Homeschool Check In
A few weeks ago I went to my first homeschool convention. It was Christian based, which was wonderful. It was amazing to pray at the beginning of every session. It was awesome to have every session taught with the following priorities: God first, marriage second, child's character third, child's academics fourth. That is Biblical and absolutely beautiful. Scripture was the backbone of every single session.
I went with a friend I've known for a long time who is like family. We made it kind of a girls weekend, but we were also learning a ton and taking notes. We prayed a lot about this weekend and had our hearts and ears open to whatever God had to tell us. OF COURSE He had a lot to say. When you seek him with your whole heart, you will find Him. Jeremiah 29:12-13, my paraphrase. *Side note: how much do you love our Lord's accessibility? He is amazing and one of a kind.
I went to numerous sessions (maybe close to 15), all by different speakers, all on different subjects, and I kept hearing the same thing. I went to a session on teaching in the 21st century, I went to a session on tweens, I went to a few sessions on preparing for college, on angry parents, on angry kids, on escapism, and more! I heard the same thing from each one. The first time I heard it, I wrote it in all caps on my notes because it was intriguing. I felt that tug in my heart. Then I started realizing those words were in all caps on my notes for every session. I don't know for sure if it was God speaking to me, but I decided to start down that path out of obedience, just in case. What were those words? UNIT STUDIES.
First, what is a unit study?
In a unit study, you pick one subject, one person, one book, one time period, one state, whatever. Then you really dive deep into it, using as many subjects as possible. (High school math can't really ever be incorporated, so we just do that on the side.) English, History, and Writing are all very easily incorporated. Also, Music, Art, and sometimes Geography.
What does it look like?
We picked Greek Mythology as our first unit since it is very interesting to Kara, and she loved the Percy Jackson books. I got online and found this link a mom posted of a unit study she made for her homeschooler. So far, we are following her list of assignments very closely. We bought a used version of the main book she used, but other than that, we are using our library. We are combining Percy Jackson and other fiction books with books that are just the Greek Mythology stories. We are comparing and contrasting their beliefs with Christian beliefs, Kara is writing large book reviews at the high school level, and she is really going beyond enjoying the stories to thinking about why we believe what we do and searching her own heart. It has been really neat to watch.
Why haven't we done this before if it's so great?
I am such a type-A, rule following, list maker, that I really am in my comfort zone in text books with answer keys. Especially as we move into the high school years. I don't want to mess anything up for her, so I am overly cautious. I mean, how do you award credits and make a transcript for unit studies? It can be very intimidating. It turns out, it is very possible. A high school credit is 150-180 hours, so we can go from there. I have done a lot of research and actually many sessions at the homeschool convention explained how to do it. And how their children did unit studies in high school and went on to get into good colleges.
Kara still has subjects she has to learn that are boring and/or difficult - not because I'm mean, but because she needs to learn how to do that. That's life, my friend!
She has asked that our next unit be Behavioral Psychology. Yeah. It will take me a while to research what books we can read, movies we can watch, etc. For now, I'm thankful I have a homeschool high school level psychology book I bought at a used curriculum sale! That will probably be the spine for our unit. I haven't found any info online from a mom doing this for her child, so I'll have to do this from scratch. Maybe I'll put it online for other moms to use....
I went with a friend I've known for a long time who is like family. We made it kind of a girls weekend, but we were also learning a ton and taking notes. We prayed a lot about this weekend and had our hearts and ears open to whatever God had to tell us. OF COURSE He had a lot to say. When you seek him with your whole heart, you will find Him. Jeremiah 29:12-13, my paraphrase. *Side note: how much do you love our Lord's accessibility? He is amazing and one of a kind.
I went to numerous sessions (maybe close to 15), all by different speakers, all on different subjects, and I kept hearing the same thing. I went to a session on teaching in the 21st century, I went to a session on tweens, I went to a few sessions on preparing for college, on angry parents, on angry kids, on escapism, and more! I heard the same thing from each one. The first time I heard it, I wrote it in all caps on my notes because it was intriguing. I felt that tug in my heart. Then I started realizing those words were in all caps on my notes for every session. I don't know for sure if it was God speaking to me, but I decided to start down that path out of obedience, just in case. What were those words? UNIT STUDIES.
First, what is a unit study?
In a unit study, you pick one subject, one person, one book, one time period, one state, whatever. Then you really dive deep into it, using as many subjects as possible. (High school math can't really ever be incorporated, so we just do that on the side.) English, History, and Writing are all very easily incorporated. Also, Music, Art, and sometimes Geography.
What does it look like?
We picked Greek Mythology as our first unit since it is very interesting to Kara, and she loved the Percy Jackson books. I got online and found this link a mom posted of a unit study she made for her homeschooler. So far, we are following her list of assignments very closely. We bought a used version of the main book she used, but other than that, we are using our library. We are combining Percy Jackson and other fiction books with books that are just the Greek Mythology stories. We are comparing and contrasting their beliefs with Christian beliefs, Kara is writing large book reviews at the high school level, and she is really going beyond enjoying the stories to thinking about why we believe what we do and searching her own heart. It has been really neat to watch.
Why haven't we done this before if it's so great?
I am such a type-A, rule following, list maker, that I really am in my comfort zone in text books with answer keys. Especially as we move into the high school years. I don't want to mess anything up for her, so I am overly cautious. I mean, how do you award credits and make a transcript for unit studies? It can be very intimidating. It turns out, it is very possible. A high school credit is 150-180 hours, so we can go from there. I have done a lot of research and actually many sessions at the homeschool convention explained how to do it. And how their children did unit studies in high school and went on to get into good colleges.
Kara still has subjects she has to learn that are boring and/or difficult - not because I'm mean, but because she needs to learn how to do that. That's life, my friend!
She has asked that our next unit be Behavioral Psychology. Yeah. It will take me a while to research what books we can read, movies we can watch, etc. For now, I'm thankful I have a homeschool high school level psychology book I bought at a used curriculum sale! That will probably be the spine for our unit. I haven't found any info online from a mom doing this for her child, so I'll have to do this from scratch. Maybe I'll put it online for other moms to use....
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