That sounded catchy. It's actually far more impromptu and serendipitous than thoroughly preplanned, however it has come together so nicely.  First, it's hot.  Just blasted hot. Second, September is starting to fill up with fun travel plans.  So we jointly decided to do some projects now while we are otherwise melting and will have a head start on the autumn semester which is always full to the brim.  

True to form this idea occured to me AFTER the 4th.  Since the unit study police don't actually exist we are making a whole patriotic month of it over here.  This is part of our stack this week:

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King George

Which led me to read up on George III and Charlotte and their fifteen fine children.  And porphyria and whether or not he had it.  

To pull all the separate 'real' books together I have my new favorite ever notebook book.  I may have been so gaga over this series I bought them all.  They are something like ten bucks at Amazon right now and I am kicking myself for getting mine at B&N but I couldn't stop myself.  Years ago – TEN years ago now when I was in perptual motion all day with tiny people – I wrote about guerilla homeschooling.  This series makes it super feasible to do that.  They give you a broad overview of the topics and general skills your students should have mastered when they leave middle school.  The pages are laid out exactly like a bullet journal type of notebook you might have put together yourself.  I'm in lesson planning heaven.  

The middle schoolers are making this interactive notebook (pssst its free) and sort of crazy over the whole thing.  They balked at writing essays about the era, but then complained they were running out of room to put aaaaaaall the cool information they had in their notebooks.  That second one is an awesome problem to have as a teacher though.  It is helping them learn to distill all that fabulous information to the main points.

They are adding their own maps and things. This was inspired by a page in their book. (linked above) 

An art project "in the spirit of" from here.  More American symbol art lessons and more American Revolution projects here. 

Abbie is working on some latin and English notebook pages: 

There has been a LOT of cooking happening – which involves a whole bunch of math and direction following.  Here is a July dessert that has no redeeming virtues other than it's color coordination and fun factor.  Pioneer Woman's Holiday book as a variation on this recipe which we used.  

So that's how July has been shaping up.  Summer school this year – which I usually only recommend if you are getting nice restful breaks throughout the main part of the year which we do have.  
 

So.  Much.  Fun!