Homeschooling with Unit Studies

If you’ve ever studied education or taught in a traditional school you’ve likely watched and studied how kids learn. You’ve probably noticed this in your own children as you homeschool as well. How do they take in knowledge and then assimilate it to learn something new? One of the key factors necessary for kids to learn new material is for them to make connections to it. They need to connect new information to information they already have and to real life experiences that they’ve had.

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                          Homeschooling with Unit Studies Can Help! 

For homeschooling families, unit studies are a great way to provide these connections and help kids to learn. A unit study takes a topic- it can be a topic of interest, a historical time period, a good book- and then introduces skills from all curricula areas in relation to this topic. Using unit studies in your homeschool has many benefits including being able to teach multiple ages of kids in one study and providing hands-on opportunities for learning.

So in a unit study about farms, young children might count farm animals for math, learn about animals on the farm and their habitats for science, dictate a story about their favorite farm animal for language arts, and read a book about the importance of farms and farmers for social studies. Because all of their learning centers around the main topic- farms- kids are able to make connections to previous learning and to life experiences more easily. And so they learn.

Even if you don’t choose to use unit studies as your primary homeschool curriculum, you can incorporate them into your homeschool in a variety of ways. Here are three ways that you can use unit studies in your homeschool. And you can also pick up a free Create Your Own Unit Study Planner here to help you create your own homeschool unit studies.

Use holiday-themed unit studies around the holiday seasons.

Happy homeschool memories can be formed while you’re doing Christmas-themed unit studies together as a family during the holiday season. There are a variety of unit studies from Christmas Around the World which can focus on geography and learning about countries and cultures to unit studies about the signs and traditions of Christmas. These holiday unit studies are great because they provide an opportunity for the whole family to learn together.

If you use a world history cycle in your homeschool, these unit studies based on holidays can be great for covering specifically American history. In the summer, try unit studies that cover Independence Day. In the spring, use unit studies about Memorial Day. In the fall, try Thanksgiving themed unit studies. Each of these studies can allow you to explore American history as well as incorporate learning from other curricula areas.

Holiday unit studies are a great way to take school “vacations” around the holidays while still doing some educational activities and sticking to a daily routine- which always helps when you have multiple kids of different ages running around.

Use unit studies built around your favorite kids’ books.

Some of the best unit studies can be those that focus around books you’re reading. When you can use the subject matter in a great book as a jumping off point for learning history, science, math, and more, kids can really make those learning connections, and it makes learning so much more fun.

Literature unit studies that feature historical fiction let you dive deep into an interesting historical time period. Literature unit studies that feature allegorical fiction books provide opportunities for lots of great discussion as you take time to really look at the symbolism of the story. Older classics for kids are great because you can use them to look at the time period that the story was written. For example while reading Charlotte’s Web you can take a look at what farms and county fairs were like during the 1950s when the book was written.

Even simple books written for very young kids can provide ways to link to cross-curricular learning. Are you reading Brown Bear, Brown Bear? Take some time to explore colors with your little ones (art) or learn about the animals that are pictured in the story (science). Are you reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar? You can bring in the concepts of time, days of the week, counting, and more.

Do you love using great literature in your homeschool? You can see a collection of some of  literature unit studies here.

Use unit studies to explore interests that your children have.

Unit studies are also a great way to capitalize on interests that your children have by using topics of interest to them as a jumping off point for learning academic skills. When the kids are interested in a topic, they’re more likely to give attention to and focus on what they’re learning.

Unit studies on horses, on the Middle Ages, on the Vikings, on dogs- all of these can interest kids who really want to learn about those topics. And while kids learn about that topics they already have an interest in, they don’t even realize they are learning math and history and science and more.

It’s easy to find unit studies on a variety of topics or built on great books that you’re reading with the kids. But it’s also very simple for you to create your own unit studies with the free Create Your Own Unit Study planner. You can use it to make topical or literature-based unit studies. Then you can use unit studies in your homeschool to make learning fun and help kids make connections with what they’re learning.

 

 Leah Courtney is a child of God, wife, mother, and homeschooling mama. She’s homeschooled four children since birth, and is now the mother of two homeschool graduates. In her (very rare) free time, Leah loves to read and color complicated pictures while listening to audio books. You can find her blogging at As We Walk Along the Road where she’s posting literature-based homeschooling resources and encouragement for other homeschooling mamas.