Unit studies are by far, my personal favorite and I tend to use those frequently. Whether it is literature-based or topic-based, I love that unit studies incorporate several core subjects at once. I can also tweak them to accommodate all of my kiddos at the same time, as well as incorporate lots of hands-on activities. Score!
This next bit might make some of you cringe, but I tend to add in a little screen time as well. (Yikes!) Now I know some will ask, why do I do this? It's simply because my kiddos are a mix of visual, auditory and kinesthetic learners, none of them fit into a neat little box. Watching videos, shows and sometimes even movies as part of our unit studies, (sometimes while jumping on a trampoline or hanging upside down on the couch) just helps them to understand and remember the information better. I've even tied in unit studies on a famous book series and another on a video game for my teen to keep him interested. (A dedicated post about incorporating video games is coming soon!)
For example, when we covered pre-history, we took a deep dive into dinosaurs and archeology. Some of the books we used are: History Year by Year: The History of the World, from the Stone Age to the Digital Age; Dinosaurs Before Dark: Magic Treehouse, Book 1 and Knowledge Encyclopedia Dinosaur!
We also watched several documentaries such as: Ancient Earth on Curiosity Stream for my older kiddo and Dino Dana for my littles! I even threw in The Good Dinosaur book and movie for my littlest!
A dinosaur dig in kinetic sand, these dinosaur skeletons worked great. We used a fossil dig kit, created a diorama of a dinosaur's habitat, took a field trip to a Dinosaur Museum and visited our local Science Center.
We even made a volcano erupt on a dinosaur landscape! We covered history, language arts and science with a mix of books, videos and lots of hands-on activities.
A few years ago, we read the book Detective Camp (A to Z Mysteries Super Edition, No. 1) by Ron Roy and became detectives ourselves.
We incorporated a forensic science mini-unit and researched the world's first detective along with it too. Language arts, check. Science, check. History, check!
Mostly everything I teach my kiddos is done in some variation of this and I always incorporate some type of hands-on activity.
For more ideas on other hands-on activities, see my list here.
Here are some recommended products I mentioned above:
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