| | | |

The Many Benefits of Unit Studies

Unit Studies - images of children doing various activities

What Are Unit Studies?

Unit studies are a popular tool for homeschooling families, and for good reason. There are many benefits of using unit studies in education, and they provide a flexible and fun alternative to using textbooks.

There are unit studies available on a never-ending number of topics such as animals,  plants, historical figures and events, places, things, people, and ideas. If you can think of it – there is most likely a unit study available on the subject.

Some unit studies cover one main subject such as science, historical characters, language arts, and so on. Others cover several subjects. For example, a unit study about trees would provide a science lesson. It might also provide math or other subjects.

A unit study about dolphins might also include subjects like spelling, vocabulary, history, geography, and more–all built in. A unit study about a particular book would provide language arts and literature, and it might also cover history, geography, vocabulary, science, or more.

A unit study will take anywhere from a day to a month to complete, depending on the subject matter, the curriculum provider, and/or your own schedule. It is also fine to stretch a unit study that your students are especially enjoying!

If your children are particularly interested in horses, for example, you may choose to read more books on that topic than the unit study suggests. You might decide to go on a field trip related to horses or interview a veterinarian about ways to care for horses or ways to treat horses who are ill. You could create a game including trivia about horses. You might even want to create your own art project related to horses or have a local artist give you and your students a lesson (or several lessons) on drawing horses.

What Are the Benefits of Unit Studies?

In our family homeschool, I needed the ability to teach all three of our boys together, while combining multiple subjects – like history and reading, handwriting combined with Bible study, spelling, vocabulary, and science. That is how I ended up creating our very own Wildlife Adventures Unit Studies.

They are written in the way that we tend to study and learn, incorporating recipes from the places we learn about and art projects about history or the animals we are studying. They include hands-on projects and fun ways to help students retain what they’ve learned.

We use the unit studies to cover a multitude of subjects for all of our children together. The creativity and hands-on learning are a great fit to cover the educational needs of our family. It has allowed us to pursue specific topics that are of interest to our children as well as cover important information that needs to be included in our curriculum . . . all while using real books and prepared information instead of textbooks.

A Few More Benefits of Unit Studies

  • Real books and prepared information
  • Fun way to explore subject matter
  • Endless topics to study
  • A creative outlet for learning
  • Hands-on learning
  • Saves time – by combining subjects
  • Saves money – by covering multiple topics & more
  • Flexible – print or use digitally
  • Teach the family together
  • Creative – see students excited about learning

Brainstorming Unit Studies for Your Homeschool

What changes would take place in your homeschool this year if you were to sit down with your kids to brainstorm ideas they WANT to study? Would they be more interested in getting their school work done if it involved the topics they are passionate about?

Have a family meeting and write down their ideas. Listen to what they like the most without worrying too much about the educational value (at least for that moment). Let them see you are paying attention and taking notes.

Mention there are some things you will require them to learn about but that you are also excited to incorporate their ideas into your homeschool.

Unit studies - boy and mom learning together

You’ll be surprised at how much more interested they may become in what you have to say when you have listened carefully to their ideas first.

Free & Fun Resources

Unit studies can be one of the most frugal ways to run your homeschool. These days, we have so much information – right at our fingertips! With a few careful searches and a bit of creativity – you can be well on your way to finding homeschool studies that your kids will actually be excited about.

Check out the ideas used in these fun studies & learn to create your own:

Do you have questions about using unit studies in your homeschool or tips for how you use them?

Similar Posts

One Comment

  1. Case studies can be so much fun for the kids, too. And if your kids have a special interest, you can build the study around that. For instance, my granddaughter is fascinated with weather. We have used a unit study on weather to learn about causes of weather, types of weather, clouds, math including some pre-algebra and algebra (the dew point formula for instance), history such as Ben Franklin’s lightning rods, and much more.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *