Home School Unit Study 101by Marcie Ciampi
This is a guide for building a home school unit study around the novel Charlotte's Web by E.B. White, a book with a goldmine of rich vocabulary, complex sentence structures, descriptive adjectives and adverbs, and lovable characters. One wonderful fact about creating your own home school unit study is you can adapt the material to fit the needs of your child's age, interests and abilities. Also, you can pick and choose which elements you believe best suit your
teaching method. When you get discouraged, remember you can do it. And, I've already done all the work for you on this unit study - I promise. Think of how you can impress your friend. When she says, "Hey, check out my new Coach purse!" And you reply, "Hey! Check out the cool home school unit study I created!" Just kidding. The following is a literature-based home school unit study guide. Adapt and adjust the ideas to fit your teaching program. Also, See
Language Arts Cafe of Spectrum Homeschool
for lessons you can implement into your unit study. Steps to Make Your Own Home School Unit Study
1. Choose quality literature
at an age-appropriate level that you and your child will enjoy. (An alternative to a literature-based theme is to plan your theme about an area of interest in any subject, and then find literature to fit your theme.)2. Locate a novel and a notepad. Use the notepad to brainstorm ideas throughout the planning process. 4. Copy and Research. Use a computer and pick specific keywords to search for teaching ideas for your unit. Type the name of your novel plus one other word, such as the following: Chapter 1, Comprehension, Discussion, Vocabulary, Questions, Guide, About(the author's name), Before you Read, Responding, etc. Beware: If you type in the word "Free" You might end up at a site trying to sell you a product. 5. Keep your eyes open for possible ideas to fit your study. For example, with the novel, Charlotte's Web, if you are going to a department store, ask the manager for discarded shoe boxes to make a diorama. Shopping for groceries, talk to the butcher about arranging a tour and after the tour plan a "pet pig verses bacon" debate, journal entry, etc. Buy a used book on farm animals or second-hand magazine about nutrition. 7. It's time to fill in the gaps. What am I missing? Where can I go for more information? Here is a list of brainstorming ideas 8. Decide how many chapters you are going to read a day. The amount of time you set aside for your child(ren) to complete the novel will be the length of your unit. 9. Format. Take out a large piece of paper, a whiteboard, bulletin board with index cards, the computer, or whatever works best for you when organizing your ideas. Divide your paper into the different subject areas you want to address. Write down the ideas you have for each subject. Some will overlap, that is fine; it's supposed to overlap. There is no reason to teach each subject every day, but make sure the subject areas are evenly dispersed throughout the unit study.
10. Use a piece of paper for each of the days you plan to teach your thematic lesson and write down what you will teach. You don't have to use everything you found. Save some for your next unit study. Try to balance the days. There is no need to have spelling, vocabulary and comprehension questions every day. Make sure to have something fun in the introductory lesson for day one. A good strategy for day one is to learn about the author, locate the location of the setting of the story on a map and write a prediction about the story based on the novel's cover or first page. 11. Review one last time and write your lessons in a plan book or just use the ten pages for reference. Jot down a supply list. And Celebrate! You have completed a home school unit study.
|
