Homeschool Fever

Unit Studies are based on the belief that all of life is integrated.  Dividing learning into individual subjects detatches students from their true meanings and does not give them a broad grasp of how nature interlocks together. 

Throughout every day experiences, situations children encounter overlap in their subject content.  A trip to the zoo may engage math (counting skills), money management (admission prices, cost for food), science (zoology, habitats), history (animal history), and more.  No one subject is left to stand on its own.

Unit studies build upon this principle by taking “themes” (bugs, planets, flowers) or “ideas” (habits, character traits) and then building the curriculum around that theme for a set amount of time.  Not only have many homeschooling families embraced this method wholeheartedly, but many schools are beginning to provide “integrated learning” using unit studies as well!

For example, a unit on the Sun & Moon may include nature notebooking, mathemacal calculations (size, distance), physics (movement), art (drawing shadows), time (rise & set), health (using sunscreen), history (man’s first walk on the moon), science (gravity, gases and temperature) and numerous other ideas intermingled throughout.  Field trips may include visits to the planetarium, walks at night time, observation of night time animal behavior, and even the beach.

Units typically last from 2 to 4 weeks each.  However, because of the freedom homeschooling provides, units may be as short or as long as your child’s interests dictate!  The amount of information available on any given topic is endless, and the interactivity makes it exciting to children - don’t be surprised if you spend months upon months studying a unit on the Mid Ages with your own little Knight!

The cheapest unit studies can be homemade, based on a current interest.  Just think of a theme and then check out as many fiction and non-fiction books on that theme as you can find!  Thousands upon thousands of free units are also found easily online from just a few minutes of searching on Google.  Want an easier route to unit studies?  Popular packaged unit sets include KONOS, Winter’s Promise, and FIAR.