How exactly do unit studies work? I have never used them but am thinking of trying one on for size because I have heard good things about them. If Ems takes to it then I will do more with her. Do they come in any subject and which would you recommend, such as publisher and so on. Thanks! Patty
Each month, there is a free one from eamil. You don't get to pick it, but they are cute and many times quite informative. I get mine from the homeschool express newsletter
I think many unit studies are just made up by the mom/teacher who gathers info. on a subject and puts it all together into a unit, so it includes many of the school subjects. There are some made up though. Ask TinaTX has set many up and could help you with that I'm sure!
Mary do you have the address for eamil? I LOVE free stuff and free unit studies would be wonderful. Thanks!
We did a unit study on George Washington. I went to www.enchantedlearning.com and they had all kinds of information to print off. We put together a booklet about his life, and we searched a little deeper into each topic on each page. The booklet was all made up and ready to print, we just cut and colored it! It was really fun. They have alot of those booklets you can put together on different subjects. AT the end of our unit study we put together a timeline of his life.
Here are a few websites that I use: http://www.easyfunschool.com/IndexUnitStudies.html Adove website:Topics listed A to Z- I like this site http://school.discovery.com/lessonplans/ Above website: Every subject, K-12 - Love it!!! http://www.aetv.com/classroom Above website: They do layout (some ,not all shows) a plan for you that goes with their airing of Cable in the Classroom shows. I signed up for their free magazine The Idea Book, it lists all of the up coming Cable in the Classroom shows and I make lesson plans around their shows. The Idea Book shows all airings for History and A&E channels. We record the shows ( so we can rewind sections) and go over what we just watched and branch off from there. FIY: on History Channel the show Desperate Crossing: Untold Story of the Mayflower is re-airing on January 22-23. It is 2 parts and airs 6-7am ET and 5-6am CT. I believe I got the times right but just to be sure you can go to http://www.history.com. That is a great website anyways and there are alot of topics/plans on there. This was a very well done show and we all really enjoyed it. If you go to the above site ( History.com) and click on classroom , Desperate Crossing will pop up and click on CLICK HERE for a PDF teachers guide to this show! I use these sites alot because I do not buy 75% of our curriculum. There are so many free resources out there that it just doesn't make sense ( for us ) to spend alot of money on books we will only use for a year.
Thank you! Emma loves spiders and insects. If I put something like this together what type of information would I put in this unit study. Would I collect a bunch of information and make up questions or is it all reading or coloring or do you do a combination of things in each unit study? Thanks again! Patty
You can do a combination of all of that....it really is up to you of what you wnat to include. At least thats' how we do it. It really can be a lot of fun!
Combination of hands-on, research, reports or summaries, reading, crafts, coloring, pictures. I think lapbooks sum up unit studies well! I've never done a lapbook, though I've wanted to, and keep meaning to!
It really sounds fun!!! We will start putting something together today and see where it goes! Thanks again! Patty
Here is what we did for local (state) insects/spiders unit study: I went to the childrens section of our library and found a few books that were at their reading level. Next I got a few nature books that had some beautiful pictures of insects and spiders. I made 2 copies of each insect/spider page with the names of that insect/spider showing. One was my "answer key" and the other I whited out the names and made 6 copies of each ( 3 for each of my children). One was a coloring page ( to be colored exactly like the insect/spider) , one was a practice test page ( to be filled in by them) to see where they needed help and the other page was the final test sheet. Also they picked one insect/spider that they were interested in and wrote a 2 page essay of that insect/spider and had to give an oral presentation on it. I made up some question pages from the books we read and included questions that my dd's had. They were like .. what do they eat , were do they live in our state, do they only come out at night, are they dangerous to humans, etc. We also watched some National Geographic specials on insects and Discovery Channel as well, even though they profiled insects from other countries. It did spark a discussion on how insects from our state differ from other states and countries. After our lessons were done ( we took 3 weeks , you could do more or less) my dh and I took the girls to our state's Natural History Museum. They have a permanent exhibit of local/state insects,spiders,reptiles and animals. I took digital pictures of individual insects and spiders without the names showing if I could. I bought a small notebook with me and wrote down: Picture 1 : Scorpion , Picture 2: name of next insect. When we got home I downloaded the pictures in my computer and made a slide show. I had the girls name each insect/spider from the pictures. Next we went to a nature perserve and took a nature walk to see if we could find a few insects/spiders. We did find a few and took some pictures and put them with our slide show. The finale to that lesson was alot of fun. We rented the movies A Bugs Life and Ants and had a "picinic" in our living room. We spread out a blanket on the floor, drinks were in a cooler, we ate off of paper plates ,just like a "real" picinic! We had alot of fun with this unit study and plan on do a similar unit study involving native plants.
We have done lots of unit studies.. Unit Studies just take all the subjects you are covering and tries to make lesson plans for them from your topic. For example, take the Civil War. That lends itself well to history.. But on math, it might be a little harder to come up with lessons plans....but it could have something to do with *statisics or probablity*..For example, if x side had so many soldiers at this battle, would they have won,why or why not? Like problem solving .. Science could be cooking what they ate back then....anything with corn...or studying the topograhy... history could be studying about it and maybe a timeline.. Geograhphy..could cover the areas in the US Art..could be drawing some of the issues of the war, like slavery posters or something.. Writing..could be a letter someone wrote to their loved one back home... Unit studies exists abundantly on the net now so much more than the use to... Also, I do lapbooks with my unit studies..so much more fun doing something that you have to *show* for what you did instead of worksheets.
That sounds great!!! I am going to start putting it together today. I am also going to have her make a paper mache insect and arachnid. Yay!!! You are all great! Patty
Madison and I have done some simple unit studies when we first got started. I started with apples(plan was a letter a month or two turned into a mini study) and we discussed apples baked them, and made a little booklet. Out last one was the Praying Mantis's and it was fun, we read alot of books on them and drew alot of pictures. I hope to do more unit studies in the future.
Is there much difference between unit studies and lapbooks? We do a lot of lapbooks but I don't put them together myself. I either get them for free or purchase them. That's why I'm wondering if they're the same at all. Thanks!
I'll have to tell my sister "hippychick" to pop on here, she did some lapbooks with her kids. We've been using Manilla folders and tri folding them, adding pockets or smaller books inside..kinda glueing it in. I'll send her a message to come online, she's been very busy lately.
Deena, a thread was done awhile back with a link as to how to make the lapbooks so hopefully someone will remember what it was!
Yes, Jennifer, I was thinking about that too. I'm bad at research, so hopefully someone else could figure it out! The other thing I was wondering about was that she said she bought them and didn't make them. I have just never seen that before, so was wondering where she got them.
