I am definitely a hands-on projects, unit study homeschooling mama! My happiest moments in homeschooling my children have been found when I am making a mummy out of an orange and an apple during a study of Ancient Egypt or figuring out everybody's lung capacity with an experiment during a study of the Human Body. I love unit studies and hands-on projects because we can all learn together.
I have received many questions about how I go about planning unit studies. So, I am going to publish a series of posts which will go step-by-step through my planning process. As I plan out one of our unit studies for the next school year, I will post about the process.
I will start with a bit of background information about why I am continuing to take a unit study approach next year. I will also discuss a few resources which have been very helpful to me in terms of teaching me how to put together my own unit studies.
Why am I taking a unit study approach?
In our homeschool, I utilize a unit study approach for Science and History topics. Literature study and writing assignments are usually linked to our current unit study. I also try to tie in as many academic subjects as possible, usually geography and art study. So, for years now, all three of my children have completed their science and history studies together. We have all enjoyed this approach tremendously and it has worked well for our family.
Next school year I am starting my oldest child in high school level science, more specifically, Biology. So, she will be studying science independently from her brothers. This was a very hard decision for me to make but she is definitely ready for a formal science course. As well, starting high school level science in 8th grade will allow her to complete more of the Apologia science courses. Apologia currently has 7 high school science courses from which to choose! (In case you're wondering, I don't know what I'm going to do regarding science study with my boys for next school year).
Since unit studies have worked so well for our family, I didn't want to give them up completely. After much thought, and much study of curriculum catalogs, I decided that we will continue using unit studies for history next school year. Utilizing this approach, we can still:
- work together each day
- complete projects together
- listen to the same read-alouds
- take relevant field trips together
- watch educational videos and/or related movies together
All of those things make me very happy! As my oldest gets closer and closer to graduation, our time together becomes more and more precious. It is very important that our homeschool continues to be filled with moments where we are all learning together.
Our history focus next school year will be Ancient Civilizations and will be approached through unit studies. I looked and looked at various curriculum but just could not find one curriculum that was EXACTLY what I wanted for our homeschool. So, I'm planning my own unit studies (again) for next year. For the 2010-2011 school year I will have an 8th grader, 6th grader, and 4th grader.
Helpful Resources for Planning Your Own Unit Studies
I have read several books about planning unit studies and have found two books particularly helpful. When planning a unit study, I try to include as many different academic subjects as I can. The following resources have been particularly helpful in teaching me how to accomplish the goal of including many different academic subjects into whatever unit study I am planning.
- Everything You Need to Know about Homeschool Unit Studies: The Anyone Can How-To Guide by Jennifer Steward
- Booster Shot! Energize Your Homeschool with Unit Studies by Kym Wright (I wrote a review of this book here).
I'll be planning a unit study for next year about Ancient Egypt in upcoming posts. I am excited about planning the unit because it was my daughter's favorite unit study. My oldest child and my middle child will be studying Ancient Egypt again. We last studied Ancient Egypt when my daughter was in 3rd grade and my middle son was in 1st grade. My youngest was only 4 at the time so he only participated a little bit. So, although we we will be covering Ancient Egypt again, given the older ages of my children, it will definitely be a whole new study!
In my next post in this series, I will focus on Starting With Resources That You Own and Free Resources.
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