I am excited every time we get to review unit studies. I love fully immersing ourselves in a topic and applying its concepts in every subject area. This comprehensive method helps you learn more, retain it longer, and have fun while doing.
I was recently introduced to Homeschool Complete, who not only produces Unit Studies, but offers complete year-long curricula, as well. The author of the materials, Debra Arbuthnot, has 27 years of teaching experience including public, private, and homeschool education. Her curricula are designed to not only teach facts but also instill higher-level thinking and problem-solving while helping you to confidently teach your child.
We were able to choose multiple studies from her collection. I picked two studies from the kindergarten-second grade section and two studies from the third-sixth grade section.
I was recently introduced to Homeschool Complete, who not only produces Unit Studies, but offers complete year-long curricula, as well. The author of the materials, Debra Arbuthnot, has 27 years of teaching experience including public, private, and homeschool education. Her curricula are designed to not only teach facts but also instill higher-level thinking and problem-solving while helping you to confidently teach your child.
We were able to choose multiple studies from her collection. I picked two studies from the kindergarten-second grade section and two studies from the third-sixth grade section.
- U.S. Symbols
- John Adams
- Parks
- Spiders
Each study includes an introduction; table of contents; teaching procedure; skills list; materials list; all worksheets, charts, and flash cards; and book list. Each lesson gives detailed, step-by-step directions and is written so that anyone could easily teach the material.
The U.S. Symbols unit is a 4-day study that covers the Liberty Bell, the American flag, the bald eagle, and the Statue of Liberty. It encourages a love of country and an appreciation for our Christian foundation. There are various skills covered, but we were especially drawn to the activities: a construction paper star mobile, a play dough reconstruction of the Statue of Liberty, tic-tac-toe bean bag game, and graham cracker fractions.
Our family loves learning history and being able to spout off random facts. The kids were excited to learn which Bible verse is on the Liberty Bell, our flag's birthday, why the eagle is called "bald," and how many years it took to build the Statue of Liberty. One fact that my oldest son expected to be included in the study was the misspelling on the Liberty Bell. We did a little additional research to see how that could have happened and got an extra history lesson in the process.
The John Adams study teaches about our second president in 4 lessons. The main literature selection is Horrible Harry Moves Up to Third Grade with each lesson reading a portion of it. There are a couple other reading selections along with informational paragraphs about the president throughout the study. Students practice compound words, learn about the election process, write a cinquain, learn a patriotic song, create a poster for a protest, make a paper plate clock, exercise muscles, play a variation of red light green light, and more.
My kids enjoyed learning things such as how the Vice President was originally chosen, how Abigail Adams contributed to our historical understanding, and where the Battle of Bunker Hill took place.
The Parks unity study is 4 lessons. Each lesson focuses on a well-known National Park. It covers skills such as identifying locations on a map, skip counting, matching antonyms, writing abbreviations of the months of the year, practicing onomatopoeia sounds, finding the area of objects around the house, and more. It also includes activities such as leaf-rubbing designs, making and flying a kite, making a geyser, and taking a hike.
Our favorite parts of the study were the informational sections on each of the Parks. We learned things like when the National Park Service was created, how many states have National Parks, which is the most-visited Park (our family loves visiting there!), the goal of the Parks, how often Old Faithful shoots water, what Yosemite National Park is known for, what the walls of the Grand Canyon are made of, and other interesting facts. We love to go hiking and geocaching as a family, so this study was a favorite of ours.
The Spiders unit is an 8-lesson study. The main literature selection is Charlotte's Web. Along with written skills, there are plenty of hands-on activities including directions for a papier-mậché pig, recipe for mini donuts, milk bottle knockdown fair game, directions for homemade musical instruments, toss bugs in the web game, duck duck goose, directions for a spaghetti orb web, and more.
My kids especially liked painting spider webs with marbles and walking across painter's tape like a spider. We also took time, too, to look up pictures of various spiders. The boys were thrilled! My girl, however, covered her eyes with her hands and peaked at the images through her fingers, ha.
Even though these unit studies are geared toward kindergarten-6th graders, I used them with all my kids (ages 4-13). I like to do as much combined learning together as a family as I can. The more of us we have learning together, the more the conversations twist and turn and the deeper our learning becomes as we research more about each topic.
These are definitely full studies and include everything from reciting pledges and daily calendar work to the main subjects of language arts, math, social studies, science, fine arts, physical education, and character development. Many of the skills are grade-specific. My 8th grader doesn't need to practice counting by twos, and my preschooler isn't quite ready to write an essay pretending that he is a citizen of Massachusetts in 1775. But the beauty of homeschooling is that we can adapt the materials to meet our needs!
So much is involved with these studies. Honestly, I feel that these aren't truly unit studies as the concepts don't correlate to the main theme most of the time. They feel as if they're chunks of the all-inclusive curricula with an emphasis on a certain topic for portions. That's not a bad thing; it just doesn't fit my idea of a unit study, where every skill complements the theme. One thing that confused me was that the Spiders study seems to be more of a Charlotte's Web study, as that book is used for much of the learning. For instance, the papier-mậché project is a pig instead of a spider, the crossword puzzle is filled with answers from the book, much of the discussion is based around the story, and many activities (i.e. fair recipe and games) pertain to Charlotte's Web. In fact, there isn't anything about spiders in the study until lesson 4. We learned more about that one book than we did specifically about spiders. Again, it's not a bad thing. I just think it needs to be renamed.
All that to say, I chose to use the portions from each study that focused on the topic. We read the sections and some supplementing books, answered the questions, and completed projects. We learned a lot of interesting facts and had fun with the activities.
I think these studies would especially benefit homeschooling parents who need confidence in teaching their children, as there are very detailed directions for each step, even word-for-word suggestions. These studies take the guess work out of lesson planning. Each study would most likely replace the need for additional educational resources if used as intended.
If you're looking for a fun, hands-on, complete unit study for your elementary-aged student, I'd suggest you look into Homeschool Complete.
The U.S. Symbols unit is a 4-day study that covers the Liberty Bell, the American flag, the bald eagle, and the Statue of Liberty. It encourages a love of country and an appreciation for our Christian foundation. There are various skills covered, but we were especially drawn to the activities: a construction paper star mobile, a play dough reconstruction of the Statue of Liberty, tic-tac-toe bean bag game, and graham cracker fractions.
Our family loves learning history and being able to spout off random facts. The kids were excited to learn which Bible verse is on the Liberty Bell, our flag's birthday, why the eagle is called "bald," and how many years it took to build the Statue of Liberty. One fact that my oldest son expected to be included in the study was the misspelling on the Liberty Bell. We did a little additional research to see how that could have happened and got an extra history lesson in the process.
The John Adams study teaches about our second president in 4 lessons. The main literature selection is Horrible Harry Moves Up to Third Grade with each lesson reading a portion of it. There are a couple other reading selections along with informational paragraphs about the president throughout the study. Students practice compound words, learn about the election process, write a cinquain, learn a patriotic song, create a poster for a protest, make a paper plate clock, exercise muscles, play a variation of red light green light, and more.
My kids enjoyed learning things such as how the Vice President was originally chosen, how Abigail Adams contributed to our historical understanding, and where the Battle of Bunker Hill took place.
The Parks unity study is 4 lessons. Each lesson focuses on a well-known National Park. It covers skills such as identifying locations on a map, skip counting, matching antonyms, writing abbreviations of the months of the year, practicing onomatopoeia sounds, finding the area of objects around the house, and more. It also includes activities such as leaf-rubbing designs, making and flying a kite, making a geyser, and taking a hike.
Our favorite parts of the study were the informational sections on each of the Parks. We learned things like when the National Park Service was created, how many states have National Parks, which is the most-visited Park (our family loves visiting there!), the goal of the Parks, how often Old Faithful shoots water, what Yosemite National Park is known for, what the walls of the Grand Canyon are made of, and other interesting facts. We love to go hiking and geocaching as a family, so this study was a favorite of ours.
The Spiders unit is an 8-lesson study. The main literature selection is Charlotte's Web. Along with written skills, there are plenty of hands-on activities including directions for a papier-mậché pig, recipe for mini donuts, milk bottle knockdown fair game, directions for homemade musical instruments, toss bugs in the web game, duck duck goose, directions for a spaghetti orb web, and more.
My kids especially liked painting spider webs with marbles and walking across painter's tape like a spider. We also took time, too, to look up pictures of various spiders. The boys were thrilled! My girl, however, covered her eyes with her hands and peaked at the images through her fingers, ha.
Even though these unit studies are geared toward kindergarten-6th graders, I used them with all my kids (ages 4-13). I like to do as much combined learning together as a family as I can. The more of us we have learning together, the more the conversations twist and turn and the deeper our learning becomes as we research more about each topic.
These are definitely full studies and include everything from reciting pledges and daily calendar work to the main subjects of language arts, math, social studies, science, fine arts, physical education, and character development. Many of the skills are grade-specific. My 8th grader doesn't need to practice counting by twos, and my preschooler isn't quite ready to write an essay pretending that he is a citizen of Massachusetts in 1775. But the beauty of homeschooling is that we can adapt the materials to meet our needs!
So much is involved with these studies. Honestly, I feel that these aren't truly unit studies as the concepts don't correlate to the main theme most of the time. They feel as if they're chunks of the all-inclusive curricula with an emphasis on a certain topic for portions. That's not a bad thing; it just doesn't fit my idea of a unit study, where every skill complements the theme. One thing that confused me was that the Spiders study seems to be more of a Charlotte's Web study, as that book is used for much of the learning. For instance, the papier-mậché project is a pig instead of a spider, the crossword puzzle is filled with answers from the book, much of the discussion is based around the story, and many activities (i.e. fair recipe and games) pertain to Charlotte's Web. In fact, there isn't anything about spiders in the study until lesson 4. We learned more about that one book than we did specifically about spiders. Again, it's not a bad thing. I just think it needs to be renamed.
All that to say, I chose to use the portions from each study that focused on the topic. We read the sections and some supplementing books, answered the questions, and completed projects. We learned a lot of interesting facts and had fun with the activities.
I think these studies would especially benefit homeschooling parents who need confidence in teaching their children, as there are very detailed directions for each step, even word-for-word suggestions. These studies take the guess work out of lesson planning. Each study would most likely replace the need for additional educational resources if used as intended.
If you're looking for a fun, hands-on, complete unit study for your elementary-aged student, I'd suggest you look into Homeschool Complete.
You can connect with Homeschool Complete on the following social media sites:
Homeschool Complete offers many other unit studies as well as full grade-level curricula. You can read more reviews of the products on the Homeschool Review Crew blog.
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