Learn how to create your own homeschool unit study with these simple steps. I’ll walk you step-by-step through the process so that you can confidently write your own unit study.
“The sky is the limit!” Have you ever heard of that expression used in reference to homeschooling? Well, I think it is true. And I believe that it is especially true when it comes to homeschooling with unit studies.
However, sometimes we need wings to help us soar into that proverbial sky, so I’m going to help you by giving you a framework to help you build your “wings”. Which means I’m going to walk you step-by-step through the four step process of creating a unit study. You can use this process to create ANY unit study for your homeschool that your heart so desires!!!
I know that you may be one of the homeschooling moms sitting behind your screen thinking, “What?!?! WHY are you PLANNING a unit study? Unit studies just pour out of my soul! We live our lives as one big unit study, it’s not something you can PLAN it is just a WAY OF LIFE that you live!” And if that’s what you’re thinking, then please come and teach me your ways!
But that’s not me. I know that in order for me to stay focused on the learning, adventuring, delight and exploration of a particular topic I NEED A PLAN If you’re like me, and you need a plan too, then read on!
The 4 Simple Steps to Create A Homeschool Unit Study:
- Choose a topic.
- Set goals.
- Brainstorm ideas and research resources.
- Create your plan.
Note:
Now keep in mind that you can absolutely homeschool with unit studies without ever needing to create your own unit study.
You can find a HUGE RANGE of unit studies that other people have designed and compiled available to use.
However, I have found that usually when I want to utilize a unit study in our homeschool, I want it to be custom made and specifically designed to meet the particular needs of my family. So I often choose to write my own unit study to suit our needs and fulfill my goals.
Using A Unit Study Planner
While thinking about and preparing to write a new unit study for our homeschool, I realized that I would love to have a planner that would fit my style of planning. So I created a printable unit study planner. If you would like to download a FREE copy of the unit study planner that I created, just fill out the form below, and I’ll send it straight to your inbox!
This blog post contains affiliate links, which means I make a small commission at no extra cost to you. See my full disclosure here.
Once I had printed off my newly “minted” planner, I grabbed my favorite pens and started the planning process!
Now, before I designed this planner, I just used a notebook. So no pressure to use my planner! A simple notebook is totally fine to use. A notebook will also give you more flexibility and allow you to customize the planning process to suit your brain best!
Walking Through The 4 Simple Steps to Create A Homeschool Unit Study
So to begin the process of creating a homeschool unit study, I begin by working through the following steps:
#1. Choose A Topic
When choosing a topic you can do something extremely broad such as “the ocean”, or something specific like “manatees”.
Currently I am writing a unit study on gardening.
If your topic is broad then you may want to jot down some subtopics that you might want to cover in your unit study to help narrow down the focus of your study.
#2. Set Goals
After choosing a topic to study, I set goals on how much time I want to spend studying through the unit. A unit study one week long could be more like a mini unit study. Two to six weeks could be more of a medium sized unit study, allowing time for some in depth study of the main topic along with allowing time for the study of subtopics. If you plan to do a large unit study you can spend six to eight weeks, or more, on the unit study. You will be able to do a deep dive into numerous subtopics.
After deciding how much time you want to spend in the unit study, next it is time to write out your goals for the study. Your goals could include educational goals, child-specific goals, or goals with a specified end result.
For our unit study on gardening, my main goal is to teach my children how to grow a garden. So I broke that down into the following goals:
- Plan & Prepare for a garden.
- Start & Grow a garden!
- Spend LOTS of productive time together outside!
#3. Brainstorm Ideas and Research Resources
After choosing a topic and setting goals, next it is time to brainstorm ideas and research resources for your unit study. I like to consider brainstorming to be similar to a workout for your brain. I like to break down the process of brainstorming into three distinct parts.
Brainstorming Part 1 – The Warmup
Using a spider diagram is an excellent way to help get your brain in gear and begin the creative process of writing a unit study. You may want to use a spider diagram to break down the topic by subject. Here are some of the subjects you might want to include in your unit study.
- Language Arts (which can be separated further into the subjects; reading, writing, spelling, vocabulary, and grammar)
- Math (you can further simplify this subject into; numbers and operations, measurement, geometry, statistics, data analysis, logic, problem solving, sequencing, connections, and more!)
- Social Studies (which can be divided further into Bible, history, geography and civics)
- Physical Development (which can be broken down further into the subjects safety, health and physiology, and physical education)
- Fine Arts (which could be isolated into many disciplines such as music, art, poetry, drama, photography, graphic arts, and dance)
- Enrichment (which could also be separated further into games, life skills including etiquette and social skills, cooking, travel and many, many more!)
This is not an exhaustive list of subjects! Hopefully, this list will just be a beginning point for you to start thinking about choosing subjects I want to cover for the unit study. Once you’ve chosen some subjects, you can just labeling the boxes accordingly and start writing down ideas on how you want to pursue studying the topic within that subject.
However, the spider graph is not limited to breaking the topic down by subject! You can use a spider diagram in many ways while brainstorming a unit study, here are a few more ideas.
- Write out subordinate ideas and subtopics branching from the original topic
- Making connections and highlight certain aspects of a topic or concepts
- Answering the basic questions; Who? What? When? Where? Why? How?
Brainstorming Part 2 – The Exercise
The second part of brainstorming is writing down any thoughts, ideas, resources or possibilities that you may want to explore in connection with this topic! This is basically the place for a “brain dump”, anything that has been swirling around in your brain regarding this topic now has a place to land and not be forgotten! This is the page for you to begin recording all of the resources you want to use to learn more about your topic.
Now is the time to do some research to dig into the topics, concepts, activities, ideas and lessons that you want to cover in your unit study. You should also look into resources that may be available to you as you dive into the unit. Research local festivals, clubs, groups and activities. You can also use Google, Pinterest, YouTube, your library, or pick your librarian’s brain.
Think outside the box as you research how to make this unit study exciting and help learning come to life for your student and yourself!
Brainstorming Part 3 – The Cooldown
After the brainstorming and researching all of the possibilities available to you, now is the time to list the resources, books, field trip ideas, activities, and games that are most exciting to you. There is also a place on the resources page for you to begin to think about how you want to record the learning that takes place throughout the unit study.
And that finishes up the brainstorming process!
#4. Create A Plan
Now it is time to take all of the resources and ideas that you have and create a plan on how you will study through this unit. It’s time to decide what is actually worthy of your time and focus.
You get to decide what you will pursue during this study. You get to week through all of the possibilities and choose what is worthy of your time and attention.
Sometimes you will find that your constraints, whether that is time, money, level of interest, available opportunities (or available energy!), will help you determine what resources you will choose to use for the unit study.
Create an At-A-Glance Page
This is where the page Unit Study At-A-Glance comes in!
This is the most exciting part of this whole process! Now it is time to make your game plan, errr… unit plan!
First, begin by deciding how you want to cultivate wonder in your child, (or children), to begin the study. Will you use a poem, or a book, art, or music, “strewing”, a field trip, a game, a video, or a different activity that you’ve been dreaming up?
Next, decide what will be your course of action in working through the study. Use your brainstorming pages to consider the concepts, ideas, and resources available to help you decide how you want to engage in the topic at hand.
Finally, choose how you want to conclude your unit study. There are so many delightful ways to conclude a unit study. Here are some ideas:
- Narration
- Quiz
- Lapbook
- Party
- Demonstration
- Report
- Fair
- Exam
- Butcher Paper Final Exam Art
- Notebook
Now you have the beginning of your unit study, the middle, and end all planned out! Don’t forget to make a list of the things that you will need to do to prepare for the unit study.
Be Proactive To Overcome Obstacles
Also, now is the time to think through any obstacles that may keep you from being successful in this study. Plan your “key three”. What three things can you proactively take action on to help mitigate your obstacles and allow you to work through this unit successfully?
Write down the things that you believe are going to be “key” in helping you to make this an enriching and delightful study for you and your child(ren).
There is also a place on the at-a-glance page to make any notes you would like to keep handy as you are planning.
Let’s Get It On The Calendar
The final step in writing your own unit study is to create an individual, and/or weekly, and/or monthly plan. This will help you accomplish all of the amazing things you have planned for your unit study.
Now depending on the length and depth of your unit study, you may not need a monthly plan. However, regardless of the length of our study, I like to see how the unit study fits in with the rest of our lives, so I enjoy using a monthly planner.
If you start with a monthly planner it might help give you a bird’s eye view of your study. Then you could “zoom in” to a weekly view to plan which days work best for the activities you have planned. And then if you would like to create a daily or individual lesson plan, you know exactly what you want to be doing for that lesson. This will help you create a unit study that builds on concepts, dives deeper into subtopics, and spreads itself into a luscious feast of ideas and wonder in a logical and delightfully unplanned way.
Take Your Homeschool Unit Study Plans Somewhat Lightly
“Never, in peace or war, commit your virtue or your happiness to the future. Happy work is best done by the man who takes his long-term plans somewhat lightly and works from moment to moment ‘as for the Lord’. It is only our daily bread that we are encouraged to ask for. The present is the only time in which any duty can be done or any grace received.”
C.S. Lewis
So as an extra encouragement, don’t become a slave to your PLAN. Your plan is simply here to SERVE you and your family. Because of my personality, I have to work extra hard to savor and enjoy the pleasures of the moment and not be fixated on my agenda. I know this about myself and I have to constantly ask the Lord to help me to enjoy the PROCESS of my children learning and growing and stop worrying about the PROGRAM I have created to help them grow and learn!
Now, Get Going!
So now with your completed plan for your unit study in hand, you can begin working through the “To Do List” to prepare for your unit study!!
What an exciting adventure you are about to embark on! I hope it is a magical time of learning, exploring, and building your relationship with your child(ren).
