It’s a paradox. The free rein to study what delights your kids is the same thing that can make some homeschoolers feel restless and unnerved when there is an overflowing amount of material to study on a topic.
Sanity-Saving Secrets for Jumping into Homeschool Unit Studies
As I began creating unit studies, I learned a lot about the learning process and in how to help you to keep the material from being overwhelming. One quick tip to help you remember the unfolding of a homeschool unit study is an easy mnemonic { I-SIP}, which helps you to understand the steps.
Immersion, separation, investigation and personalization are the layers of learning that you build on as you do unit studies. And the mnemonic is one I created so that you know you don’t have to jump first into tailoring a unit study just for you kids.
Besides, if you went straight to day-to-day lesson plans, you would miss out on the ‘plumpness’ of a unit study.
Breaking down these steps to help you understand each one, I am starting first with explaining what immersion is and why it is the first step.
Don’t try to tame the overabundant information you have on hand.
Immersion is the first step and it is time for unrestrained exploration.
Being immersed or the first step in the I – SIP process is probably my favorite step. It means to “dive head-first” into a subject.
Until you and your kids explore the numerous sub-topics under a major topic, you won’t know what interests your kids.
This is so very important because unit studies are suppose to be about what you think is right to teach your child about a set of subjects.
(Sample from my Ultimate Unit Study Planner of how many subtopics we were exploring when we studied my FBI unit study.I wrote the main topic in the middle and the subtopics are all connected to my main topic.)
Another important reason to wade through all the material you have on hand is that you don’t want to kill your child’s joy for learning before you get started.
Think of a funnel as you start unit studies. Keep learning ‘open wide’ in the beginning to drink in all the goodness.
Unless you are teaching a unit study for the second or third time, time is needed to see which subtopics you will want to investigate.
For example, I think about my War Between ‘Tates unit study. When we jumped into learning about the topic, there were many subtopics that interested my boys.
From money used back during the American Civil War to the H.L. Hunley submarine that was used by the Confederate States of America, we read about many subtopics while studying about the American Civil War.
As you can see immersion is important because as you read over whichever resources or books you have chosen, a picture emerges of the subtopics that pique your children’s interests.
Though we read about the food prepared during the American Civil War, my sons were more interested in other topics than music, food or fashion. Okay, you know I have all boys. When we first studied the American Civil War, my boys were more interested in the geography and names of the battles and weaponry of the time.
However, had we not read everything we wanted to without restraint, they would have not know about some of the broad strokes of life during that time period.
One huge advantage to taking your time in this first layer of learning is that not only do your children find subtopics that would pique their curiosity, but they also have an introduction to a wide variety of subtopics from the topic you chose.
Don’t rush the immersion step. Sometimes we stay just a few days on this step and for other unit studies, immersion took us a few weeks.
Now, can you see why it’s probably my favorite step?
Learning without limits or the boundaries of a textbook is energizing, exhilarating and engaging.
Next, moving onto to the second layer of learning, which is separation is important. I’ll talk about that next.
Look at these other tips for how to build a unit study
- 10 Days of Diving into Unit Studies by Creating a Unit Study Together.
- How to Grade a Homeschool Unit Study for an Older Child (& high school assessment).
- Ultimate Homeschool Unit Study Planner – Which Lesson Planning Pages to Use.
You think you can remember this easy mnemonic?
Hugs and love ya,
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