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Homeschooling Methods

Part 2 -- Unit Studies

After reading about pre-packaged curriculums, you might feel that spending $300 or more on a curriculum is a bit pricey.  Or, you don’t want to be locked into using a specific curriculum.  Then perhaps unit studies are a better choice for you and your children.  With unit studies you have flexibility and choice, yet there is still a curriculum to guide you.

A unit study is an in-depth curriculum which includes various academic subjects.  The unit study can revolve around the interests of your child.  For example, if you have a twelve year old who can’t get enough of video games, use it to your advantage.  Within Sega, Xbox, and Nintendo lies a wealth of learning.  There’s the history of video games; a comparative cost analysis of various systems and the cartridges they sell, which covers mathematics and economics; and the science behind how video games work and their relationship to computers (this can be the start of a whole new unit study on computers).  You can wrap it all up with your children creating their own ideas for a video game, and how they would market it to the public.  And, of course, all of this involves reading comprehension and analytical writing.  Unit studies can be applied to any area of interest.  From chess to ballet, football to paleontology, you and your child can create a unit study which will include math, language arts, science, history, art, and even a foreign language (an interest in Haitian or Mexican food certainly opens the door to learning French and Spanish).

The cost for unit studies can vary.  It all depends on how involved you get in the topic.  It can be as simple as borrowing books from the local library and taking advantage of free museums and field trips, or as expensive as planning a cross-country trip to go along with your unit study.  The expense is completely up to you, as is the length of time that you spend on the unit.  A unit study can last a week, a month, or a year, depending on what your child is getting out of it.  For these reasons and more, many parents choose unit studies as the basis for their homeschooling experience.

If you would like more information about unit studies and how to plan them, visit the following websites:

http://homeschooling.about.com/library/howto/htunit.htm

http://unitstudy.com/articles/unit_study_101.htm

http://www.kaleidoscapes.com/unitstudies/unitstudyfaq.html

http://www.loveathome.com/homeschool/frugal.htm

http://www.thehomeschoolmom.com/unitstudymethod.html

http://homeschooling.gomilpitas.com/methods/OwnUnits.htm

Next month: Unschooling

You may reach Maisha Khalfani at maisha@mommytoo.com.