Lesson 6: Create Your Own Unit Study
Tips for Successful Unit Studies
When planning your study, make a list of all the subjects you are required to teach. Look for connections in the unit. Usually, history is easier to use in building a study. Look for fiction about the time period, find recipes for common foods, find out what scientists were around then and what they were doing and so on. You can easily mix drama, music, literature, science, math and every other subject into a history unit. If you are teaching history chronologically, simply divide the course into one month units.
If your children vary widely in age, give them entirely different reading material. Instead of projects, teens can do term papers. Assign the teenager to study one aspect of the subject and prepare a lesson plan to teach her siblings. She can also help them find answers to questions. Even if the material they are studying is different, they will still be able to talk about the subject over dinner. Since the teen will know much more, she can become a mentor to the younger children.
Keep your units simple. You will notice that I only had one really complicated part of the unit, which was raising frogs. Everything else involved reading, viewing videos (to make the animals more real) or working on projects. This left me plenty of time to help each of the three children with reading or math. When your children have special needs, they require more of your time. Don’t be SuperMom and plan unit studies worthy of a television special. The children will have just as much fun with your simple lessons as they will from your fancy ones.
Spend a great deal of time on vocabulary. When you study the same subject all month, you come across the same words again and again. It is easier if everyone learns to read them. Even first graders will learn words like ecosystem if you use them often enough.
Plan something special for the end of the unit. For this unit, a trip to a zoo would be ideal. The activity should be something that has more meaning because the children have studied the material in-depth. If no field trip is available, consider having a theme party. A unit on the Revolutionary War in the United States could conclude with a party involving costumes, period food and games, and music. Children can invite grandparents and display their projects. Your usual daily write-up may not make clear the depth of your study. If you are required to keep records, write a summary of the experience. Have the children write a journal entry detailing what they learned and enjoyed as well. Demonstrate how each subject was covered as you explored a topic in-depth.
Remember that children may begin getting tired of a subject near the end of the unit. You may want to wind down gradually, including materials that have nothing to do with the theme.
Start talking about the next unit early on, to build interest. You can tell the children what it is to build focus, or you can drop hints and wander around with mysterious packages that “of course you can’t look at. They are for next month.” Periodically ask intriguing questions as if you were talking to yourself, “I wonder if castles are…no, probably not.” “Of course, they MIGHT have been kidnapped. I wonder if we’ll ever find out?” If your children ask what you are talking about, smile mysteriously and say, “Oh, just thinking about next month’s lesson.”
Your children have been driving you crazy for years. It’s your turn now!
