How to Plan Unit Studies (Part One)

People often ask me, “What exactly is a unit study?”

A unit study, often called thematic or topical study is simply incorporating all subject matters into the study of a given topic. Simply put, they allow a family to immerse themselves into a topic of interest by including all subjects — history, science, reading, writing, math — in the study of the topic.

So, if your son absolutely loves sports, you could do a baseball unit. You might study the history of the league, how the sport affects society, and how it has changed since its beginnings, (history, social studies, reading, research). You might write a report on your findings or read and/or write a biography on your favorite player (language arts, writing, reading). You might learn about the speed of sound when discussing why you hear the crack of the bat hitting the ball after you see the bat hit the ball (science) or how stats are figured (math).

Unit studies are an excellent choice for many home educators because they are:

*Child-led, but parent-directed
*Completely customizable
*Perfect for multi-level teaching
*Inexpensive
*Encompassing of most typical “school subjects”

There are four basic steps in putting together a unit study:

*Determining your learning objectives
*Gathering your resources
*Determining your activities
*Scheduling the unit

The first step is determining your learning objectives. What do you want your child to know when you finish the study? This can greatly impact the direction of the study, particularly if the topic is broad, and it defines what you expect to get out of the study, keeping you from aimlessly following a topic with no clear goals or end in sight.

I hear a lot of people say, “What if I don’t know enough about the topic to determine learning objectives?” Can I blame it on the public schools that this really isn’t that unusual? ;-) Not to worry. One of the most enjoyable aspects of homeschooling is learning right alongside your children. Often, you will learn more about the topic simply through the research involved in putting the unit together. Good sources of information include non-fiction picture books or short books on the subject intended for young children and timelines.

Non-fiction picture books are written for the purpose of conveying the basic information as succinctly as possible, so they will give a parent a basic foundation of knowledge on which to build, whereas timelines help you to get an overall idea of what happened when and may help you avoid overlooking important details or information.

While the library and the Internet are my favorite places to start researching, the availability of information on the Internet can be overwhelming. So, I prefer to spend my Internet research time looking for ready-made units. There are many choices out there free of charge. Sometimes, they’re just what you’re looking for as-is, but even when they’re not, they can often be made useful for your family with some “tweaking” to fit your family’s needs and interests.

The library is usually my next stop, either in person or, if your library offers it, via the online database. For example, when we did a unit on horses, I discovered the book Leonardo’s Horse while doing a search of the online catalog. It was at that point that I decided to use that as a rabbit trail to study the life and art of Leonardo da Vinci.

On the subject of library books, I’ve discovered that, very often, less is more. There are usually so many books on a given topic that it’s easy to overwhelm yourself and your children. When possible, it’s usually best to chose one spine book (a non-fiction book used as the basis for the) and one read-aloud (a book, typically fiction, that you read aloud to your children during the course of the study) for each unit, and limit the supplemental books to a few good literature and non-fiction selections.

While doing my research, I like to keep a Word document open so that I can copy and paste things I find that I’d like to use. At the top of the document, I list the unit name. Then, there is a section for listing the learning objectives that I’ve decided on and a section for library books where I list the book title and author and, since we have a couple of libraries available, the library at which the books are located.

I also have a section for activities. I used to keep this broken down by subjects, but it was often hard to figure out where to put different activities since they usually cover more than one subjects. And, since that is the whole point of doing unit studies, it kind of defeats the purpose to try to separate them anyway. So, now I just have a listing for all activities, followed by a section for field trip ideas based on the unit topic.

Typically, unit studies cover all subjects except math and phonics. These are both subjects that are taught by building upon previously learned concepts. It is very difficult to effectively teach concept-based studies within the parameters of unit studies. Instead, I prefer to teach math and phonics separately, including “fun math” within units as it applies to the topic being studied. Now that you know how to determine your learning objectives and where to find your resources, come back next week and we’ll discuss activities and scheduling your unit. Until then, here are some links to ready-made units to get you started:

The Four Wheelers

Fun School

Oklahoma Homeschool

The Homeschool Mom

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For more ramblings from this classically eclectic, slightly Charlotte Mason homeschooling mom, visit Kris at her blog, Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.