Part One
The kiddos had a wonderful opportunity to go on an airplane ride with some great friends of ours. It was the first time for many of our kiddos. I love to turn these experiences into learning opportunities, so I wrote a quick unit study about airplanes.
CrewTip: The Concept Behind My Crazy
In our homeschool, we use a guided cirriculum for math and language arts. All the other subjects are taught in the form of a unit study. I do incorporate math and language in the unit study whenever I can because hands-on learning works wonders!
What Is A Unit Study?
A unit study is taking any topic, placing it under a magnifying glass and exploring every part of it. It’s all about letting the kiddos ask questions and chasing those “squirrels!”. While you are studying one topic, you are introducing the child to many other subtopics. For us, this method creates an emotional connection to the study and gives the child a place to organize the knowledge. Unit studies are a resource for multi-level teaching which is a lifesaver for mamas with large families. I can teach my 2-year-old alongside my highschooler while expecting age-appropriate level work from each of them about the same topic. While this is a huge advantage for big families, you don’t have to have a big family to teach a unit study. It works perfectly for one child too.
Before I share my “recipe” or map for writing unit studies, I want to share a little bit about my goals for my children this year. We are focusing on learning to be good writers by being able to take information that we research and put it on paper. I also have some struggling spellers, so we are doing oral dictation for spelling using words that we learn in our unit studies.
This is my Unit Study Map:
Learn it:
We read about our topic, research it, and watch any videos we can. We surround ourselves with the topic and educate ourselves with library books, online articles, and YouTube videos. Sometimes Netflix offers good documentaries or shows that deal with a topic we are studying. I just always make sure I am using accurate information using reputable sources.
Write it:
We take what we have learned, and we put it on paper. For my littles, I usually print off a coloring page about our topic for them to work on during this time. For my middles, we brainstorm about what we have learned, and each child gives one fact that stuck out to them. Then they arrange it in essay form by combining sentences, adding descriptive words with proper punctuation and capitalization. For Sam, he works independently on a short essay which we edit together at the end. We also had a shortlist of airplane inspired spelling words for oral dictation. For my kindergartener, I dictate a letter for her to write, usually the first letter of the older kiddos word.
Experience it:
I provide an experience with a hands-on activity that demonstrates something we have learned so far. This is our favorite part as they get to act on what they have learned. I try to include as many of the five senses as I can. This part can be messy but the messiest days are the most memorable!
Now how did this Unit Study Map translate into Airplanes? Well, I’ve given you my pre-flight checklist today. Be ready for takeoff tomorrow as The Hobbs Crew explores airplanes!
0 Comments