Unit Studies Questions

[MrzP427]

What kind of Unit studies have you done or are planning on doing?

How long do you typically work on a specific unit? TIA

[UmmKira]

I've been looking at Five in a Row because I like the unit studies concept, especially for younger kids, but I feel like my brain is just overloaded trying to put it together myself!

[MrzP427]

Originally Posted by UmmKira I've been looking at Five in a Row because I like the unit studies concept, especially for younger kids, but I feel like my brain is just overloaded trying to put it together myself!

Do u work on it for a couple days, a week, a couple weeks? Just trying to figure it out. Thanks

[MrzP427]

Bump

[cedavid2011]

I think the beauty of unit studies is that you can tailor them to your needs, ages, grades, etc. For example if we are doing a unit on chickens we can read books about them. Maybe a couple of fun stories like Henny Penny and some non-fiction about the chicken life cycle or husbandry (on their age level). My Pre-K and K kids might do coloring pages, use eggs as math manipulatives, practice writing a few related words or letters. My older students might do a little more reading and make a lapbook about what they learned. You could make a spelling list of some of the words you learned in one of the books. If I had a high schooler they could do a research paper on a specific breed of chicken and then incubate and hatch some eggs for science. I think unit studies take more creativity and planning on the teacher's part. We have been using MFW (K-2nd) for the last 3 years because I needed the instructions for me, but now that I am feeling more confident in my abilities to put some things together we are going to use Galloping the Globe which has unit studies based on countries. It gives you some ideas and a few workbook pages for each country and then suggested reading ideas, but I get to pick and choose what I want to use and how to structure it. I think we'll spend about 2 weeks per country and it may take us 2-3 years to complete the whole world. We will still use Math-U-See and keep working on some phonics to improve/learn reading, but everything else will be incorporated in with the country we are learning about. I hope this helps.

[MrzP427]

Originally Posted by cedavid2011 I think the beauty of unit studies is that you can tailor them to your needs, ages, grades, etc. For example if we are doing a unit on chickens we can read books about them. Maybe a couple of fun stories like Henny Penny and some non-fiction about the chicken life cycle or husbandry (on their age level). My Pre-K and K kids might do coloring pages, use eggs as math manipulatives, practice writing a few related words or letters. My older students might do a little more reading and make a lapbook about what they learned. You could make a spelling list of some of the words you learned in one of the books. If I had a high schooler they could do a research paper on a specific breed of chicken and then incubate and hatch some eggs for science. I think unit studies take more creativity and planning on the teacher's part. We have been using MFW (K-2nd) for the last 3 years because I needed the instructions for me, but now that I am feeling more confident in my abilities to put some things together we are going to use Galloping the Globe which has unit studies based on countries. It gives you some ideas and a few workbook pages for each country and then suggested reading ideas, but I get to pick and choose what I want to use and how to structure it. I think we'll spend about 2 weeks per country and it may take us 2-3 years to complete the whole world. We will still use Math-U-See and keep working on some phonics to improve/learn reading, but everything else will be incorporated in with the country we are learning about. I hope this helps.

Thanks Where would be a good place to get different unit studies ideas?

[mommy2abigail]

HomeschoolShare.com has free unit study ideas!

[cedavid2011]

Originally Posted by mommy2abigail HomeschoolShare.com has free unit study ideas!

This was going to be my first suggestion too. If you just type free unit studies into a search engine you will get a bunch of things. Lapbook sites could give you ideas too.

[MrzP427]

Originally Posted by mommy2abigail HomeschoolShare.com has free unit study ideas!

Oh thanks so much.

[Kiliki]

I am so very much loving this idea! Thanks for starting this thread! And to those who contributed to it!