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Using Book Based Unit Studies to Enrich Your Family Life
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Using Book Based Unit Studies to Enrich Your Family Life
Yes! Book based unit studies are our life around here. You will always find us with some kind of book… even down to the 1 year old. Although his book preference is pulling them off all of the shelves and leaving them scattered about.
BUT Books and Book based studies have CHANGED OUR LIVES and our homeschool. We actually build our homeschool around books, not just trying to find somewhere they can fit in. So I wanted to share a few things with you.
- What is a unit study?
- What are some good book based unit studies?
- How in the world do we use other subjects in our homeschool?
- What is our basic routine when it comes to book based studies?
- Can non-homeschoolers use unit studies?
Alright, let’s get into it.
What is a unit study?
A unit study is best defined as:
“A unit study is taking a theme or topic (a unit of study) and delving into it deeply over a period of time, integrating language arts, science, social studies, math, and fine arts as they apply. Instead of studying eight or ten separate, unrelated subjects, all subjects are blended together and studied around a common theme or project.” By Phea.org
So to use a unit study, means to use one theme or topic with many different subjects. And since we loooove books- we make sure our unit studies use a central book, or a lot of supporting books.
What are some good book based unit studies?
There are 3 main spots I would love to send you to look for book based unit studies.
1- Right here on our website! You can head to the shop, and find literature based studies on The Chronicles of Narnia, The Wild Robot, and Dragon Masters just to name a few.
2- If you are looking for a unit study that was made by several creators- check out theultimateunitstudy.com . There are currently 3 unit studies available on books such as The Secret Garden, Charlotte’s Web, and Little House in the Big Woods.
3- The perfect series to use for history (which we will actually be using very soon!) are from thewaldockway.com and are based on the Who Was? series of books.
How in the world do we use other subjects in our homeschool?
Well, the unit study (or studies) we choose for our 6 week terms are usually based around 1-2 books or book series. These unit studies cover science or history, writing, reading, art, cooking, crafting- sometimes art or art appreciation, nature study, and more. What do we have leftover to study? Math, and some other Language Arts. (More about our 6 week terms here)
For those we use the following: (Grade 4/Level 6 coming soon)
https://loveathomeeducation.com/product/a-year-of-hands-on-math-level-5-grade-3/
https://loveathomeeducation.com/product/hands-on-measurement-data-unit-levels-1-4-prek-2/
And for language arts, we have a few options.
- Cursive or Manuscript Practice
- Spelling, Vocabulary, Reading, and Grammer
- Other book guides
and you can see all of those here: https://loveathomeeducation.com/product-category/all/shop-by-category/ela/
What is our basic routine when it comes to book based unit studies?
A lot of people are surprised when they hear how long our school session per day actually lasts. Will you be surprised? Let’s find out.
Less than an hour, for 2 kids ages 6 and 8. Yes.
1- Devotional (Free devotionals, click here)- lasts 5-10 minutes.
2. Read Aloud (Reading lasts 10-40 minutes, depends on the book and the chapter) with accompanying student notebook page- Somewhere between 15 and 50 minutes, but usually 30 minutes.
3. Other ELA. (Will reads me a book- 15 minutes, Ellie reads independently or works on spelling and vocabulary- 5-10 minutes)- total about 10-20 minutes.
4. Math skill for the day- 5-10 minutes total.
5. Any extras, usually from the book guides- 5-20 minutes.
Total- 40 minutes- 60 minutes for 2 kids
The book based unit study takes up #2, and #5. Often there is items included for #3 as well.
Can Non-Homeschoolers use unit studies as well?
YES YES YES. Here is an Instagram reel I did about that:
Leave us a comment if you have a question! Hope this was helpful!
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