Unit Study Plans for Kindergarten-1st Grade?

[riversmommy]

Hi. My first "official" year homeschooling my 5 yr old. Does anyone know of a comprehensive list of unit study suggestions for K or 1st grade? I'm hoping to take a week-long or maybe two-week approach to different subjects and work things(crafts, activities, books from the library, videos, ect.) around that. But I need some..er...structure to this. Is there a book with unit study ideas for a whole year with a 5 year old? Like "Week 1-Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Dinosaurs". Or the Solar System. Or Food. Hey, maybe I should write this book!!! No, really. Should I just break down and buy a curriculum or is there another (hopefully less expensive) option out there?

Thanks for any info. This place is the best!

[craft_media_hero]

Hi, I have not seen a book like this, but . . . I don't think that making up your own unit studies is going to be too difficult for you. So don't be intimidated! Especially for K/1---they really don't need as much as we think they do!

I would just start with the calendar and the library. Maybe plan your units around the seasons, and then search the library for books that support your ideas (my library has an online search tool, so I just keyword/subject search and make a list of books ahead of time).

For K/1 at home, you are not going to need hours and hours of projects every day, maybe an hour of "teacher" time and then just let them go from there. K/1 often read one story through the whole week and work on crafts, etc. based around that ONE book. That's not so much, eh?

Good luck and don't stress it!

[elizawill]

for units in kindergarten, i found great ideas from public school teacher websites. they break themes down by each month/season. you can google their sites easily. a few of my favorites were:

http://www.littlegiraffes.com/teacherpage.html (click on themes...but i used a lot of her other ideas as well).

http://www.theschoolbell.com/

http://www.kinderthemes.com/


hth.

[riversmommy]

Thanks for the input. Maybe I just need to take a breath. I have this great little book on 365 days of nature projects that I might use as a basis. I obviously can't do ALL of them. But I like having a general subject we can work with (i.e. rocks, birds, weather). And I think the ONE book each week or so is a great plan since a kid can only consume so much info at once! Yeah, I think this is going to be fun!