unit studies in no time at all!

How Do I Use Study Starters?

 

Study Starters is a step by step, easy to use system to help you as the educating parent to walk through unit study design, planning, implementation and success! By consistently using the Study Starter system, you will have studies that will be easy to evaluate and record for yearly reporting and portfolio review. You will find that unit studies will get easier and easier to create and use with your children. It is a step by step framework that will get you designing creative and educational studies about anything your child desires to study.

 

There are several steps to the system and once you run through one or two studies, it will become almost automatic. In the book, you will have much more complete information and advice for using the system, however, we've simplified it here for the website.

 

 

Step 1
Decide your Topic
Ask your child for an idea to start your study on. Once you have determinged a good subject, you're ready to go. Make sure it's not too broad and large a subject for your time frame of study.

 

 

 

Step 2
Planning Your Unit Study

Now it's time to get the Parent Planning Sheets out of the Study Starters Resource Area. Print or copy these two pages. By walking through the various topics, you and your student can begin to brainstorm ideas that fit the basic areas of education such as mathematics and history. You may find that you need to print a couple copies of the planning sheets as you work through ideas for your study.

 

 

Step 3
Determine your Study Time

Some families use unit studies as their complete curriculum for the year. Others find that it's fun to plan two or three into the year's study, revolving around more traditional educational plans. While others will use unit studies as one and two day rewards or 'extra credit' for holidays or special topics of interest. Whatever you choose, the nice thing is that the Study Starters System will work for all instances!

 

In the Study Starters Resource Area, you will find several planner forms. With your Parent Planning Sheet, begin to flesh out the schedule. You may find that some of your plans need adjusting and time to adequately finish them. You might also find that some of your assignments are just not feasible in the time you've allotted. You may have to adjust your time frame upwards or downwards. With the Planning Sheets, you might also see where you have too much planned for Science or History and not enough planned for other areas, for example.

 

 

 

Step 4
Hunting your Resources

The Study Starters Resource List Form is one that will be very important in your developing plans. Many times, a "hand-crafted" unit study will be disappointing because the resources you thought would be available are not. Apparently, another family is studying sharks as the same time and all the good books, videos and interactive materials are checked out of your local library. Your resource list will be your shopping list of needs for the study.

 

 

Your Resource List will help you to know what materials you need, the ones you have and when those ordered will arrive.

Also, when it comes time to create a portfolio of work or have your school year reviewed for state requirements, the Resource List will be a valuable guide to help you provide accountability of your family's study and educational plans.

Also the Resource List is great for scheduling and planning field trips and other events that you would like to use in conjunction with your unit study plans. Over all, it is a helpful form to get your thoughts and plans organized and the materials you need, ready and waiting for your unit study.

 

Step 5
Begin your Unit Study

At this point, you should have a good idea of the projects, assignments and experiences that you want your student to have. You should have most or all of your required resources for the study and have planned out the assignments. Now, it's time to get started. You can print out the appropriate Study Starter sheet for your student to use as a study guide and track record of the work they have actually completed.

 

With the Study Starter reports, your child can start the study by filling out the sheet, or you can work on it throughout the study to create an overview of the topic for study purposes.

 

 

 

A Note about Younger Siblings

 

We have provided a fun one page sheet that looks like the Study Starters sheets the older students use. You can print this sheet out and give the little people something fun to work with as well. Most little ones love to feel that they are involved and part of the "big kid" work. We hope that the Little Kid Sheet will help you to involve them in your unit study plans. When the time comes for them to be doing their own Study Starters unit studies, they will be primed and ready for enjoy the system!

 

 

 

Step 6
The End of the Unit Study

When you are finished with your study, all the models are built, the field trips finished and the books read, you might want to have your student fill out a Unit Study Summary Form. Available in the Study Starters system, this form is great for wrapping up the study process. If your student is younger, you might want to help them fill it out, and use the summary as a useful piece for your records. A wonderful aspect of the summary sheet is the question about continuing studies on this topic. Just because you've finished a 2 week study, doesn't mean you have to stop. A student so passionate about a subject should be encouraged to continue personal study and growth in the topic. A discussion on how this additional study can be worked into your regular curriculum can be a great motivator for your student.

 

 

Step 7
Record Student's Work

As the parent educator, you might need to keep records for transcripts, or for your state educational requirements. You might want to keep track of the studies you've designed for future student needs, or to share with other families. We have provided a handy form in the Study Starters Resource Area to keep track of your student's progress through the year. You can use this form to record the work, effort and grades or evaluation you have for each unit study. A handy form that can make your accountability recording much easier at the end of each year.

 

 

Step 8
Start the next unit study!

I hope that your first experience with using the Study Starters system was rewarding, fun and easy. Your children, hopefully, had a enjoyable time and learned a good deal about very specific topics of interest. Surely, you found the experience not nearly as difficult as you might have imagined. Perhaps, you will desire to use only commercially prepared unit studies afterwards, and that is fine. However, you will still find Study Starters to be a valuable asset in your educational plans with the Resource Sheets and Report Starters. You may only want to use the Report Starters sheets as supplements to your own curriculum needs.

 

 

Good luck and get out there enjoying unit studies!

 

With the Study Starters system, you may find them so rewarding,

that you will want to do only unit studies with your children for the next few years!