Homeschool Unit Study Textbook Tips – Uh?

Taking the leap from textbooks to planning an interest led unit study can be a scary notion.

Ruining your kids for life, being behind, not being able to measure progress and not having a starting point are all hurdles that hold us back from testing the unit study waters.

Using homeschool unit study textbook tips in one breath can seem like a contradiction, but today I want to show you how to use what you may already have or feel comfortable with as a launching point for unit studies.

Though text books are not my first choice for planning a homeschool unit study, most all of us have textbooks in our homes.

Too, being a firm believer in using fully what I purchased with hard earned dollars and with a bit of love for being creative, textbooks certainly can be a starting point for a unit study.

When I first started doing unit studies, I didn’t plan every day or every sub-topic.  Rather, I used textbooks to plan an interest led unit study as enrichment.

So the first step in using a textbook is to decide if you want to use parts of it as a springboard for enrichment or to only use the outline as a framework for a more thorough unit study.

The easiest tiny baby step is to use a point made in the textbook as enrichment.

Look at some of these things about a textbook that make them an easy bridge to unit studies.

Outline.  An outline of ideas in a chapter and a break down of chapters in the book gives you a framework to build on.

Public school teachers and homeschoolers both can spend hours and hours building outlines until they have a framework of main ideas and supporting details for a topic.

The outline in a textbook can make planning a cinch because the legwork is done for you.  Quit reinventing the wheel and step over into easy planning by glancing at the outline.

Broad Strokes.  One of the negatives about textbooks, which is that it has a slice and dice approach to the subject may be a positive because it gives you the broad strokes.

A unit study can have a flood of information which makes starting one overwhelming.

By using the subjects that have been whittled down to broad topics and comparing that with other resources you have gathered like living books, articles and dvds, you can compare topics.

Then, choosing topics that interest you and your kids, you can feel confident that you are covering some of the broad strokes of a topic.

Quiz, Self Checking, Other Activities.  Each textbook is different, but a lot of them have many different sections that you can pull from to enhance your study.

Quizzes and self checking tests are important especially if you live in a state where you have to do some kind of record keeping.

Living in an area that is more strict with record keeping or having a highschooler where there is more emphasis on testing can hold some back from doing a unit study.

Textbooks can ease you into unit studies because the quizzes and self checking tests can be done orally or still used after you cover the information in a unit study fashion.

Quizzes and self checking tests are just two parts of what a textbook may have.  Depending on the subject and grade, some textbooks also include activities for hands-on projects.

Vocabulary building sections and writing topics are also a few more examples of some unit study enhancing features of a textbook.

From Textbook to Unit Study Starter

You may have other sections in your textbook too that can be used as a tool to either include in your unit study or to give you an idea of what else to include in the topic that interests you.

When we use something that we are familiar with we ease into unit studies.

Whether you want to use your textbooks as stepping stones to trying a new homeschool approach or because you want to maximize your textbooks to the full, they can be one tool to jump start your unit study.
In my second post and because I love visual aids, I will show you how to take a page or two of a textbook and add in some creativity to spark a unit study.

How about you? Do you have plenty of textbooks that could be used as unit study starters?

Hugs and love ya,

Look at this post Day 3. Selecting Superior Sub-Topics. 10 Days of Diving Into Unit Studies By Creating A Unit Study Together