Science Unit Studies for Homeschoolers and Teachers

by Susan Kilbride

[cherryblossommj]

In the last few months we have discovered the wonder of unit studies and it has been delightful. Now I have had the opportunity to be introduced to a different author and program in Funtastic Unit Studies  ~  (http://FuntasticUnitStudies.com/). When I first discovered I would be give the opportunity to review the physical book Science Unit Studies For Homeschoolers and Teachers, I was intrigued as to what I would receive. The first thing I did was go and download some free samples and unit studies (see the bottom of this post). For the purposes of this review we were expected to use on unit study from the book which should take about two weeks of work. For us it took about three, but it was a neat experience.

Right now my daughter is loving science and has been begging left and right to increase our library, both with some read and find out type books as well as family read aloud living text books. Thus she was ecstatic when I said we would be doing some more unit studies in science. (The unit study we did earlier this year was also science.) However, Science Unit Studies for Homeschoolers and Teachers Ages 4-13 was different. The first half of the book (10 chapters) is for younger students and the second half of the book (10 chapters) is for the older students so it is not an all encompassing thing, but with some experiments perhaps that is a good plan. It is my understanding that Susan Kilbride, the author, is a homeschool mom with co-op teaching experience so her unit studies are tried and true tested.

In the first ten chapters, in the section for ages 4-7 the topics include:

1. Our Senses


2. The Human Body


3. Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Life


4. Animals


5. Insects and Their Kin


6. Fun with Magnets


7. Stars and Planets


8. Health


9. Beginning Plants


10. Animal Ecology

My students all fall in this category for the younger students. Honestly, we didn't find much that interested us. We are studying Astronomy this year, so we decided to work on the unit study for Stars and Planets in chapter 7.

The actual book is a 8x11" glued spine, durable in my opinion book. It was very easy for me to just wrap the cover around the back and hold it as we read and discussed our unit. All the materials needed for our unit were fairly easy to find with 2-3 store visits, but the price did add up and that surprised me. Next as we went through the unit we did an activity and there were great step by step illustrations added in with the instructions. I felt that if I had an older child leading the younger they would be quite capable of understanding with the instruction presentation. There were several activities through out the unit and these led to discussion and a bit more research. We studied the stars, the planets, and the moon.

I think that the concept behind this resource is great. For us, the execution of it was more difficult. My kids have learned to love unit studies. But they look forward to reading the half dozen books on a topic and making reference sheets or perhaps lapbook pages. Doing experiments was not what we are used to and it was often more a chore than a delight. I felt that the supplies were expensive and a bit tedious to find for where we live (rural) and often we had a plethora of left overs which makes me lean toward thinking this would be great for a co-op but for our individual family home it was not quite appropriate. To me this was not a unit study guideline, but more of an experiment book - I think that would be a better title in my opinion.

 

 

Freebies:
Here's a link to a page  that has two free pdf units from the book:
http://funtasticunitstudies.com/science-unit-studies-book/

And here's a link that has some other, unrelated, freebies:
http://funtasticunitstudies.com/lessons-and-activities/
Historical Chapter Book

 
This review was originally posted on www.CreativeMadnessMama.com