Home School Discoveries for Spring

I was talking with a friend on Twitter, and she asked me what curriculum we use. If you know me, you know that we used strictly A Beka for the first seven years we home schooled. When I had 12yo, an 11yo, a 9yo, a 4yo, and a 2yo, I decided that working a strict, sit-in-your-desk-and-work home school wasn’t going to cut it. Especially since the 4 year old was our only boy.

Enter Educating the Wholehearted Child and the Charlotte Mason Home Companion, and I was home schooling in an entirely different direction than I had ever before. We were still using some workbooks, but we decided to make up our own unit studies and read books, watch historical movies, and experience World War 2 as we had never experienced any other subject before. They loved it. Me too. That was over seven years ago.

Discovering Ways to Use Unit Studies

When I discovered notebooking and lapbooking at Cindy Rushton’s site in 2005, I could not get my brain to think outside of the box, so I hung in there and found out what it was all about. It took me awhile, but I found out that using a lapbook is very simple, and fun also for hands-on learning. You can also many times order them to put together yourself or pre-made. Either way, they are a very good way to study any topic for several ages. After finding and reading the Heart of Wisdom Teaching Approach a few months later, my love for unit studies and delight-direct home schooling was just solidified. I love using the Bible as a base for learning, and life and unit studies along with it.
We still use A Beka Arithmetic and handwriting for the Littles, and the math up to 7th grade, but reading and writing, research and unit studies are the main means of education in our home.

Here are some Spring unit studies ideas:

Gardens Unit Study by Amanda Bennett

This is the year to have a family garden and learn together with the Gardens Unit Study! In it, you will:

• Begin now to plan and learn
• Grow your own fresh food
• Learn about plants and gardens
• Plan & plant your own garden

From patio gardens to backyard tomato gardens, get ready for a learning adventure

DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY UNIT STUDY by Amanda Bennett

Capture their interest with an all new unit study. Anytime is a great time to get out with the camera. We use our all the time and love to capture beautiful shots of the world around us.

Ideas from Suite101.com

For ideas for teaching toddlers Spring-themed preschool lesson plans, the Spring Season Pre-K Unit Study is a complete preschool unit study based on the spring season and holidays for math, science, art, music, language skills, food, outdoor activities and more.

CURRCLICK

Currclick is a great place to find downloadable Unit Studies, Lapbooks and other home school resources. You will find a list of Spring Unit Studies and Spring Lapbooks on their site.

HOME SCHOOL HELPER

FREE Homeschooling Unit Studies

FREE Lapbooks and instructional folds

FREE Worksheets

FREE Notebooking pages

You really can do this. It is not only fun, but it is a simple way to get into learning and keep their attention. I had the opportunity to Review several pre-made lapbooks by Cyndi Kinney at Knowledge Box Central. I have also been able to review a few Project Packs by In the Hands of A Child. I love their unit studies.

FREEBIES and How-To’s

So, you have no idea where to start, but you are ready to delve into the world of Unit Studies. Well, if you would just rather try your hand at making your own unit study up, it isn’t hard, it just takes some time for brain-storming and planning. Knowing your own home, your own resources, and a little about a topic, you can successfully do that. I did a short plan for a gardening unit study a couple of years ago, just to get the juices flowing and show you how easy it is in  Gardening 101 – You *Can* Teach Your Children!!

It really is simple when you can get online and search for books and related movies, using websites as a reference for resources. Even if you aren’t familiar with a topic, there are plenty of resources and ideas to compile into a specialized unit study of your own.

Here are some sites with info on Unit Studies:

• A site I love for resources is Donna Young. Go there and look around. There are oodles of great freebies for home schoolers. You can start with her page: Home school Unit Study Planner.
• Another wonderful site to bookmark is The Home School Mom. You will find her Unit Studies page HERE.
• Beverly at About.c
• om Home Schooling gives some info on How to Plan a Unit Study
• Designing Homeschool Unit Studies (for Dummies.com)
• Unit Study for Home Education Guide (preschoolers, grade school)
• Be sure to get on the mailing list for Freebie of the Day. You will get an email notification of what freebies are coming up for the week. Sometimes they will have several components for a unit study.
• I found this on their site for this week only, though March 16th:

Far Above Rubies Unit Study Sampler by Lynda Coats (PDF)
“Far Above Rubies” is a full four-year self-directed High School Unit Study curriculum for Christian young ladies. Today’s resource is this extensive 78 page sampler of the four year curriculum, including a COMPLETE, ready-to-use unit study. If you have (or will have) Jr. High / Sr. High age daughters, you owe it to yourself to check this out.
The complete curriculum is available at the 50% off pre-publication discount (only through March 16th).

Will Unit Studies Work For You?

As you can see, there are many different resources out there that explain or offer free Unit Studies and Lapbooking materials for you to choose from. My friend said she didn’t know if she could change the way they home school and try unit studies, so I suggested she get one little unit study and work on it along with the other curriculum she uses, as an extra-curricular-type study. I mean, you can study candy if you like.

Now, with the changing weather all around us, is a great time to get out and explore and start a new unit study. Whatever your child is interested in is open for study. Many times when you study something of an interest to your children, you will find that the study kind of morphs into something you hadn’t planned. That’s ok! Learning together and finding out what interests our children and what their bents are is the best way to find out how God designed them and what their purpose in life is.

They may not know that they were interested in mechanics or drafting or history until they study what trains do and where they came from and how they work. It is truly amazing what we can see in our children when we watch and teach, allowing life to happen on its own.

Am I saying don’t have a plan? No, not all the time. There should always be a plan and a direction, but working with unit studies, lapbooks and notebooking allows us to follow our plans and let them study different aspects of themes and topics that we may not have put into our plan.

Well, I better go. All of these links made me hungry to go plan a unit study! If you have any questions, leave them in the comments sections or Contact Me on my blog. Whether you are using a traditional textbook approach, classical, HOWTA, CM or the Unit Studies – what ever you are using, be sure to take time to get outside and smell the flowers, splash in the rain and experience God’s creation first-hand!

Let me know if you have been inspired to try a Unit Study!

blessings,

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