Homechool unit studies have been a fun way for us to engage as a family and study together. I don’t always use them, but when I do, the kids are thrilled, and so is my budget.
Unit studies can be a very low-cost homeschool curriculum option, especially if you use free unit studies or create your own. All you need is a plan, some great books, and a little bit of time.
While I do put together my own studies, if I can’t find one I need online and I’m short on time or motivation, I ask my friend, Tina Franks, to put one together for me. Tina is awesome at unit studies – especially ones around literature or when you want lapbooking pages too.
When she offers a lapbooking or unit study class at her home, I send my kids – cuz they *love* Ms. Tina and her three kids, so much so they love to volunteer to go “help out” Ms. Tina.
In fact, here’s a picture of Tina and Kate taken here in March 2011 when K was helping Tina out for a few hours.
Tina Franks and Kate, March 2011
So when I got this idea to do this homeschool unit study series, that we are about to embark on, I asked Tina to help me out with it.
So, on Mondays for the next 7 weeks, Tina will be guest blogging here, with a primer on how to write your own homeschool unit studies from scratch. Starting with:
Before we can talk about writing our own unit studies, we should make sure we all know what they are. So what is a unit study, anyway?
Simply put, a unit study is the cross-curricular study of a specific theme or topic. A topic, such as snow, is thoroughly explored and expanded upon from all angles, incorporating many subject areas (art, music, applied math, language arts, literature, science, social studies, character, writing, etc.).
Unit studies can be adapted for any age range or combination of age ranges. They can be short-lived or lengthy. They can be highly structured or left up to the student to expand upon.
There is a great deal of freedom in learning through unit studies. Let’s start at the beginning…
Shannon’s Note: One of my favorite things about homeschool unit studies is that there is flexibility, flexibility to educate across multiple ages, like we are doing with our geology unit study, and the flexibility to delve as deep or as shallow as you need or want, or have time for. The kids will often dive much deeper on their own time and accord if something catches their interest.
**UPDATE**
Tina is about to start a new, huge monster of a unit study, and she volunteered to let you and I follow along as she creates it. This is the perfect opportunity to learn exactly how she goes about putting together a study.
Interested? Just enter your email address below and we’ll send you Tina’s updates whenever they are ready!
Homeschool record keeping is my least favorite thing about homeschooling. I’m just not great with repetitive day-t0-day processes, so I tend to gravitate towards the easiest homeschool record keeping techniques that work for me, and still satisify any potential homeschool requirements we might run into.
Here’s one tip on how K keeps her own daily homeschool log and what I do that makes record keeping easier for her.
Enjoy!
…Shannon
P.S. Do you have any quick and easy tips for for homeschool record keeping? Please share!
First of all, thank you for providing the link to the Geology curriculum you’re using with your kids. I’m very interested in trying it with my own homeschool high school aged son. Can you tell me what it consists of? Is it a textbook? Are there lesson plans or tests? And finally, about how much time are you planning on devoting to the course? I’m trying to find out if it would count as a full credit or half on his high school transcript.
I appreciate any help you can provide. Sort of new to the whole homeschooling thing, and a bit overwhelmed.
First, Thank you Michael for the question. I’ll try to explain things in writing below, but if you have the ability to watch it, here’s a video review I did today for you, answering the questions and showing you exactly what Connect the Thoughts Geology is, and what you need for it.
What does it consist of?
Connect the Thoughts Geology is a complete secular high school (ages 11 and up) geology curriculum written for the student, and designed for indepedent study. It consists of 78 lessons, about 90-100 hours of study. Each lesson follows the Connect the Thoughts study methodology, which is a little bit different than most curriculums.
For each lesson, there’s
vocabulary for the reading
geography for the reading, if needed
hands-on exercises and experiments to help concrete the concepts
25-50 word writing prompts or questions to further concrete the concepts (I use these as discussion questions)
Overall, this is a thorough exploration of geology, originally written to give the students the education they needed to be well-educated without going on further to college. So it uses and covers materials that would be covered in more advanced geology classes, but with a study methodology that works well for students as young as 11 to do indepentently. (I’m adpating it for students age 7, 9, 11, and 13)
Topics wise it covers:
What is Geology
Plate tectonics
How Earth was made (conventional view point, including Panagea)
Minerals
Rocks
The interior of our planet
Earthquakes and how they’re measured
Volcanoes
Weathering and Erosion
Geology and history (conventional viewpoint)
Geology in our everyday lives
I do need emphasize that this is a secular geology curriculum. It covers conventional explanations of how the earth was created and developed. It does *not* include a creationist view of how the earth was formed; that’s up the parents to provide and compare and contrast with their students. For me, I’m good with this, but if you aren’t, then you will either need to skip these section of the course or look for a geology course that covers it from a creationist view point.
Is it a textbook? Are there lesson plans or tests?
Many of the Connect the Thoughts courses including the textbook reading, but not Geology. It does require the additional purchase of a relatively inexpensive book called Geology: A Self-Teaching Guide I got my copy off of Amazon for about $13 and you can find it used on Amazon for less. There’s also a Kindle version.
You also need access to The Amazing Earth video and the Journey to the Center of the Earth video. I ordered The Amazing Earth used from Amazon for less than $10, and am getting Journey to the Center of the Earth via Netflix. So in all, with the curriculum (purchased on sale), plus the added book, video, and clay I needed for the plate tectonics section, I spent about $45 total.
Basically what you get with Connect the Thoughts Geology is a complete independent study guide for the student to go through on their own (though I’m using it with a group of students). It explicitly tells the student what to do. And the end of each major section, there is a test. But tests in Connect the Thoughts are not-graded, instead they are used to verify mastery and understanding.
For more on how a connect the thoughts studyis laid out, I recommend downloading the free “how to do Connect the Thoughts” course. And of course you can see the actually Geology course in the video above.
If you go with this curriculum, your student will need access to the outdoors to do some of the investigative exerices and experiments (like smashing rocks )
Also, there’s a few miscellaneous materials needed (like clay or magnets) for some of the experiments, so it’s a good idea to have the students give you a list of what they need for the coming week, or to read ahead yourself to make sure you have everything on hand. To my knowledge there is no materials list available just for this purpose of making sure you have everything you need (a pet peeve, but workable still)
About how much time are you planning on devoting to the course?
The geology course is designed specifically to be a semester course, but is actually longer than the normal 60-70 hours. It is part of the Connect the Thoughts 3 part Earth Sciences series, which in all covers 1.5 credits. I’ll be awarding a .5 credit (semester) to K when we complete the Geology course.
We’re doing the course about 3 hours a week, so we should be done with it in 20-25 weeks. But this also lends it self well to intensively working through the Geology curriculum as well, in which case you can complete the course easily within a month.
A few more key points
This is not our first connect the thoughts course, we’ve done several. and I go into on the video a little more about what I like and don’t like about the curriculum and how I’m adapting the Geology course to suit my needs. But overall, if you are looking for a secular high school geology course, this is a good one to consider.
I will emphasize also that this curriculum as well as all of the Connect the Thoughts courses we’ve tried are designed for the kids to think for themselves. It introduces a variety of information, but doesn’t want the students to regurgitate it back, but rather to own their own education and their own thoughts and opinions. If this is your goal, like it is ours, this is a wonderful benefit to the curriculum. If you aren’t ready for that…well, might want to look else where.
To give you a further idea of how the Connect the Thoughts science curriculum is structured, I recommend watching the videos that Steven has on the Connect the Thoughts site and reading through some of the articles. It’ll give you more of an idea of the man behind the curriculum and his thoughts and style.
(A side benefit to using Connect the Thoughts is the access to it’s author. Steven is really good at personally answering quesstions and is active in the Connect the Thoughts Yahoo Group.)
If Connect the Thoughts Geology sounds like something you’d like to try with your student, you can download your copy from CurrClick. And be sure to agree to get the email updates, because Steven does a great job of doing sales for those of us on a budget, and the sales are announced through those email updates.
So there you go… If you have more questions about our experiences with Connect the Thoughts or the Geology course in particular, feel free to ask.
…Shannon
P.S. Looks like Steven is running a 20% off sale on all Connect the Thoughts courses this week too, The geology course is coming up on sale for $16 until Sunday, February 20th.
I’ve mentioned in the Living Life at Home newsletter that I was the one that had the biggest adjustment to returning to schoolwork after the long holiday break – and the reason why was because I changed our homeschool schedule -again.
Our homeschol schedule changes from season to season, not just calendar seasons, but seasons of life, seasons of development, and seasons of work. And I adjust it accordingly.
For example, homeschooling K 10 years ago, as a preschooler, when I only had one other child, was totally different than homeschooling her and J, with a toddler and a baby underfoot (not to mention a full-time at-home job).
And then there was big adjustment when Little E was ready for formal schoolwork, and learning how to balance the needs of all four of them.
The important thing is to remember that it is okay to create a homeschool schedule that fits you and your family, for where you are at right now, and for the demands that this season of life is putting on you.
When K was in Kindergarden and 1st grade, she and I homeschooled the 3Rs at night, when I was done working. During the day, she unschooled, video schooled, car schooled, audio book schooled, whatever you want to call it… She explored her own interests under her dad’s supervision.
Last year, after three years of taking Latin classes from our local homeschool coop, and earning her first full high school credit at age 12, she asked for a break from serious academics. So that’s what we did, and she worked on things she was interested in, and recharged herself.
In December, I realized that we had drifted a little too far over to the “homeschooling in a silo” side of things, (i.e., they were all doing their own schoolwork without much interaction with each other), and I wanted to bring them back together for some studies.
So I revamped the schedule. The 3Rs are of course all done separately, but we’re doing geology and geography together, and they are having fun with it.
It’s more work for me, but there are bigger lessons being learned than just the academics, and the relationship building and memory making that is happening is worth the extra time it requires of me.
The point is – It’s okay to mix things up. It’s okay to change the schedule to meet your current goals and needs. And it’s okay to ditch a schedule that just isn’t working and adapt it to something that will work.
Homeschooling is not about mimicing what the public schools do. It’s about tailoring your child’s education to their needs, and your lifestyle. And when you take that stress of following someone else’s homeschool schedule out, and adapt it to your situation – everything becomes a lot more enjoyable.
Food for thought.
…Shannon
P.S. Don’t get the Living Life at Home Newsletter? Be sure to sign up below:
It’s that time of year again, where homeschool moms and teachers alike start to feel that weariness of the school year. Homeschool burnout isn’t a new thing – in fact it isn’t even unique to homeschoolers. I have friends who are public school teachers who experience burnout about February/March each year too.
My biggest tip for overcoming homeschool burnout is to give yourself permission to take a break, or change things up – like taking the day off to celebrate Robinson crusoe day . Take a ‘unschooling” day or a field trip. Try a new project. Curl up together and watch movies (yes they count as schoolwork too!) or listen to a free audio book from Librivox.org or the library. Or my favorite, play in the garden, or head to the park for the day.
Learning will take place. Taking time off from the schedule or plan will not set your child back – in fact it probably will help you all focus more. As homeschoolers we have that flexibility. There is no reason why things “HAVE” to be done on a certain timeline. It will get done – learning will happen. I promise.
The key to overcoming homeschool burnout is to let go a little. Recharge, Get re-filled. Spend sometime in God’s world and in God’s Word. And know that through Him, by trusting in Him, it is possible to overcome the dullrums and weariness that cause homeschool burnout, and that your children are wonderful, creations of His, fully capable of learning.
Here a few more resources/articles that we’ve shared on Living Life at Home in the past, that are still relevant. I hope you find more encouragement and ideas for overcoming homeschool burnout here:
Overcoming Homeschool Burnout – Part 1 - More of my thoughts on overcoming homeschool burnout and how I plan for the inevitable February burnout period.
Homeschool Mom Encouragement from Karri - Karri Feiglin shares more of her great insights for those times we become discouraged as homeschooling moms, and for when homeschooling and parenting seems so hard.
Dealing with Lack of Motivation & Laziness - I share a conversation I had with my oldest son during a time when he had very little motivation to do his schoolwork and laziness was taking over.
Joy in the Journey - Homeschooling, work-at-home mom Kimberly Eddy shares her thoughts on finding joy in the journey of life and all the roles and challenges we face
59 Ideas for Taking Care of You - Vetern Homeschooling mom, Cindy Rushton, of Rushton Family Minstries, shares her 59 tips for taking care of you. My favorite tip: “Go Fly a Kite!”
Take Homeschooling Outside with Spring Science Notebooks - Here’s a fun thing to do when the kids don’t want to be indoors anymore – take learning outside with notebooking – another great article from homeschooling vetern, Cindy Rushton.
Subscribe via RSS
