When I was researching homeschooling when my kids were tiny, I thought that we would follow a Charlotte Mason approach for learning. However, when we actually started doing it, I found the best thing for our family was learning through unit studies. (Miss Mason is still plenty prominent in some places). Today I’m sharing how I plan unit studies. At the end of this post, make sure to grab your free unit study planning template!
My favorite thing when I was a classroom teacher was lesson planning and creating resources to use in class. I really enjoy that I still get to use those skills to plan what we’ll do in homeschool. My favorite thing in our homeschool life is surprising my kids with a new unit.
Generally, our unit studies last a month. We have done some 2-week studies, but I have found I get the best “bang for my buck” if we stay on the same topic for 4-6 weeks. Today I’ll share from start to finish how I plan and organize our unit studies.
First Things First
Before I ever get started planning a unit, I’ve got to have ideas for the topics to choose. I keep a list in the Google Keep app in my phone of different unit study topics as they come up. Before I finalize the plan for our next school year, I also ask the kids if there’s anything they’re interested in learning. Our son chose “building” last year, and it turned into a really fun unit. I love using the Google Keep app because it allows you to see the items you’ve checked off your list.
Choosing a Plan for the Year
I usually start plotting out our new school year about 2 months before we’ve finished the current one. First, I’ll print a single page calendar with both years of our school year on it, and highlight the days we’ll take “off” for holidays, birthdays, and breaks.
The next thing I’ll do is check out our idea list. I try to plan history/social studies topics and science topics alternating with each other. That doesn’t happen all of the time, but we get plenty of both mixed in all the time, so that’s ok. For the 2022-2023 school year, our units are:
- Fairytales & Castles [story elements]
- Light, Shadow, Rainbows, Color
- Earth Science
- Atmosphere & Weather
- Land Features, Rocks & Minerals
- Natural Disasters & Emergency Preparedness
- Sound & Bats Mini Unit (Halloween)
- Advent Picture Book Unit
- Me On the Map [SC & US Geography]
- Iditarod Mini Unit
After putting the holiday related units on the calendar, I fit the other ones in around our breaks.
Planning a Unit Study
Using my unit study planning sheet, I write in the calendar dates and pace out our unit. I choose the focus for each week. Then, I look through my hoard of books & supplies to see what we have that will work for the unit. Thrift Books and Second Sale are great places that I look to get quality used books to supplement what we already have. Planning out the unit topics a year in advance also allows me to glance through the inventory when I’m in my favorite local used book store.
Next, I will start writing ideas in the subject area boxes. Some of these, I’ve planned already, and I’ll just plug in, like artist study, but most I will need to come up with ideas for. Pinterest is another great place to look, I always find good ideas for experiments and art projects there.
I will attempt to match up the following areas to our unit study topics, although sometimes they’re a stretch, or don’t wind up matching up at all.
- Family Read Aloud
- Poetry
- Field Trips
- Science
- History
- Geography
- Writing
- Movies & TV Shows
I also look for games or toys we have that could fit in with the topic. Often, I’ll put those away a few months in advance so that they feel new when they come out for our unit. Providing them with toys and games they can use independently of our “formal” learning time is great for letting them further explore the topic. I usually try to add one new fun item as well. Some of these have been castle blocks for our fairytale unit, Operation for our human body unit, a sandbox with construction trucks for our building unit, and shark tooth identification t-shirts for our ocean unit.
Once I’ve filled up the unit study planning sheet, I stick it in my notebook behind the month tab, and there it sits until it’s time to plan weekly lessons! I try to plan these two months in advance so I have plenty of time to grab any necessary supplies.
Check out unit studies we have done in our homeschool here. And grab your free unit study planning printable here.
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