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How To Create Your Own Unit Study
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
January 20, 2012
I have been involved in homeschooling for many years. I was homeschooled in the late 1970's for the last two years of high school and later in 1991, began teaching classes for homeschooled students from preschool up to and including college level. I also started teaching parent seminars on how to homeschool. I also homeschooled my own family.
As you can imagine, with my background, I read a lot of homeschooling books. I had high hopes for this one since I once used another of Valerie Bendt's books Unit Study Idea Book in curriculum planning. This book was a huge disappointment to me and I think will only be useful to those who are more interested in brainwashing their children into believing christian mythology than in academics. She admits as much throughout the book. You know you are in trouble when a book begins with a definition of education based on the 1828 edition of Webster's dictionary and follows up by railing about the fact that the Webster's versions in the 1970's and 1980's just talked about academics and not about religious indoctrination.
Well Valerie, old girl, we are not living in the 1820's nor in ancient times. This is the 21st century and believe it or not, things have advanced since then. The book is literally infected with christian mythology and all sorts of endless quotes from Christian writers. If you are, like me, an Atheist or if you are a Muslim, Jew, Buddhist, Hindu, Wiccan, Pagan or anything but a Christian, this will get on your nerves from the very first page.
She includes several sample units and I examined them carefully hoping I could at least praise those as being useful. The World Geography Unit sample unit and the Children's Authors sample unit actually are usable for young kids as are the Storytelling and the Medieval units which were written by a 15 year old homeschooled student as long as you only try to use them with early elementary school kids.
She then loses me with the Housecleaning Unit and the Cooking Unit. In our family, we start as small kids learning to do things around the house as we are able and then do more as we age. We do not try to claim that making a homemade chore calendar, sweeping and helping put clothes in a washing machine while checking out what the bible says about neatness is actual academic schoolwork. Nor is clipping coupons and reading poems about housework from a religious book. This is dinky.
The cooking unit is a bit better but then again, this is not academic work even if the kids learn to use measuring spoons. My mom taught me that as a preschooler and it is not school work for older kids. Other activities include trying to add educational value by having the kids find and copy ethnic recipes , make a grocery list, and wash the dishes.
I will admit that I come from an Atheist viewpoint where one studies real history and science and does present mythology as if it were history. I am also the sort of teacher who loves unit studies and always use real books instead of texts except for math but I feel sorry for kids who have parents who consider getting the kids to do the housework and help cook as "academics". Not where I went to college! One would be much better served with The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home
As you can imagine, with my background, I read a lot of homeschooling books. I had high hopes for this one since I once used another of Valerie Bendt's books Unit Study Idea Book in curriculum planning. This book was a huge disappointment to me and I think will only be useful to those who are more interested in brainwashing their children into believing christian mythology than in academics. She admits as much throughout the book. You know you are in trouble when a book begins with a definition of education based on the 1828 edition of Webster's dictionary and follows up by railing about the fact that the Webster's versions in the 1970's and 1980's just talked about academics and not about religious indoctrination.
Well Valerie, old girl, we are not living in the 1820's nor in ancient times. This is the 21st century and believe it or not, things have advanced since then. The book is literally infected with christian mythology and all sorts of endless quotes from Christian writers. If you are, like me, an Atheist or if you are a Muslim, Jew, Buddhist, Hindu, Wiccan, Pagan or anything but a Christian, this will get on your nerves from the very first page.
She includes several sample units and I examined them carefully hoping I could at least praise those as being useful. The World Geography Unit sample unit and the Children's Authors sample unit actually are usable for young kids as are the Storytelling and the Medieval units which were written by a 15 year old homeschooled student as long as you only try to use them with early elementary school kids.
She then loses me with the Housecleaning Unit and the Cooking Unit. In our family, we start as small kids learning to do things around the house as we are able and then do more as we age. We do not try to claim that making a homemade chore calendar, sweeping and helping put clothes in a washing machine while checking out what the bible says about neatness is actual academic schoolwork. Nor is clipping coupons and reading poems about housework from a religious book. This is dinky.
The cooking unit is a bit better but then again, this is not academic work even if the kids learn to use measuring spoons. My mom taught me that as a preschooler and it is not school work for older kids. Other activities include trying to add educational value by having the kids find and copy ethnic recipes , make a grocery list, and wash the dishes.
I will admit that I come from an Atheist viewpoint where one studies real history and science and does present mythology as if it were history. I am also the sort of teacher who loves unit studies and always use real books instead of texts except for math but I feel sorry for kids who have parents who consider getting the kids to do the housework and help cook as "academics". Not where I went to college! One would be much better served with The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home
February 18, 2019
Pretty quick read, useful ideas, but some of the resources dated in this edition.
August 23, 2009
In my investigation of homeschooling, I have come across several ways of teaching children. Some of these methods have me running for the hills, but the idea of Unit Studies has intrigued me. Unit Studies focus on a particular area of study and devotes all subjects to exploring that area. There aren't many books about Unit Studies, so I was anxious to explore "How to Create You Own Unit Study."
Valerie Bendt demonstrates in this book how she uses Unit Studies to homeschool her children. She gives several examples and reference books she uses, which was very helpful. I did find that some of her reference books are very dated and our library did not carry them. Christian homeschoolers will feel at ease with her writing, but this can be a good information source for non-Christian based homeschoolers as well.
Valerie Bendt demonstrates in this book how she uses Unit Studies to homeschool her children. She gives several examples and reference books she uses, which was very helpful. I did find that some of her reference books are very dated and our library did not carry them. Christian homeschoolers will feel at ease with her writing, but this can be a good information source for non-Christian based homeschoolers as well.
July 1, 2009
This book is geared to parents who are thinking of homeschooling or have already decided to do so. The second half of the book focuses on how you can create your own unit study curriculum. As a novice to creating curriculum I thought it had some very useful advice and ideas. It even gave some example ideas for units that could be used. There are not a lot of books that I have found that talk about creating your own unit study curriculum so I think this is a good place to start.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews