DIY Homeschooler

DIY Homeschooler has now been around for over 20 years. Over those years we have posted over 200 free units covering everything from earthworms, arches, inventors, and DNA to composers, horses, holidays, and bread…and practically everything in between. Our units are open-ended, which causes some a bit of angst. Here are tips for using our 200+ free units.

These units have been created specifically with the DIY Homeschooler in mind: those that don’t want a lot of hand-holding. If this doesn’t describe your need, you might try a few of these pre-planned units!

For those brave souls who enjoy pulling things together themselves, there are many ways to use these resources. Here are a few ideas to get you started:

1. Choose

You may have time to investigate a subject thoroughly. On the other hand, you may prefer a simple one-day look. Whatever it is you need, take what will work for your situation and leave the rest. Never feel compelled to use everything, complete everything, or invest time in everything. That is a sure recipe for burnout.

Enjoy those serendipitous learning moments. Bunny trails can be ripe for learning that sticks. Just don’t overdo.

2. Investigate

We tend to think of our units as investigations. Really, the person doing the research is the one learning. Imagine how much we have learned pulling together over 200 units!

Let your child investigate and research on his own. Depending on his age, you can preview and provide the appropriate resources and tools.

One surefire way to make sure it is the student doing the learning is to encourage him to fill a notebook with the fruit of his investigations.

Research
Many resources to get you started!

Notebooking
Also find resources to encourage recording.

3. Read

Books. Don’t forget the books.

We always try to provide several book recommendations based on the books we are personally familiar with. Whether our recommendations fit your family or not, try other book lists and add more.

The more read (individually or as family read-alouds), the more learned.

The Library
Hundreds of books in “The Library.”

4. Interact

Next up, interact with what you are reading. We always get more out of what we interact with. If you are using the natural method of teaching language arts, you’ll be familiar with copying, narrating, and dictating.

In addition, you can pull ideas from our Bloom’s & Critical Thinking Series to make sure your students can understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, and create!

You’ll find more help at 6 Ways to Get the Most From Your Literature-Based Studies.

5. Practice

Your student has absorbed the content, now it is time for him to practice his skills. We’ve already mentioned natural language arts methods.

Other ideas include:

• Writing
• 12 Ideas for Inspiring Creativity
• 5 Steps to Developing a Lifelong Learner
• Live the Learning Lifestyle!

6. Create

Once something has been taken in (input) it is time for something to come out (output). There are many different forms output can take:

• Booklet.
• Essay.
• Copywork.
• Simple written narration.
• Compare/contrast report.
• Timeline.
• Illustration.
• 3D construction.
• Or our personal favorite: a notebook.

The reason these do-it-yourself-type units work is that it allows the student to practice his skills on content he is interested in. This is truly learning at its best.

Yes, for the content subjects, unit studies generally better fit a family lifestyle of learning.

Dr. Beechick’s Homeschool Answer Book

7. Record

Keeping records can be a dicey thing when pursuing a learning lifestyle. After all, we need to satisfy the requirements, authorities, and others in our lives, and convince even ourselves at times, that our children really are learning.

By recording what we did after the fact, I was able to not only maintain excellent records, but when those official learning years were completed I could easily pull out the records and create a transcript. Even my own children were astonished at what they had achieved.

Read How to Keep Records ~ DIY Homeschooling for more on this. You can also use our free template to get you started.

The last question remaining is … which unit will you tackle next?

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Additional Resources

Free Holiday Helps
Free holiday unit studies. Holidays are a great time to invest in an investigatory unit!

Free Book Studies
These are special to us. We take a book and create a series of lessons (or investigatory units) around the text. Current offerings include nature, history, science, and music.

Free State Unit Studies
Tons of resources to cover a favorite state (even if yours is not currently listed).

Unit Studies in Chronological Order
Working your way through time?

Free Unit Studies by Event/Date
Want to know what happened on this day?