Unit studies - time specific overviews of a defined topic or theme that incorporate multiple subject areas into the study plan.
One way to homeschool is by doing unit studies with your kiddos. It's an easy way to teach different ages at the same time, as well. There are soooo many ways to do them - they can be nature based, literature based, for specific subjects or all of your subjects, based on the child's interests or what you need to be teaching at the moment, can help foster the love of learning & researching for themselves, and on and on. The sky's the limit!
Even though I've been homeschooling for almost 17 years now, I've never officially done a unit study. Yeah....they were kind of intimidating to my organized & structured brain. Plus, what we were doing was working, so why fix something that's not broken? Until now. My oldest two children are now 18 & 20 yrs old and were very structured in their schooling. My middle two are 14 & 12 yrs old and are mostly structured, but we've had to tweak some things. My youngest two are 10 & 8 and well, let's just say that God is using them to stretch me outside of my comfort zone.
Enter unit studies. I am doing them with my younger two and I'm actually quite excited about it. Our new school year for 2024 starts the first Monday of March and I will do another blog post later, of what we are using for each kid. So we are doing the US states for our unit study for March & April and I did a video of it here:
US States Unit Study
Like I said in the video, I found most of the things to use around the house, but I did purchase the game here: Mapology puzzle & flashcards . And the printouts were from this mama here: Our Little Slice of Heaven .
There are tons of videos & websites about unit studies, but the main thing is - have fun! Ask your child what interests them and go for it. There is no right way to do it, so let go of all anxiety. You can do it for a week, three weeks, a month, or longer. Check out library books, find a field trip about it, watch YouTube videos on the subject, print off coloring sheets from online, whatever works for your family. Remember, you know your child best, make it fun, and enjoy encouraging the love of learning!
