What is a Unit Study?

A unit study is a certain topic or a theme that and encompasses many different subjects and areas of learning. These topics often lead to other topics and continues to expand a child’s mind and knowledge.

Through unit studies, children do not memorise facts. They assimilate the information and solidify it by doing fun art projects or cool science experiments. They are learning by osmosis. Children develop critical thinking and as they get older and more used to this way of learning, they will be able to look for answers themselves.

I started by creating unit studies that were based on my children’s interest. Child-led learning sparks curiosity and encourages them to dive deeper into subjects. When I first started homeschooling, my daughter was five, I asked her what she wanted to learn about the most in the entire world. She thought for a brief moment and said insects! That propelled me to create my first ever Mini-beast unit study for her.

Through this approach, subjects are no longer categorised and divided into science, math, geography or art. Instead multiple topics and styles of learning are weaved together in a way that can only compliment each other. We love connecting our learning with the seasons and exploring nature.

In the spring, we started our flowers unit study. The lesson goes on to discuss pollinators, which can go on to a study about butterflies and honey bees. Going deeper into the subject of bees, we learned about their compound lenses and soon enough we were so far along the rabbit trail, it led us to Monet. We soon discovered that Impressionist painter Claude Monet, later lost one lens in his right eye and had bee vision, which made his paintings so vivid and creating a signature style.

You can stop when you want to and change the subject when children lose interest or you can keep following that rabbit trail and see where it take you! Of course, we didn’t want to stop there. We went on to learn about France, baking, Garden Snails and then Henri Matisse . This information, little by little allows your child to piece together information and view the world as a whole and see how everything is interconnected.

The best thing about homeschool is the unconventional style of learning. You no longer have to confine yourself to a classroom and learning is endless!