The Curriculum Choice

Designing Your Own Unit Study

Philosophies, Unit study resources 1 Response »

Aug 022009

This is a follow up to an article I wrote about unit studies two weeks ago. If you’re unfamiliar with unit studies and want to learn more about them, I suggest reading the first article before you delve into this one.

As I mentioned in my last article, designing your own unit study does not have to be a scary prospect. You know your students’ personalities, learning styles, and needs better than anyone, so that makes you the ideal candidate for putting together a unit for your students. The process does not have to be complicated, although it will require some of your time. When you are finished, you’ll see your investment pay off, as you’ll have a tailor-made study that your family can enjoy exploring together.

This is typically how I go about planning our unit studies:
1. Choose a topic.

Follow your students’ interests. Ask your children what they would like to learn about. If that is too open-ended for them, or you want to have more control over which topics you cover during your school year, then give your students a list to choose from. Obviously, in a family with multiple children this can get tricky. The point of unit studies is not to have three different ones going at the same time. (I guess you could, but personally, I couldn’t pull it off.) One of the benefits of unit studies is that all of your students can be included and you can learn about the same topic together as a family. So, when more than one child is involved in choosing a topic, you have to either vote on a favorite topic, take turns choosing a topic, or use some other democratic process in order to keep people happy.

Choose the topic yourself. If you do this, I encourage you to choose with an eye toward capturing your students‘ interest. Remember that a great benefit of unit studies is their usefulness in nurturing your child’s love of learning. Take advantage of that benefit!

If your home school group is going on a certain field trip or you are a planning a family vacation that will include an educational stop, then you could do a unit that encompasses that particular place. For example, if you’re headed for Cape Kennedy, Florida, then your trip would be extra meaningful if you studied Space Exploration or the Solar System. If possible, try to get a good start on your unit or complete it before your trip. This increases the educational value of your visit because you and your children have gained some prior knowledge of the subject before you arrive. Be sure to check the website of wherever you’ll be visiting. Many places have teacher sections on their websites with activities and lesson plans that you can download for free and use in your study.

2. Gather your resources.

Use your local library. Do a keyword or subject search of your library’s online catalog. You can narrow your search by including “juvenile literature” along with “solar system” (or whatever your chosen topic is) in the search field. You’re not only looking for non-fiction books but also quality children’s fiction that will appeal to the different ages you are teaching. Don’t worry about checking out too many books. You can always return the ones that you don’t find useful. Also, some libraries carry special resource or activity kits to correlate with certain topics or children‘s books. Ask your librarian if these are available at your library. And don’t forget to take advantage of inter-library loan services.

Google your topic. My searches often look something like, “solar system elementary unit” or “solar system second grade lesson plans” or “solar system home school unit” or “solar system children’s books”. You’ll come up with ideas for learning objectives, activities, book recommendations, projects, and more.

Scan your shelves. See if you have any books, materials, or other resources pertaining to your unit. When I was preparing a unit on weather, I looked in my book closet to find an entire book of weather activities I had forgotten about. During our gardening unit this spring, I pulled out a “Root-View” Science Kit that someone had given the kids as a Christmas gift. It ended up being the focal point of our study.

3. Plan the unit.

As you peruse your materials, jot down notes while keeping the following in mind:

(I often use this form to organize my ideas – page 1 and page 2. )

Learning Goals: Decide what you want your students to learn about the topic. Ask yourself “the 5 W’s and an H” – who, what, when, where, why, and how. For example, in a unit on the Solar System, some goals might be to learn when God created the solar system, the names of the planets and their order, the life cycle of a star, the definitions of rotate and revolve, the names of three famous astronauts and their missions, a timeline of the space race, the purpose of the space race, and the definition of a sphere.

Incorporate as many of the subject areas into your unit as possible. In the learning goals listed above, I covered science, history, and math. Writing could easily be included by having your student write a short biographical sketch of one of the astronauts or a creative paragraph about your student’s imaginary trip to the moon. Reading is the backbone of all of our units. I do lots of read-alouds with everyone, but I also make sure that my reader has the opportunity to read at least one or two easy books about our topic. (During our unit studies we continue our regular math and reading curriculum.)

How your students will learn the material. You have endless choices, so I’ll share some of our favorites: reading living books (quality literature) and discussing what we‘ve read, doing science experiments, using a timeline, doing hands-on projects, and taking field trips. Remember that activities do not have to be elaborate or labor-intensive for Mom in order for learning to take place.

If you want your students to demonstrate what they’ve learned, how will that be accomplished? Again, your choices are endless: put together a lapbook or notebook, give an oral presentation, write a report, cook a meal, write a play and act it out, write a poem or a song, narrate a story, make a model, and the list goes on.

4. Schedule it.

I decide how long I want to spend on the unit, and then sit down with my lesson plan book to schedule which activities we’ll do when, making sure that there is some sort of logic to the order of my plan. (For example, you would probably want to learn the names and order of the planets before covering how many moons Jupiter has.) Even though I like to have a plan, I also try to remain flexible and willing to go down a rabbit trail every now and then.

I have a few more unit study odds and ends to share with you, so I’ll wrap up this series with a third and final article in the near future. Thanks for sticking with me!

Written by Shannon, who can be found blogging about her family’s unit study adventures at Song of My Heart.

The Unit Study Approach: An Adventure in Learning

Philosophies, Uncategorized, Unit study resources 10 Responses »

Jul 172009

When I think back to my elementary school days, images of workbooks, purple mimeograph sheets (remember those?), and textbooks cloud my memory. I attended a traditional school where I gained a solid education in the three R’s. However, despite my strong phonetic skills, I abhorred reading. My penmanship was beautiful, but I didn’t compose a creative paragraph until junior high. I could recite my math facts, but they had no real life application as far as I was concerned. And I cannot recall a shred of the science and history contained between the covers of those numerous textbooks. Against this vague backdrop of pencils, papers, and chalkdust, there are two things that stand out vividly in my mind – Mrs. Shirley Campbell and Georgia History.

Mrs. Campbell was my third grade teacher. In her generation of educators, she was an innovator. Before hands-on activities were in vogue, she had her students churning butter and learning photography. Before outdoor classrooms were all the rage, she took us outside to gather leaves rather than merely look at pictures of them in a book. Before the term unit study was even coined, she plunged us into a year-long exploration of our state’s history. Simply put, she was a teacher ahead of her time.

Because of her desire to make learning a living, breathing experience for her students, I developed a curiosity and deep interest in the topics that she covered, particularly Georgia History. She engaged us in hands-on activities, assigned projects that encouraged creativity, read wonderful stories to us, and took us on countless field trips around the state. She fanned the flame of learning in me, and thirty years later, I continue to be a lover of history.

When I set out to homeschool our children three years ago, one of my main goals was to ignite a love of learning in them. I knew that for us, unit studies would be a wonderful way to accomplish this goal. I first heard about the unit study approach when I was an education major and immediately recognized it as Mrs. Campbell’s method for teaching her third graders. As a new teacher I decided to use unit studies with my students, and I saw how they were drawn into the topics we studied and how they enjoyed what we were learning. It was only natural for me to continue using this approach when I began homeschooling my own children.

What Is A Unit Study?
In a unit study you take one topic and study it in depth, exploring all aspects of it across the curriculum. For example, a unit study on Outer Space would delve not only into the science aspect of the topic, but also into the history, math, reading, writing, music, and art surrounding it. As a result, the student begins to see the topic as a big picture, not just the individual parts that make up the whole.

Advantages of Unit Studies

They provide a rich learning experience. The students live with the topic for several days, weeks, or even months. By the end of the study, they truly understand and retain the material. It is theirs.

They are an efficient and cost-effective way to teach multiple ages. The whole family joins in the fun of learning about the same topic, so you don’t have to purchase individual textbooks and workbooks for each grade level.

A topic can be covered as in depth as you’d like and can be tailored to fit your students’ interests and needs.

Unit studies can be child-directed or teacher-directed. For delight-directed families, the study can be fueled by the child’s interests. However, if your homeschool is more teacher-directed, you can choose the material that will be covered during the unit.

They can make all of the curriculum areas more enjoyable for students. For example, if your child is not a fan of history, but he loves science, then he might enjoy learning about the history of the space race as part of a unit on the Solar System.

They can ignite a love of learning even in the most reluctant learner.

They can make use of quality literature (living books).

You can incorporate all kinds activities, materials, and projects into a unit study. Cooking, art, dressing in costume, drama, music, games, craft projects, living books, lapbooking/notebooking, and field trips are a few that we have enjoyed. For all of you Charlotte Mason families out there, there are countless unit studies into which you can incorporate nature, artist, and composer study.

They encourage creativity and problem-solving.

Unit studies are a wonderful way for families to make fun memories together!

In my next post I’ll talk about how you can put together your own unit study. Now don’t let that idea scare you! First of all it’s not as difficult as you may think. Plus it can be a lot of fun. However, please know that there are plenty of wonderful unit studies out there that have already been written for you! All you have to do is choose one and follow the lessons and activities the author has laid out for you.

I’ll leave you with a couple of great resources to check out:
Homeschool Share - I’ll talk more about this wonderful treasure trove of free unit studies in my next article.

Amanda Bennett’s Unit Studies – Mrs. Bennett is the queen of unit studies. She offers helpful tips about using unit studies, as well as some fabulous units that you can purchase.

Written by Shannon, who enjoys unit study adventures with her three children. She blogs about their homeschooling journey at Song of My Heart.

Evan-Moor Maps

Charlotte Mason, Classical, Geography, History, Unit study resources 3 Responses »

May 292009

The Evan-Moor company has become one of my favorites over the past couple of years. Even though they don’t write curriculum specific to homeschoolers, I’ve found that much of their material is suitable for those of us who teach at home. One of my most recent Evan-Moor treasures is called The World: Reference Maps and Forms. Why do I love this so much? Being a mom who enjoys designing her own lessons, this book provides me with 92 maps covering the entire world that I can find and copy at a moment’s notice!

What will you find in the book?

Maps are included of all seven continents, with North America getting some extra special attention on each of its countries. For each section you will find a labeled and unlabeled political map and physical map, as well as a blank map. There are also maps that break the continents (and North American countries) into regions.

Many of the maps include places for a child to label things like countries, rivers and oceans, while other maps are just plain old maps. In other words, you can choose between a map that is already labeled for the child to color certain areas, a blank map that the child must label themselves, or a map with a specific exercise in labeling.

Before each continent’s maps, there is an introduction page giving all sorts of information about the continent. All the countries are listed in alphabetical order telling you the exact number of countries that can be found there. A small section of facts about area, population, elevation and a few other tidbits are given as well.

Also included is a section on the world where you’ll find maps teaching hemispheres, latitude and longitude, Robinson Projection, oceans, and more.

What do the maps look like?

Each page is uncluttered in black and grey print on white paper. A simple border goes around all the maps for visual interest and a small world or country map is included with all focused maps to help you see where the particular area fits in “the big picture”. For example, if you are working on an activity about West Africa, there will be a small map of the entire continent of Africa with West Africa shaded in. This helps you to know where in the world you are.

Simple keys and/or a compass rose are included when necessary. All the maps are clearly labeled at the top, so no one is ever confused about what is in front of them. For instance, a map of Russia will say, “Northern Asia: Russia”.

Besides maps, in the back of the book you will find a “Continent in Review” form which can be used for any continent as a mini-report. To review some geographical terms, a crossword puzzle and word search are included, too.

What’s my final conclusion?

If you choose to work through the book map by map, your child will gain a vast amount of knowledge about mapping, the world, and its places. If you choose to only use the book as a reference to copy particular maps when you need them (as I do), your children will be greeted with a very clear map that will be a great addition to your particular lesson. In this case, although the book is recommended for 3rd through 6th grades, I think the maps could be used for a much wider age range.

You can choose either a printed copy or an e-book version for $16.99, which I believe to be a very fair price. To see for yourself, I encourage you to visit here to see sample pages of the book.

Visit www.evan-moor.com to find other great resources for your homeschool.

Written by Cindy West, a Charlotte Mason, Classical, Unit Study inspired of mom of three from KY. You can also find her at Our Journey Westward.

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