Lesson 1: Getting Your Feet Wet in a Sea of Studies
1-3 Pre-Planned Unit Studies
Now that we've seen what a unit study can or cannot be, let's look more closely at the types of studies around nowadays and how they might fit into your teaching plans.
There are several types of unit studies and some terms you should be familiar with before we begin:
Single or Complete Unit Studies and Prepared Topical Guides
This is a short term study, usually involving at least several subjects based on a unifying theme. It may last an afternoon or a week or more. The format is usually adaptable to a wide variety of ages and learning levels.
This is the form most commonly used to devise do-it-yourself studies. It may also apply to books or packages you can purchase which give you most of the background and ready-to-use material needed to get a quick unit study up and flying. These materials you can purchase are often referred to simply as unit studies.
These give you much or all of the material you'll need. If you are new to unit studies, this may be the best way to go. The Private Eye is a book packed with ready-to-use material for early grades for stand-alone studies requiring very little teacher preparation. This K-12 (kindergarten through 12th grade) resource also comes with many ideas to design more in-depth unit studies for older students. Built around careful observation of items using a magnifying glass, thinking skills are honed as well as writing skills, science, math, art, and other areas.
My Activity Cottage Field Trip: Bread Bakery unit study was of this type. The first part of the book was a conversational recipe for baking homemade bread – suitable for total novices. The discussion included suggestions for bread-related activities to do during the rising and baking periods when the dough was busy doing its own thing. The rest of the book consisted of reproducible activity pages and research ideas to expand the studies for all ages covering bread-related studies in all subject areas. Additional kits and resources were available to extend the study into all subject areas with lots of extensions to make each bread unit study a different adventure. It was intended for one-day studies to be done as often as the bread-baking urge struck.
Unit Study Guides or Outlines
Unit study guides cover a single theme for a similar range of time, but are basically an outline with a list of resources to help you research and construct your own study. They tend to be more comprehensive on a particular topic than the single unit study. Amanda Bennet's studies are along this line. Her book on Computers gives an exhaustive outline of the computer field and a large list of books, websites, and other learning materials to help you tailor a study for your crowd designed to last 5-6 weeks. All of the gathering, and compiling of background material for presentation in the form you want is left to you. These are best used by teachers who have developed unit studies before. After completing this course, you may want to try one.
Unit Study Helps or Textbooks
While the above types may seem unnecessary for creating unit studies from scratch, the unit study helps may be considered textbooks for designing your own . . .like our recommended resources for this course among others:
- How to Create Your Own Unit Study by Valerie Bendt gives an detailed discussion of the unit study approach complete with numerous examples and suggestions from a Christian perspective.
- Guide for Developing Interdisciplinary Thematic Units by Patricia L. Roberts Richard D. Kellough Richard D. Kellough is geared to school teachers; however, there are many excellent ideas to be gleaned from this well-polished, in-depth work.
- Home Learning Year by Year: What Your Child Needs to Know from Preschool through High School by Rebecca Rupp not only gives many suggestions for preparing your own unit studies but also provides a comprehensive guide to what material needs to be covered for each grade.
- Everything You Need to Know About Homeschool Unit Studies by Jennifer Steward covers the "why and how" of unit studies similar to the treatment in this course.
Do not expect to find a step-by-step blanket coverage of all the topics needed to be covered for a given school year. These sorts of unit study guides are more like exclamation points on your required topics list, enhancements of selected topics or themes, ignition keys to rev up your students desire to learn.
Unit Study Curriculums
Developing a unit study for your full curriculum is an undertaking beyond the scope of this course. There are several excellent curriculums which incorporate many or all subjects into a thematic year's worth of studying.
Five in a Row is a curriculum for early education covering all subjects but phonics. It is a literature-based unit study approach which contains all the research material you need within its books. You only need to buy or borrow the favorite children's books which each week is based on.
The Weaver Curriculum is created to cover most material for grades K-6 currently. It is a unit study-based curriculum, covering all subjects but math and some areas of language arts, It uses the Bible as a framework.
Far Above Rubies is a Bible-based 4-year high school general education program to prepare young women to be housewives and mothers. It consists of 20 "units" or five a year. Each unit covers reading & literature, composition, Science, Math & personal economics, cultural studies, practical arts, creative/performing arts, and health /physical fitness, all tied together with the Biblical wrapping and a Proverbs 31 ribbon. All subject areas are covered although supplemental material is needed to construct the lessons.
Blessed Is the Man is a similar program for boys.
How do you decide which, if any, of these prepared unit studies is best for you? You'll always want to keep in mind how your children learn best. Each individual child has unique preferences, ways they like to study and ways they don't. The beauty of designing your own studies is that they will each get what works best. These are the same sort of qualities you'll seek out in a prepared study. So, it's best to look through the material in advance if you can. Also, check with other educators you know to see what they have used for recommendations.
For many unit study products libraries may have all you need. Conventions present much of this material, a great place to research what's out there. If, like our family, you cannot get out to check, many catalogues have great descriptions to help select. The creator's websites often add more information. Several links are listed in the Resources Section.
