KONOS Obedience Unit Study
- Annie Schrader
- Jan 30, 2019
- 4 min read
In continuing with our KONOS curriculum, I decided to start the year off with the KONOS Obedience unity study, and we proceeded to lose ourselves in the many activities for the next three months. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I love the KONOS curriculum! Anything that can teach myself just as much, if not more, as my children is a total win in my book, and these character quality unit studies are just so dang good.
Obedience is doing what I'm asked to do with an uncomplaining attitude. Anyone else feel like they could use some help in the uncomplaining attitude department? It's safe to say we were all bound to learn a thing or two about this character quality by the time we were finished with the unit study.
We started with authority and light, learning how to identify who our actual authorities are, and recognizing that these authorities are protection, like a light that would keep you from stumbling. We discussed reasons we obey our parents and learned the age old classic "Mother May I?" My girls could have played this game for hours! I'm always amazed at what can keep their interest. Like we spend all this money on toys that are meant to keep them busy and you can literally teach them a simple game that has been around forever and requires nothing, and they are captivated! We quickly moved onto the history of lighting, Thomas Edison, and lighthouses.
We did some really fun art projects, spent a morning making beeswax candles, and ended this particular section with a fun study on rainbows! Next we learned what the Bible says about how to obey God, about the printing of the Bible, and about Johannes Gutenberg and his invention of the first moveable type printing press. Along with this we worked on making our own block prints! This has been an art that I have loved doing for years, so sharing it with the girls brought me so much joy!
From here we moved on to learning all about kings and queens, great historical examples of authority figures. We learned about coronations, made scepters and crowns, read all about the story of Esther and how she obeyed God, made queen cakes, and had an English tea party! The girls painted royal self-portraits, created watercolor paintings of castles, learned about the different jobs held in castles, and made an elaborate castle out of all household materials.
We spent several weeks on this part of the unit study. Being able to stop and spend as much time as we want on a particular subject is something I love not only about KONOS, but about homeschooling in general. If the kids are really enjoying something, we just rest there until they are ready to move on. We ended this section by watching Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella. This was a staple in my home growing up! I can't even begin to count the number of times my sister and I watched this. I hadn't seen it in years but all the songs just came pouring back into my head and it was the most nostalgic! If you haven't seen it, get it from the library and enjoy!
The last part of this particular unit had us studying horses. The training of horses was used as an illustration of training a "wild thing" to become useful. We decided to piggyback this part of our curriculum onto our American Heritage Girls badge work and work towards Ivy getting her Horsemanship badge, so we did a little extra work here. We read the first book in the Billy and Blaze series, identified the different parts of the horse, and learned about all different kinds of horse breeds. Ivy used a guided illustration tutorial to learn how to draw a horse, watched videos about mustangs, learned about the Pony Express, worked on a large horse puzzle throughout the weeks, and watched a video on how horseshoes are made. We did two really fun field trips as well. The first was to a horse veterinary clinic where we learned how they prepare horses for surgery and how they move those large animals from room to room once they are sedated. It was fascinating! And lastly we took a trip to visit a stable and ride some horses! This kind of hands on learning is what really brings all of the prior illustrations and activities to life. The girls learned about the various grooming tools used to groom the horses and got to try some of them out.
They learned barn safety and what is appropriate behavior around horses, how to approach them safely and fasten a lead rope. They learned the difference between Western and English tack, and got to ride the horses over and over again! It was a blast!
We spent a good three months on obedience and now my kids are obedient 100% of the time. Haha! That's an obvious joke. But in all sincerity I believe the ways we worked on learning obedience are concepts and illustrations that will not be forgotten. We are currently in our next KONOS unit study, which is HONOR, and it's already proving to be another good one. All of the links to resources we used throughout the study will be listed below!
Authority/Light
Chalk Pastel tutorial (scroll to the bottom for the free tutorial of the electric light bulb!)
Kings and Queens
Horses
*The vast majority of these ideas were straight from the KONOS curriculum.
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