Lighthouses Unit Study for Homeschool Families

Get swept away with a love for lighthouses and the sea when your children use this Lighthouses Unit Study for families homeschooling through the summer.

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Lighthouses English Language Arts

Family Read Aloud

The Light at Tern Rock by Julia L. Sauer

Read Aloud Living Picture Books

Select a few of these suggested books:

Abbie Against the Storm: The True Story of a Young Heroine and a Lighthouse by Marcia K. Vaughan

The Lighthouse Keeper’s Daughter by Arielle North Olson

The Sea Chest by Toni Buzzeo

The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge by Hildegarde H. Swift

Hello Lighthouse by Sophie Blackall

The Lighthouse by Tracie Blom

Birdie’s Lighthouse by Deborah Hopkinsin

Gracie the Lighthouse Cat by Ruth Brown

Independent Readers

Beginning Readers

Select one of these:

The Lighthouse Children by Syd Hoff

Keep the Lights Burning Abbie by Connie Roop

Middle Elementary

The Storm (The Lighthouse Family series) by Cynthia Rylant

Upper Elementary

Select one of these:

The Lighthouse Mystery (Boxcar Children) by Gertrude Chandler Warner

Letters from the Lighthouse by Emma Carrol

Middle-High School Level

Select one of these:

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf. I recommend the audiobook version of this one as it can be a tough book to read, but it is considered a classic of American literature.

The Lighthouse Keeper’s Daughter: A Novel by Hazel Gaynor A fictionalized story based upon a real person, Grace Darling

For Moms

The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman Really good book, but should come with trigger warnings re: miscarriages and adoption

Poetry

Read the poem, The Lighthouse by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The rocky ledge runs far into the sea,
And on its outer point, some miles away,
The Lighthouse lifts its massive masonry,
A pillar of fire by night, of cloud by day.

Even at this distance I can see the tides,
Upheaving, break unheard along its base,
A speechless wrath, that rises and subsides
In the white lip and tremor of the face.

And as the evening darkens, lo! how bright,
Through the deep purple of the twilight air,
Beams forth the sudden radiance of its light
With strange, unearthly splendor in the glare!

Not one alone; from each projecting cape
And perilous reef along the ocean’s verge,
Starts into life a dim, gigantic shape,
Holding its lantern o’er the restless surge.

Like the great giant Christopher it stands
Upon the brink of the tempestuous wave,
Wading far out among the rocks and sands,
The night-o’ertaken mariner to save.

And the great ships sail outward and return,
Bending and bowing o’er the billowy swells,
And ever joyful, as they see it burn,
They wave their silent welcomes and farewells.

They come forth from the darkness, and their sails
Gleam for a moment only in the blaze,
And eager faces, as the light unveils,
Gaze at the tower, and vanish while they gaze.

The mariner remembers when a child,
On his first voyage, he saw it fade and sink;
And when, returning from adventures wild,
He saw it rise again o’er ocean’s brink.

Steadfast, serene, immovable, the same
Year after year, through all the silent night
Burns on forevermore that quenchless flame,
Shines on that inextinguishable light!

It sees the ocean to its bosom clasp
The rocks and sea-sand with the kiss of peace;
It sees the wild winds lift it in their grasp,
And hold it up, and shake it like a fleece.

The startled waves leap over it; the storm
Smites it with all the scourges of the rain,
And steadily against its solid form
Press the great shoulders of the hurricane.

The sea-bird wheeling round it, with the din
Of wings and winds and solitary cries,
Blinded and maddened by the light within,
Dashes himself against the glare, and dies.

A new Prometheus, chained upon the rock,
Still grasping in his hand the fire of Jove,
It does not hear the cry, nor heed the shock,
But hails the mariner with words of love.

“Sail on!” it says, “sail on, ye stately ships!
And with your floating bridge the ocean span;
Be mine to guard this light from all eclipse,
Be yours to bring man nearer unto man!”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Writing

Creative Writing

Use the Lighthouses Creative Writing worksheet for Lower Elementary from the Free Resource Library . Have your students write down (or narrate for you to write) a story about a lighthouse.

Use the Lighthouses Creative Writing worksheet for Upper Elementary from the Free Resource Library for your older students to write a story about a lighthouse.

Grammar

Copywork and narration are a real-life way to work on grammar skills. Use the FREE Lighthouses Copywork and Narration pages from the Free Resource Library. These Copywork and Narration pages come in 3 levels for Early Elementary, Upper Elementary, and Middle-High School.

After your child has written the sentence from dictation, let her see the original to check it with her work. Have her correct her work, so that she knows how it should look.

Then have him re-write the selection in his very best handwriting.

Lighthouses STEAM

Science

Watch this video explaining how lighthouses work from Ticket to Know. This video also explains Fresnel lenses, night marking and day marking along with other important concepts.

Early Learners: Complete the science experiment, How Does Erosion Affect a Lighthouse? from Around the Kampfire.

Upper Elementary: Lighthouses are located all over the world and are all unique. Have your students use the Lighthouses Cards from the Free Resource Library to discover more about each of these 6 lighthouses.

Have them use the Lighthouse Digest database or just google using the information given and maybe a color or other characteristic to find out details of the lighthouse on each card. Have them write on the back of each card, the lighthouse’s location plus one unique characteristic of that lighthouse. For example, Cape Hatteras Lighthouse is the tallest traditional lighthouse in the United States.

Middle and High School: Learn about light refraction and using Snell’s Law in this physics lesson from The Physics Classroom or watch this video from Bozeman Science. You can also do this easy light refraction demonstration to convince your younger siblings of your amazing superpowers.

Technology

Augustin-Jean Fresnel (1788-1827) was a French civil engineer and physicist known for inventing the compound lens used in many lighthouses. He was the son of an architect and is also credited for furthering the concept of wave theory of light.

Learn more about Fresnel and about the Fresnel lens in this video from Ecole Polytechnique where Fresnel was a student in the 18th century.

Find out how the Fresnel lens works in more detail with this video from St. Augustine Lighthouse & Maritime Museum

Engineering

All ages: See who can construct the tallest lighthouse that will support a battery-operated tea light using only straws and tape. Have them complete the Lighthouse Design & Construction Planning Worksheet in the Free Resource Library to plan out and critique their designs.

Early Learners: Have your kids become more familiar with the many varied styles of lighthouses with the Lighthouses Memory Game included in the Printables Pack.

Upper Elementary: Most modern and large ships use electronic chart display and information systems as well as depth/echo sounders (SONAR) to help them avoid rocky shores and other navigational dangers so they may not rely on lighthouses as much as in the past. Dolphins use a type of sonar to communicate, and so do bats. NOAA cartographers use sonar to map the bottom of the ocean floor for mariners. Learn more about SONAR with this video from Khan.

Middle & High School: Most lighthouses are built on the edge of land, on large cliffs, or even on rocks in the water. Lighthouse engineers had to come up with ways to design lighthouses that would withstand extreme weather conditions and be built in difficult locations.

One of these engineers was George G. Meade, who would later go on to become a general in the U.S. Army and defeat General Lee in the American Civil War.

Another famous lighthouse engineer was Robert Stevenson, who constructed the lighthouse at Bell Rock, off the coast of Scotland.

Research one of these lighthouse engineers to learn more about their life’s work and the challenges they faced. Use the Lighthouse Engineering Worksheet from the Free Resource Library.

George G. Meade

Robert Stevenson

If your students are especially interested in the architectural aspects of lighthouses, they can find architectural drawings of many lighthouses here.

Math

Early Learners: Lighthouses have a lot of steps inside them that go around in a spiral. If the staircase has 10 steps to the next level and there are 6 levels, how many steps would you have to climb? Count by 10s to find out the answer.

Early Elementary: Nautical miles are different than miles measured on land. A nautical mile is 1852 meters. A regular mile is 1609 meters. How much longer is a nautical mile?

Upper Elementary: Read this from How Stuff Works to learn about knots or nautical miles. A nautical mile roughly equals one minute of latitude. If 1.150779448 miles equal 1 nautical mile (nm), how many miles is 482 nautical miles?

Middle & High School: Watch this video from BC Lighthouse Keeper about the formula used to calculate how far the lighthouse light will shine until it hits the horizon.

Arts

Practical Arts

Learn how to tie a maritime knot. The Bowman’s Knot is the most common. Use these directions from Katamarans; and for the lefties in your life, use these directions from CaptnMike.

Learn how to light and care for an oil lamp.

Applied Arts

Design “day marks for your lighthouse. Use the Lighthouse Day Marking Worksheet from the Free Resource Library as a template, if desired.

Fine Arts

J. M. W. Turner’s oil of the Bell Rock Lighthouse off the coast of County Angus, Scotland.

Lighthouses History

The Lighthouse at Alexandria (called the Pharos of Alexandria) is the oldest known lighthouse in the world. It was destroyed by a series of earthquakes over the centuries.

In Spain stands the oldest intact, existing lighthouse in the world, the Tower of Hercules. Learn more about it here.

Use the Lighthouses Report Forms in the Free Resource Library to have your students write a simple report about either the history of lighthouses or about a particular lighthouse. The Lighthouses Report Forms come in 3 levels to meet your student’s needs.

Use these recommended resources for your research:

On August 7, 1789, Congress passed the Lighthouse Act, the first public works program in the United States.

This video from BC Lighthouse Keeper is a comprehensive overview of lighthouse history.

A Day in the Life of a Colonial Lighthouse Keeper (Library of Living and Working in Colonial Times) by Laurie Krebs

Learn about the 8 oldest lighthouses in history at Oldest.org

Watch this full episode of Modern Marvels from the History channel on the history of Lighthouses.

Family Movie

Pete’s Dragon 1977 G Available on most streaming services, including Disney+ and Amazon Prime

Lighthouse Keeping 1946 G A Disney short featuring Donald Duck battling a pelican to keep his lighthouse lit. Watch it on YouTube.

Captain January 1924 G An old silent film (have your kids ever watched one of those?) Watch on YouTube

The Lightkeepers 1999 PG A sweet movie that is actually appropriate and enjoyable for the whole family! Here’s a movie review from a Christian perspective if you aren’t familiar with the film.Streaming on Prime, Tubi and other services.

The Light Between Oceans 2016 PG-13 This additional movie about Lighthouses is really good (and is a tear-jerker) but I would only recommend it for older teens and parents because of the subject matter of miscarriage and adoption. It’s based on the book of the same title. Here’s a review from Plugged In in case you want to learn more before you watch it.

Extras for Your Lighthouses Unit Study

List of the U.S. Coast Guard‘s Lighthouses

List of the National Park Services Lighthouses

Webcam views of 10 lighthouses in Maine from Maine Lights Today

More Homeschooling Fun through the Summer Ideas

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