A couple of thoughts.......LOL When I think that a textbook (such as BJU which I have used before....as fas as textbook they seem better than most) would be best for our son..........I remember how much I DON'T remember from textbook learning in ps! LOL But I also often wonder if Unit Studies misses a lot? I am looking into AWOA Learning Adventures...although most of the US look pretty similar in content, or scope and sequence anyway. I would LOVE to be highly encouraged about Unit Study approach but want opinions from the *other side* as well D If there are those of you who have used US for you 10-16 year olds and had a generous amount of success, please let me know! LOL We are only looking for Christian chronological approach type........ Thank you so much! Sherri
ok, not sure what US is, but as for the first question, Unit studies can cover more than a typical text book I am finding. I have used them through the years to suppliment what curric I was using but ..This past two years I am finding that they have a lot of info I missed in the past! I am in my13th yr btw of schooling my kids at home. When you check out some of the Unit studies that are on a couple of the people here's sites you will see there is no end to what you can learn! My ds put it best when he said that homeschooling is great becasue if you want to learn about something you just study it! I think Unit studies may be something you have to do a different one a month or what not but sure you can get more info!
I think it depends on how in-depth you go with the US. For example, Homeschool in the Woods Time Travelers series are AWESOME...BUT they can cover History, Vocabulary, Penmenship, even Science and Art. They are so rich with all sorts of info...add some supplemental reading and you almost have everything you need. So...you could really delve deep in one and have it cover lots of subjects, OR just touch on a few things in the study and have it only cover one or two subjects.
We use unit studies for different subjects from time to time. Honestly, Ems remembers more information from the unit studies than from the textbooks. Not to say she isn't learning from textbooks, but she enjoys unit studies more so they click faster and last longer in her brain.LOL As to how in depth they go, I guess that will depend on you as the teacher. You can take information from old textbooks and turn them into unit studies if you like the information from textbooks.
For me, the real strength of unti studies are that the concepts/ideas/facts are taught in a meaningful context. I think those of us who were taught traditionally using basal series texts forgot so much because they were facts taught in isolation. When something makes sense in context, you understand it better...and I just think people are more apt to remember things (or at least, pertinent things) when they made sense in the first place.
We started a Christmas Unit study this year and it had a TON of stuff in it! So I think you can do a unit study approach and get everything except math - I haven't seen one with math yet that I remember. I use US's for breaks and times when we just need to change it up - but I know some people who ONLY do US's and their kids just know different things than mine do - but we like the way some of them are. I personally like it to have EVERYTHING laid out for me and how to do it with 2 kids different ages blah blah blah...... I used Amanda Bennett's US on Christmas and will look into more of her's if I want to - I should have done Easter but had other issues
