought OSB wood because it didn’t have to be pretty wood, just sturdy since it was going to be covered.

Step #2

I gathered materials for building the valence boxes.

Step#3

 

I measured and cut 4 pieces of wood 71” x 6”. 

Then measured and cut 4 pieces of wood 6” x 6”. Then my husband measured and cut 2 pieces of wood 70”x 3”.

Step#4

I screwed the 71”x 6” piece to the 6”x 6” piece on each end.

Step#5

 

I then screwed the other 71” x 6” piece of wood to the pieces of wood that I had already screwed together. 

Step#6

My husband centered the piece of wood that measured 70”x 3” above the window and screwed it into the wall. Next my husband screwed in 4 L braces on each pieces of wood.

Step#7

I then took the boxes. I measured and marked a line every 

8 ¾” on the front face of the valence boxes.

Step#8

I then cut 14 pieces of foam measuring 4”x 7”.

Step#9

I cut up 4 pairs of worn black jeans.

 

 

 Then cut enough of each pant leg to staple the jean down on the sides and staple onto the top and inside of the valence box.

Step#10

I cut smaller strips of fabric from the jeans and then laid it on top of the foam I had covered. Then I stapled as close to where I had stapled on the sides. Then flipped that fabric over and stapled it in place. 

Then I repeated the process and filled in the spaces between the foam pieces.

Step#11

I then took a piece of white fabric and laid it along the edge of the front edge of the valence box behind the foam blocks I had stapled down. I then stapled it down along the front edge. 

 

I then flipped the stapled white fabric over and tucked the excess under and stapled it down to the inside of the valence box.

Step#12

I then took white chalk and drew the symbols that I saw on the portal onto the pieces of foam. I then painted over the chalk with white acrylic paint.

Step#13

After the paint had dried my husband then lifted the boxes onto the L braces he had previously drilled onto the wood above the windows. He then screwed in the other half of the L braces to the top of the valence boxes. We got the construction idea for the boxes from me redoing my parents valence boxes.

Step#14

I then took a bunch of blue jeans that we had been given and cut them up. I then sorted the jeans from darkest to lightest.

Step#15

 

 

 

I took the pant legs and evened them out so that they were rectangular in nature.

Step#16

 

 

 

 

I then stitched the jeans together. I started from darkest pair of jeans then moved slowly to the lightest pair of jeans. I always ended with the lightest pair of jeans being on the edge of the curtain that will be in the center of the curtain. 

 Step#17

I then squared the front of the curtains.

Step#18

I then laid the top of the curtain on top of my curtain liner and traced around the edges. I added extra liner fabric at the top to create a way to finish the curtains off. Then cut out the liner.

Step#19

I then stitched the front to the back.

Materials                                                     Cost

Jig saw -already had                                   0.00

Measuring tape-already had                       0.00

Markers-already had                                   0.00

Gloves-already had                                     0.00

Googles-already had                                   0.00

Saw horses- already had                             0.00

Screws- left over from another project         0.00

Drill bit- already had                                     0.00

L braces-                                                      2.00

Pencil- already had                                      0.00

Foam- left over from another project           0.00

Scissors-already had                                   0.00

Staple gun- already had                              0.00

Black jeans- hand me downs                       0.00

Blue jeans- hand me downs                        0.00

Staples- left over from another project         0.00

Chalk- already had                                       0.00

White paint-left over from another project    0.00

Cutting mat- already had                              0.00

Rotary cutter-already had                             0.00

White thread- left over from another project 0.00

Curtain liner- hand me downs                       0.00

Iron- already had                                           0.00

Square- already had                                      0.00

OSB                                                             11.00

                                                             Total Cost

                                                                    13.00