Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Unit Studies for homeschool?

Has anyone out there put together her/his own unit studies before? I think I'm going to try using unit studies for next year for DS7, so I'm starting to think about what's involved. I'm essentially a lazy person, so I'd prefer not to have to make the putting together into a full-time job.

I was hoping to get tips from anyone who has ideas. If you have anything to share, whether you are a homeschooler or not, please gimme what you got!

Thanks!

I've never put any together but I loved doing a unit on Bedouins in grade school. We made tents, food and even a paper mache camel We also learned a lot about the desert and nomadic lifestyles.

HHmm not sure what technically constitutes a unit study but what I've done in the past is to find a few non-fiction resources (books, movies) and a few fiction sources (books). I then google the topic to find any cool craft, science experiments or look in my myriad of experiment books for something to go w/ it.

So for my DS5 who asked me about clouds today, I'll get the non-fiction Let's Read and find OUt science books about water cycle. I'll get a beautifully illustrated poem about the water cycle (beautiful words so tie in language arts, using descriptive words in painting a pic in the reader's mind, rythem of poetry). I will look for an easy reader for him to read to me about weather, clouds etc. I'll look for fiction picture books about a rainy day or some such thing. Additionally, we'll watch Magic School Bus episode on evaporation/water cycle. We'll then do an experiment to look at the water cycle. You put salt water in a bowl. In the center you put another bowl. You wrap tightly in saran wrap and put a rock in the center. This will guide the evaporating water to the center and it will drip into the inner bowl. When you have enough water condensed, you taste it to see that it's no longer salty and is drinkable. We might also discuss how Survivor Man used this method in the desert for survival and might google this method as a survival technique. WE'll put a glass of ice next to a boiling kettle and watch condensation form.

Well you get the picture.

I've done this with history as well...find a good historical fiction to go along w/ the history less, find pics to add to a timeline, read non-fiction sources, watch a movie etc.

Is that what you're referring to?
Dazey

Yup. Pretty much, Dazey.

The idea I'm going with is to try to tie virtually all subjects into the unit. So if we do a robot unit, we'll read some stories about robots (lit), write stories about robots (composition), look at how robots work (science), study the history and development of robotics (history, science), design robots (art, engineering), construct our own robots from Lego or some such kits (art, science, engineering), do math problems related to building robots (math), etc.

Working math and science into a given unit will be easier for some topics than others, naturally. A unit doesn't have to be quite so comprehensive to work, but it would be nice if we could cover at least most of the biggies in each unit.

We're currently thinking we'll do units on robots, ancient Greece, Arabic (he was thinking the language, but since I don't speak it, we'll definitely broaden our scope to history, math, science, food and lit there!), comparative religion and myth, the Ohio River, and dinosaurs...so far.

Does that sound like a good start? Any obvious problems anyone sees there?

If you want to cut down on your legwork, what I did was to google "dinosaur unit study." It pulled up several resources. Also, if you post at Well Trained Mind curriculum board, people will either post what they did or point you to their blog showing you what they did. Some have book lists at Amazon that might include both fiction and non-fiction sources. I have some resources written down for Ancient Greece which I'll post later.

Do you have LEGO MINDSTORMs NXT kit? No better way to learn robotics and programming.

Oh a friend of mine wrote a unit study on comparative religion and myth. I'll look it up and post a link later.

It sounds fun!

To be honest, Dazey, I haven't been wild about the pre-packaged units I've seen online. They tend to be either too easy or too craft-oriented. Real art that involves creativity and design, I like. But I tend to hate and despise pre-made, adult-designed craft projects that only require kids to cut on the dotted lines and paste as directed. They always seem like time-wasters for kids to me. What exactly do they get out of them that they couldn't get out of drawing something of their own?

Anyway, I came to the conclusion that I'm probably going to have to go it mostly alone. I have some resouces that I plan to use for the units, naturally. But even in homeschooling, that old HG+ dilemma of asynchronous development crops up and makes a lot of the stuff that's out there pretty useless. Plus the library is free, and a lot of the pre-packaged unit studies charge for their use. So mostly I plan to raid the library, much as I did this past year. I just plan to do it with a bit more rhyme and reason than I used before!

I'm glad you asked about the Lego Mindstorms kit. Where does one get one of those? That kit was part of my current plan, actually, since I'd heard about it earlier this year and it sounds perfect. But I don't know if you just go to Target or wherever and buy one, if you get them online from specialty suppliers, or if there's some other source required. I'd be grateful for help on that one! Thanks!

And Dottie, you're a goof! So your private school had robots in ancient Greece? (LOL!)

P.S. Dottie: What exactly are you detoxing? You're not fasting and living on lemon juice and cayenne pepper or some such thing, are you?

I totally get what you're saying but I've found great books lists through googling unit studies which saves me time. I then look them up at AMazon to get a rating, then I check to see if our library has it. It does take leg work.

Here's a link to a thread of dinosaur unit studies. http://afterschoolers.yuku.com/topic/1953?page=2

You can get LEGO MINDSTORMS at Toys R Us. You can buy it online. Look for sales or coupons. Sometimes FAO Schwarz has a good sale on them. We own two kits. One time Target (maybe Christmas) had some in the store. I did buy my online from Target and there was a coupon and I got free shipping so check that first.

Your first resource for robotics is http://www.thenxtstep.blogspot.com/. There is a forum where you can post questions and folk will answer. I'm LEGOmom at that site. There is a fun Mars Mission challenge starting now that I think we will do this summer. It's similar to First LEGO League but you can do it alone rather than having a team and you do it all at home. I find this is great for our asynchronous kids. I was shocked that DS then 7yrs old took to programming like a duck to water. His science fair project was to ask the question "Does hot water cool down at the same rate that cold water warms up to room temperature." he used LEGO temp sensors attached to the LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT brick. He wrote the program to gather the data, append it to a file, and download it to the computer. DH ten helped him to transfer it to Excel for graphing. DS then interpreted the graph on his own. My FIL said, given it was LEGO products, the temp curves were perfect (it never reaches room temp - asymptote). I was further shocked when my 5yr old started writing his own programs and began debugging them as well. It's a great tool for logical thinking. I own ALL of the LEGO NXT books so if you have your eye on one, I can give you thoughts on it.

I'm not a crafty person hence we never do crafts. I figure that's what I sent them to preK for lol. Things like mummifying a chicken is just VERY COOL!!! those are my types of go-alongs lol.

I also tie in geography whenever possible.

I think this summer we'll do an Olympics unit, tie it in w/ Ancient Greece, do math to chart the medals the countries get and scoring etc.

When we did early peoples, the boys enjoyed the arch dig I setup in the sandbox. That involved marking off quadrants, drawing them on paper, numbering them, labeling items, discussing what they might have been used for, etc.

Most of my unit studies were when my boys were younger than yours is now.

I have a good dino book. I'll look it up. it shows a dino graveyard (actually I think that's the name) and it asks you to come up w/ hypotheses explaining the graveyard. It then goes through and systematically disabuses each one based on the available evidence.

Cool stuff! Thanks so much, Dazey! I have to go look up all the stuff you suggested.

I owe you one!

Here is a thread on Creation and Myth http://afterschoolers.yuku.com/topic/2488

I have the Hamilton book as well as the one by Lavitt. THe Lavitt book can be hard to find but is organized by country so it's easy to coordinate w/ country study. I have a couple others. One is the most important or central stories from the 7? major religions.

Yep that's the MG kid. He started programming at 6.5yrs old I think. He within a week, surpassed me and was helping me with my programs.

Dazey,

What's the Mars Mission Challenge?

The talk about Lego's reminded me of a summer class Miami University(Ohio) has for kids. You sign up and get the Lego's sent to your home, you log onto the computer and do the class at home. The recommended age is 8 and up, but I didn't see that as mandatory. Here's a link, Miami University

Since it's done at home it may be open to anyone in cyberworld. Other universities may offer similar things.

Very cool OHG!! Has your GS ever participated in one of these classes??

Not yet. The morning classes don't work well with my work schedule but this Lego class at home might work. Summers are really busy here, though. GS has been at camp since Sunday, he's got 4H & some Jr cattle shows to prepare for.

wow - reading about all these fun units and lego classes makes me want to start homeschooling now!

Squirt: Here's the link: http://www.marsbasecommand.com/


It's by the author of "The Mayan Adventure for the LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT" Jim Kelly. It's built around a similar theme. THere is a story with a problem to be solved. SOmething is wrong at our Base Command on Mars. If you buy the packet for $15, you can have the mat printed. You then build the buildings w/ LEGO REsource kit. You then construct and plan a robot to interact with those buildings according to the challenge. You can then submit photos or movies to the website to share your work.

Thanks, OHG! Cool stuff!

Kriston-

I have to admit, when I saw that you were asking about unit studies, I sort of did a mental shrug and thought, "That's not us". But you know, we do a tremendous amount of interest led and project based learning. I guess in my mind, "Unit studies" implies a boxed program designed for the average learner, or something Mom or Dad has planned out far in advance with little input from the kids. What you describe though, sounds like what we do much of the time, and how some of our best learning happens.

An example: We read about the British Tudors back when Artemis was four and half. She immediately became fascinated by everything Tudor. At her request, we got many library books on the time period, both fiction and non-fiction. She got into Shakespeare too, on a tangential learning binge. At age five, she designed a Tudor timeline and made illustrations of all Henry's various wives and children. She is eight now and still loves to read about this era. She knows all the wives intimately and can tell you their order and how they were "discharged". She can talk your ear off about Elizabethan fashion, food, etc.

My advice is to work with your son to design your own unit studies, be flexible in how you follow an idea, and don't be afraid to go in unexpected directions.

hth!

Our unit studies are like Lorel's... More seat-of-your-pants tangents rather than anything planned in advance. Sometimes it's interest-led and sometimes just kismet -- we had a weekend in Gettysburg that turned into a big long email discussion between DS and my dad and has moved on from the Civil War to "necessity is the mother of invention" and the mixed bag that is technological advancement.

I've not tried to link everything, but everything sort of comes up. They're currently on navigation and Bowditch and there's plenty of geometry inherent in that... and of course history and geography, and DS is reading Carry On Mr. Bowditch and thumbing through the American Practical Navigator. If I get around to recording it as schoolwork it will all go under history. We're still doing other math, and other science (and other history and literature for that matter) -- it's just a side thing that feeds his particular interest in the topic, and while I do make sure to give him time to pursue it, I'm not really involved beyond supplying the books

We get a lot of mileage out of wikipedia and its recommended links.

Hmmm...Interesting. So maybe now I'm overplanning, and my feeling that I was pretty much unprepared this past year may have been wrong, huh?

Good input. I do tend to be a seat-of-the-pants sort of person. Even when I was teaching, I tended to lay out my syllabus only in the broadest terms and then follow good discussions as they arose. I've been feeling that as a homeschooler, I should be working against my natural (i.e. lazy) impulses more than I did last year. But maybe that's not so.

Hmmm...

So let me ask you this, Lorel and Erika (and anyone else, for that matter!): how focused are you on goals for learning? What I mean is, do you have non-content specific skills goals that you aim for your kids to achieve? Or are you more casual about it than that?

I'm still trying to figure out just what makes the most sense for us. You'd think that after a year, I'd be more confident in my abilities. It seems that because I had no time to dither and worry last year, but had no choice but to dive right in to HSing, I apparently saved all my dithering and worrying up for this year!

Hi Kriston - I'm no authority by any means and my current goal is for DS to learn SOMETHING! We've been test driving homeschooling for about a week. But we are really doing a Unit Study on the civilization game! It involves marking up a world map with the actual locations that wonders exist, their real names, where world leaders were born, technologies were invented, etc. I also got a long, huge roll of paper to build a time line. I got a bunch of large sticky notes that we're assigning 1 per item we're researching, so if we need to juggle the timeline or research out of order we can fix the overall timeline at any point. This has already taken off to him diving into the Pyramids and finding out way more information than I would have thought (I was thinking 1 or 2 interesting facts, move onto the next thing). But whatever! It's a summer project (that we could probably spend the next 3 years on) and I'm flexible.

Anyway - I have a feeling that we'll be doing a lot of this kind of thing. It does cover history, geography, reading, writing, etc. (We are also doing Singapore Math/working on multiplication tables via Timex Attack.) I doubt we'll spend much more than an hour a day on anything during the summer (unless he takes off on it like the Pyramid research). If it's a go in the fall, we'll dive in longer and more structured probably. I'd love to hear anything you come up with!

A Civ4 unit study? Oh, girlfriend, you're killin' me! I will get NOTHING WHATSOEVER done this summer if we go there!

But seriously, what a great idea!

I like to look at the worldbook.com grade level standards, Rebecca Rupp's Home Learning Year by Year, and the What Your X Grader Needs to Know books every so often. These can alert me to possible holes and give me a reality check on how my kids are doing. I start at the usual age/grade level and go up from there until I have a short list of ideas. I may decide to do a quick unit on tally marks, or Roman Numerals, or American Tall Tales, if I see that we haven't covered something. I don't really do a lot of planning ahead though. As the kids get older, I sign them up for more distance learning and outside classes, but of course I don't have to plan these.

Thanks, Lorel. I've been using Rupp and Hirsch's books, and they definitely help with the hole-filling. But they're mostly content-based, I think. Less about skills.

I think I'm not explaining myself well, partly because I don't really know what sorts of skills-based goals one should set for a 7yo...

What I'm thinking of is the way that I set learning goals when I taught college writing. For example, one goal was "have students learn how to write an evaluative essay." Obviously that essay could have been written about virtually any subject. The content was irrelevent to the skill of evaluation.

Do you have goals like that for a 7yo? I haven't really had anything like that yet, but I'm wondering if I should...

Kriston - a friend of mine who will be HSing officially this Fall, looked at her states standards (for current grade and one to two grades up) to get an idea of what needs to be covered. And there's no reason to limit yourself to your own state's standards, if they are very low, unless of course you'll be putting DS into PS some time soon.

Well... I look for an overall pattern of growth and don't get worried if my kids move ahead in different areas at different rates. I am way too lazy to set up detailed learning goals! My homeschool method is to support their passions and try to watch out for loose ends/holes/deficiencies as they reveal themselves. Then we work on those.

DS 11 who never took a science class before this year just scored a 35 (out of a possible 36) on the practice ACT science section, so the approach seems to work for him. DD 8 likes it too, though she'd prefer it if she never had to do any math.

That's very reassuring, Lorel. As always, thank you for your good advice!

I should really know better than to read/hear about what other people are doing and allow their way of homeschooling to make me feel like I'm doing it wrong. I'm afraid that's what I've been doing lately. But supporting passions and trying to plug any gaps worked nicely this past year, so I don't know why I need to be more official (and less lazy!) this year. I think my insecurity is just showing. I just have to stop speaking to and reading the blogs of people who plan a whole year in advance...It's not my style! Nor is it probably very responsive to my DS's needs.

Okay. I'm better now... Thanks for the sanity check!

A lot of states have their school achievement tests available to download. Texas has an on-line test & grading available. You could always find a state that has the full battery available for download, test your DS, and see if any area needs attention.

Oh, I gave DS7 the Iowa Test of Basic Skills in April, and he aced it.

I'm not worrying about DS's performance, just my own! I know he's learning. I'm just one of those people who is constantly experiencing a war between laziness and perfectionism.

Thanks though.

There's no one correct way to homeschool. I often tell prospective homeschool parents that they need to find a balance between what their kids want and what they (the parents) feel comfortable with in terms of structure. If the parent doesn't feel comfortable going all loosey goosey, it sure isn't going to be a positive experience for anyone. Conversely, I know a Mom who was all excited about unschooling, but her son begged for planned lessons. He ended up going to a boxed distance learning program eventually, and then on to fulltime college at 16.


Kriston, you know your son has learned a lot this year, right? I don't see any reason for you to change approach. If it ain't broke...

Man, I was sure I had already responded to this again! Maybe twice... lol...

Anyway the short version is we fluctuate between the "off-on-a-rabbit-trail" style and a very "textbook" style. Right now we're in a textbook phase... But when DS has enough interests to fill a day we go with rabbit trails. Science fair season is a LOT of that (LOL) and the books can catch up later.

If you're both enjoying it and he's getting somewhere, there's nothing wrong with following interests!

Thanks, friends. It does help to know that my "sloppy perfectionism" and the feeling that I'm fluctuating between more- and less-organized homeschool styles is pretty normal. Of course I know intellectually that there's no "right" way to homeschool, but then I have this friend who has her whole year researched and planned by the beginning of August, and I read this blog about planning the whole year in advance--complete with comprehension questions and science experiements...and I start to feel a little inadequate!

Too much time to think is obviously not a good thing for me. I am laughing at myself for being all insecure for my *2nd* year of homeschooling. I didn't worry at all about any of this last year. I had no time to plan and research, so I figured that if he learned anything, it was more than he'd have learned in public school. I felt comfortable setting the bar really low for myself, because even those low expectations were more than DS had been getting. But this summer, with the luxury of time, I was making myself a little crazy, I think.

Better now!

(BTW, I love your responses, Erica! Respond early and often, if you please! )

Kriston - do we have the same friend? My friend has everything planned down to books and discussion questions etc.. I'm like "Wow I'm so inadequate." LOL

Ha! Yes, it's very nice to get the reassurance and pats on the back here that, no, I'm not actually a bad mommy because I don't know what we'll be doing next April, like some people.

Crazy-making! Especially since I am something of a planner. But then that laziness creeps in...

So I've come to grips with the fact that I'm a lot more of a fly-by-the-seat-of-my pants than those highly organized people when it comes to HSing, and that's okay.

I am going to try to plan a little bit of the year now, if only to make the start of school easier for me. But I'm easing up on my expectations. No more white knuckles!

Kriston, if you had a normal child then you might want to plan your schooling in more details, just so you'd know if he was falling behind in any area. Falling behind in any area does not sound like it will be an issue for your son. And you have his ITBS scores in hand to reassure you of that!

Keep on having fun digging deeper into subjects that interest him, and get creative to develop them into unit studies that incorporate related subjects, you'll keep on doing fine!

Thanks! I appreciate the support more than you know.