I created these unit study guides to help in the lesson planning process of homeschooling with unit studies. They are only one part of the planning, but represent the part that take the largest amount of time because of the research involved on my part.

Concerning the links, you should check out all links prior to using them with your children. As the Internet changes daily, even in a moment, the page that was suitable for us may have been replaced by something quite undesirable when you try to use it, or it may not be there at all! If you do come across a broken link, please email me so I can fix it. Thanks!

The Planning

Download Your Free Unit Study Planning Workbook Here

Included in the file are the following worksheets:

• Topic, Importance, and Objectives Worksheet
• Sub-Topic Activity Planner
• Website Resource Worksheet
• Books Resource Worksheet
• Other Media Resource Worksheet
• Lesson Planning Worksheet
• Student Evaluation Worksheet

The Topic

The first step in planning your unit study is to decide your topic. Deciding on a topic depends on a number of things, for example: What are you interested in? What is your child interested in? (This can be tricky if you have more than one child! You may need to rotate subjects according to the tastes of each child, or tailor each subject to appeal to each child.) Are there any areas of study your child needs to complete to finish the school year objectives? What do you have access to materials for? (Some topics may be too general – you will be overloaded with choices – and some will be too specific – you may not be able to find anything at all. As a general rule, use broader topics for younger children, and get more specific as they get older.)

The Importance of your Topic

Decide why this topic is important to you and/or your children. Doing a unit on housecleaning because your kids won’t help out? (I did Then the importance of the topic is to instill in your child the importance of keeping your home neat and tidy. This will help in formulating your objectives.

Objectives

List the things you want your child to learn. They can be Knowledge of Facts; Knowledge of Abstract Concepts; and Skills.

Sub-Topic

Divide your topic into smaller bite-size topics that can be done in a few days to a week. Your list of objectives will come in really handy in this step. For Example, in a unit on Dinosaurs, you could divide the topic into sub-topics like carnivorous and herbivorous, or by dinosaur types, such as Tyrannosaurus Rex, Brontosaurus, and Diplodicus. Other sub-topics could be paleontologists, museums, and how dinosaurs fit into your religion (creation/evolution.) As you can see, there are many choices for sub-topics. You will want to print off at least one Sub-Topic Activity Worksheet for each sub-topic you have chosen, or just print off one and run down to the photocopier! One note, however. Be flexible! When researching for activities related to your sub-topics, you may come across one you missed before. Simply print off another Sub-Topic Activity Worksheet, and add it right in!

Research

Find activities, web-sites, books, videos, local events, software, the list of things you can do is virtually endless! Get creative! Use the resources that are around you. Look on your bookshelves, at your library, and online for ideas and inspiration. Ask friends and family for ideas. Bounce ideas off other homeschoolers (esp. unit study families) on message boards, in meetings, or wherever you happen to meet. Keep ideas for projects in a folder for months ahead of time.. you will appreciate it when the time comes to record them! As an activity comes your way you want to use, record it on the Sub-Topic Activity Worksheet. Remember, this is only a guide, and your actual lesson planning comes later, so be flexible! Write whatever you think you will use! (You may want to make LOTS of copies of this worksheet.. you will quickly find out how creative you really are

If you want to use one of my unit study guides as a base, a lot of the work is already done for you. Add your own personal touches, and voila! You’re ready to start lesson planning!

When you are trying to find activities to go with your unit, there are some thing you should look for:

• Handwriting Exercises (Copy Work)
  These range from one or two sentences for younger children to 1-2 pages for older ones. They are easy to find, when you use the Unit Study method. Simply pull relevant information from the books and websites you come across! These relevant passages can also be used for dictation, typing, and creative writing starters.
• Vocabulary
  Look for words that may not be familiar to your child. Keep the list small. They will tell you when they don’t understand something, and much of your vocabulary will come from that.
• Field Trips
  They are an excellent way to round out your lesson, and can range anywhere from watching a movie at Grandma’s (complete with popcorn and review worksheet to a whole vacation at the beach! Be creative. This is a good place to utilize community events and local resources (like museums.)
• History
  If you are doing a history based study (such as the American Revolution) this is built right in. Some things you may want to look for include inventors and inventions; discoveries; natural disasters; and political highlights. T
• Science
  Science based unit studies are fun and usually very hands on. Some ideas to incorporate science into other studies are: famous scientists of a certain era; discoveries; inventions; and the “how” of just about anything.
• Literature
  You should be able to find books, websites, and magazine articles on just about anything. You should try to include: children’s readers (appropriate for their reading level); Oral Reading books (books you read to them); and Technical/Reference books (mainly for your benefit, copy work, and researching skills)
• Art and Music
  Famous composers of an era; fingerplays for younger students; contemporary and classical music; paintings and photographs of your subject; and art projects are all a good way to incorporate the Arts into your lessons.
• Bible
  If you are a believer, it’s a good idea to incorporate bible passages into any study you do. Try to find what God says about the subject, even if it’s only a verse or two, and really delve into it. Your kids will thank you when they are grown. Good references are concordances, topical handbooks, and online bible searches (heaven!)
• Math
  I have found it is very difficult to incorporate the practice necessary to give a good mathematical education, so I use a prepared curriculum as a basis, and then find applications for math as added practice. For example, if my daughter is studying measuring temperature, I have her draw the average temperature in winter and the average temperature in spring in my Spring Unit.

If you want to double check to make sure you covered all the bases, you can do it several different ways. You could get different colored magic markers, and highlight each activity according to it’s subject (i.e. pink-science; blue-math; yellow-history; etc.) You could also label each activity with an abbreviation (ma-math; sc-science; hi-history.) Another way would be to put each activity in a chart, labeled for each subject. This last way can get quite cumbersome unless you use a word processor and just cut-n-paste! If you use either the chart or highlighter method, you can quickly see at a glance if you forgot a subject or two!

Resources

Keep a record! Write down the resources you want to use, and categorize them according to media type, such as books, websites, videos, software, you get the picture. Write down the Title, Author, Publisher, ISBN#, or whatever information you think you may need if someone wants to see those records! It’s a simple thing to record them first, but a real pain to look them in the aftermath, if not impossible. You can print off the Resources Worksheets to help you. (Website Resource Worksheet, Books Resource Worksheet, Other Media Resource Worksheet)

Lesson Planning

Here’s where all that hard work comes in handy! Using the worksheets you have created thus far, make daily lesson plans. I try to keep the activities to 2-3 hours, but I don’t worry too much about it. This is just a guideline for you. If I finish a little early, we may do one or two of the next day’s activities. If it took a little longer than I planned, I put the rest of the activities on the calendar for the next day, or maybe delete them entirely. Don’t feel like you are locked into this plan. It is only there to GUIDE you through your week, giving an overall view of where you should be so you don’t fall drastically behind. You will learn, with time, how to estimate how long it will take to do each activity. (I didn’t include time estimates in my guides because the project that takes Susie 1/2 an hour to do may take little Tommy 3 hours. You know your child best.) You may want to print off the Lesson Planning Worksheet, or you may already have a favorite method of lesson planning. Use whatever works for you!

Student Evaluation

Well, here it is! The final test of all your efforts. There are as many testing methods as there are styles of teaching. Choose something that does not make your child overly uncomfortable, or you may not get an accurate overview of what they have learned. For example, I find if I even mention the word ‘test’ to my eight year old, she bursts into tears and suddenly doesn’t remember a thing from the last month! So, we simply ask her what she thought of the study. Usually she will go in-depth about details I don’t even remember, let alone thought to ask her about! Find the methods that work best for you and yours. You may want to print off the Student Evaluation Worksheet to keep track of their progress.

Click here to download the Unit Study Planning Workbook.