Living in the Pacific Northwest, we are surrounded by rivers. And because my son is fascinated by water, I found it most appropriate for our first-ever unit study to be a river unit study.
We started our river unit study in September for back-to-homeschool. The end of summer is one of the best times to do a river unit study for several reasons:
- The rivers are slower and more shallow, allowing for a safer environment for littles.
- The late-summer temperatures are still hot enough for a dip into the river.
- The river is warmer than in the spring or earlier part of the summer.
- In September, many families are back in school allowing more room at the river during weekdays.
- The many animals and plant life at the river are still active in the late summer.
Of course, you can study the river any time of the year and be fascinated by the what each season brings. Who knows, maybe we will do a river unit study in the future in the winter, fall, or spring.
For our river unit study, we used a variety of resources, most free or “mostly-free,” meaning we had the items already or just needed to pay for gasoline. Utilizing the public library system is always a wonderful way to save money.
I have included science, reading, art, safety, and math in the river unit study.
I’d love to help bring joy into your homeschool journey by sharing what our river unit study looked like this past September.
Contents
River Unit Study Books
We kicked off our river unit study with a fun board book, Discovering the World of Nature Along the Riverbank by Petra Bartikova and Marcel Kralik.
- While this book likely isn’t in many public libraries due to the cut-out nature of the book, I was able to find it for only $8 on Amazon.
- This book has tons of easy-to-digest information about river life which made it easy to build out the unit study even further.
- Plus, with the cutout style of pages, this is a fun read for littles to flip through.
Bear Came Along by Richard T. Morris was the perfect audiobook for us. I was able to rent the book through Libby.
My son is still working on his attention span to be able to listen to an audiobook. At regular speed, this book is only four minutes long.
Run Salmon Run by Bobs and LoLo is a fun yet very informative book about the salmon life cycle. Being that my son is only in pre-kindergarten, we did an art activity for this book. Higher grade levels can combine more science as well.
In the Small, Small Pond by Denise Fleming is technically about a pond. That being said, since ponds are similar to rivers, we included it in our river unit study. The same marine/wild life at the river is also at the pond. This book ends with the winter season, which was a learning opportunity for my son.
Along the lines of, it’s-not-entirely-about-a-river, A Camping Spree with Mr. Magee by Chris Van Dusen was still a great read for our river unit study. The story follows an optimistic Mr. Magee as he and his dog camp near a waterfall. My son loved the rhyme and flow of this book.
Two other great finds were Beaver Colony by Julie Murray and Beaver and Otter Get Along… Sort Of by Sneed B. Collard III. These books were great in helping to distinguish between beavers and otters.
River Unit Study Crafts & Activities
Crafts and activities are fun for any age of school but especially for the preschool through kindergarten grades.
Some of the most basic art we did in this study was coloring various free coloring pages online. Simply do a search for free river coloring pages and you will have plenty of choices!
Most of our arts and crafts were derived from the books that we read.
Using the Discovering the World of Nature Along the Riverbank book as a guide, we expanded the lesson to learn about marine life at the river. We:
- painted a watercolor painting of a river. Using watercolors, kids learn fine motor skills, color theory, and artistic skills.
- built a river sensory bin using mini river animals, rocks from the driveway, grass, potting soil, and butterfly pea tea for blue water
The fine motor skills are perfect for laying the foundation of learning how to write. Here’s a photo of the river sensory bin we ended up putting together.
As mentioned above, we used the audio book, Bear Came Along, for a fun bath activity. I had my son line up each of the toy animals – a bear, turtle, duck, raccoon, beaver, and frog onto the tub ledge.
As the audiobook introduced each animal in the river, my son would knock the animal off of the ledge into the river. He thoroughly enjoyed this simple activity and I loved that it helped strengthen his listening skills.
This activity was such a hit my son did it multiple times throughout the month. We used a mix of our River toy animals and In the Woods toy animals from TOOBS to get all the animals.
Run Salmon Run by Bobs and LoLo was used to strengthen my son’s gluing skills. As you read the book, have your child match each fish photo to the name of the fish. This introduces science to your littles without going overboard in detail.
You can grab a download for this art project for free below!
Another fun activity we did for our river unit study was to build a beaver dam outside in our yard. We are fortunate to have some land to be able to do this, so this may or may not be for you.
I read the book, Beaver Colony by Julie Murray, to my son and we used it as a guide to build our beaver dam.
I dug up a small area of our yard, about 6″ wide and 15″ tall. I chose an area on a hillside so that the water would collect at the bottom of the river to help with the appearance of the dam.
Then, we lined this hole with foil and river rocks. My son loved collecting rocks from our landscaping.
To build the beaver dam, we collected small sticks and placed them at the bottom of the river. My son used the hose to fill up our “river.”
We also decided to place our beaver figurines that we used for the bath tub activity and sensory bin on our beaver dam.
My son absolutely loved this activity and wants to build beaver dams throughout the whole yard, so maybe take that as a warning! Since he learned so much I am okay with the constant water running through our yard in various small places.
How We Used Math in Our River Unit Study
Math was very easy to incorporate into the river unit study. While reading books, we counted how many birds/otters/fish/whatever-was-of-interest-to-my-son were on the page.
I asked my son to collect 20 rocks for the outdoor river that we dug.
You can count the amount of life stages a salmon goes through from egg to spawning salmon.
Basically, anything that you can count is perfect for a pre-kindergarten level of math.
River Unit Study Field Trip
An obvious field trip to the river was in order for this unit study. Again, being in pre-kindergarten, this field trip was packed mostly full of play. We did, however, include a lesson on river safety.
Make sure to check out rivers in your area with potential waterfalls, too! We have lots of waterfalls in the Pacific Northwest. That being said, most involve a hike and with my oldest child being four, I’ll postpone those field trips for a bit later in our homeschool journey.
It would also be a great memory to plan an overnight camping trip near the river. Just be careful to not get too close like in A Camping Spree with Mr. Magee!
Fun Song to Include for a River Unit Study
One of my son’s favorite songs is Peace Like a River. This was an easy song to put on during the day and it made more sense to my son as he learned more & more about rivers.
I wasn’t able to find many songs about rivers for kids but if you have any in mind, make sure to leave a comment below for everyone to include in their river unit study!
Educational Shows to Learn About Rivers
A great 10-minute show about river safety is The Berenstain Bears Shoot the Rapids. We watched this show before we headed out to the river.
The Berenstain Bear cubs earn their whitewater badges while Papa behaves unsafely. After the show, we discussed as a family the main safety points of the show and that Papa was lucky to come out unhurt.
My kids love the Berenstain Bears already but we were also about to tie it back to our discussion on bears at the river.
To learn more about beavers, we watched this short 2-minute video, I’m a Beaver by Brown Bag Films. This short film talked about beavers building dams, being good swimmers, and having close family-ties.
Rivers in the Bible
For our morning Bible study, we use The Preschooler’s Bible by V. Gilbert Beers. This has been a great Bible for my son and it, of course, includes some great stories with rivers.
I read my son the story of baby Moses in the river. We discussed how loving God is to protect Moses in the river, especially since baby Moses didn’t know how to swim or fend for himself.
We also read about Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan River by John the Baptist.
Save This River Unit Study Reference for Later
As you can see, this river unit study included plenty of art, which is great for not only creativity, but also fine motor skills to prepare for writing.
The study also included lots of opportunities to count and plenty of science activities. STEM subjects are always great to include in a preschool unit study, age appropriately, of course.
There was also plenty of read-alouds in this river unit study. I am a big believer of reading to your kids, thanks to the book, The Read-Aloud Family by Sarah Mackenzie.
Lastly, we were able to still pull our most important subject, the Bible, into our river unit study.
To save this study for later, use the social sharing icons at the top of this page. Thank you so much for sharing, as it is a free way for you to support my family.
