What is Unit Studies in Homeschooling?

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What is Unit Studies in Homeschooling?

Unit Studies is less a style of homeschooling and more a procedure for homeschooling. Families who utilize this method plan their lessons using unit studies for homeschoolers they either found online or created themselves. Unit Studies is a method that can be utilized with many of the other homeschooling styles.

What is Unit Studies?

Unit Studies is merely combining all subjects of study (math, writing, science, etc) into one topic.

For example:

Unit Studies can be a fun way to approach homeschooling - especially if you have a large family or children with short attention spans. Unit Studies are a lot of fun! #HessUnacademy #homeschool #unitstudies

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Unit Studies and The Solar System.

MATH – Students can learn about the math involved in astronomy and calculating distances. Math is also involved when learning about rocket ships and how they move from Earth to space.
READING – There are so many fun books about the solar system to read and discuss! Books for all ages.
WRITING – Include space-related vocabulary words and writing prompts. Write stories about space.
SOCIAL STUDIES – Talk about various astronauts and other people influential in solar system research.
HISTORY – When were the planets all discovered? Who discovered the planets revolve around the sun? Who named all the constellations?
GEOGRAPHY – Where in the world can each constellation be seen?
SCIENCE – What are the plants made of? How are chemistry, physics, biology, and geology involved in the study of the solar system?

When studying the solar system in a Unit Studies homeschool, children will explore the math used by astronauts or in conjunction with solar system topics. They will also read stories about the solar system and write sentences and essays about the solar system.

They’ll learn the history of different solar system related discoveries and the people behind these discoveries. A trip to the local planetarium might be in order! Planets and space and the earth’s atmosphere are all fun to explore while talking about science.

Unit Studies Popularity

This method is particularly popular amongst homeschoolers because it is easy to encompass children of all ages into one lesson. Everybody can talk about the solar system while working on their own individual math worksheets. And science experiments can be adapted for kids of multiple ages within the same topic.

Unit Studies is more than just reading from a textbook. Unit Studies is very hands on. It has to be in order to encompass all the different subjects included in one individual topic.

Some Pros and Cons of Unit Studies include:

Unit Studies Pros

It’s easy to encourage a child’s passion for a particular topic in all of their homeschooling lessons
Unit Studies make it easy to include kids of all ages
Children with different learning styles (including special learning challenges such as autism) are easily included
Field trip options are more plentiful
Lesson planning seems to be more natural and intuitive because you’re learning about life instead of reading from a textbook
Options are plentiful
There is a lot of flexibility surrounding Unit Studies
Children learn from each other!

Unit Studies Cons

Lesson planning tends to be more extensive as lessons are more often hands-on
Not every topic you choose to study will easily include all the subjects you want to cover in your homeschool.
It’s very easy to over-plan
Not very tidy or organized in comparison to traditional schooling – super organized parents and students might struggle with this concept.

Unit Studies is not for everybody. Some families need more structure in their homeschool. And that’s Okay! But a lot of families find that they thrive with a Unit Studies approach to homeschooling.

What do you think of the Unit Studies approach to homeschooling? If you want to get started with some unit studies in your homeschool, I’ve got some good options here:

Check out all of our unit studies for homeschoolers!

Comment below and tell us what your favorite topic would be!

Beyond Unit Studies

If you remember (or perhaps you missed that post!) we are in the midst of a series of posts on various homeschool styles and methods. This series began with the first post, “How Do I Start Homeschooling?”

The goal of this series is to help families who are feeling overwhelmed with their decision to start homeschooling. Please check out that post if you are just starting out on your homeschooling journey and you feel like you need some direction or some encouraging words.

Here are some of the other styles of homeschooling we’ll be looking into throughout the next few weeks:

More information on Unit Studies Homeschooling can be found by clicking on the following links:

Raising Human Beings
The Homeschool Mom – This post was especially informative!
Red Head Mom 8
Well-Planned Gal

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Charlene Hess

Charlene Hess is the founder of Hess UnAcademy. She spent many years teaching before she had her own kids. She now has 8 kids of her own, whom she has been homeschooled for over a decade.

She has now moved on from Hess UnAcademy to focus on her family and her new site, Secret Life of Homesteaders.