Unit Studies

Unit studies are a useful learning tool to integrate various subjects and to aid the parent in teaching more than one child. This article will provide a practical guide for creating your own unit studies and an example of a unit study on the Prophet Yunus.

Theme or Subject

When beginning a unit study you need a theme, subject or idea to build on. The theme can be derived from a variety of topics such a story from the time of the Prophet(sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam) and the Sahaba, one of the Prophets, animals, plants, nutrition, an occupation, etc.. Try to think of a subject that the children would like and can also learn from.

Resources

When you are beginning a unit study evaluate the resources at you disposal. Glance at the resources you have at home in your personal library, possible activities in the home and the equipment they require. The library is an invaluable supply of books for any unit study you could work on. Do a subject card catalog search for the fastest results. Remember there is more to the library than just books, such as videos, maps and cassettes.

There are various government agencies that provide free pamphlets and booklets. For example, for fish there is the Fisheries and Oceans and Wildlife Fish Management. Also check in the yellow pages for additional information. Under my search for fish markets I also found a fish hatchery. An idea for a future field trip in sha’Allah.

Organization

Now you must decide what topics you wish to cover. The hardest part of unit studies is not what to include but what not to include. When beginning your investigation you find so many ideas and possible tangents for the unit that it becomes difficult to decide what to include and what to leave out. Think of what topics you want to cover and what you feel the children should learn related to the unit. Also think of what activities they would enjoy.

A Unit Study on Yunus

It’s very easy when you get started. For example, we are doing a unit study on Yunus. We read the story of Yunus in the Quran(Islamic and Language studies). We wrote a book about Yunus and his experiences(motor skills, art and more language studies). We also read various books on fish(science and language arts). This developed into a discussion on the possible size a fish would have to be in order to swallow a person(language studies, math, science and problem solving). This lead us to measure each other and discuss size ratio.(math). We looked at various maps to see where whales and large fish live and where the fish that swallowed Yunus could have lived(geography). We also did various science experiments related to fresh and salt water(science and sensory development). To end the unit we bought a fresh fish at a nearby fish market. We decided how big of a fish we wanted and the price of each fish per pound(math and economics). After examining it we cooked it for dinner(science and home economics). This was a fun and delicious way to end the unit.

The Grand Finale

To finish your unit study chose a fun activity to bring all of the information together. It could be a field trip, special dinner, craft activity or science experiment. For our unit we could of visited a fish hatchery instead of having the fish dinner. For us the dinner was more practical than trying to visit a hatchery with two small children. Adapt your activities to suit your family and have fun in sha’Allah.

Organization Tip Keep file folders on broad topics of interest that may develop into a unit study. When you come across something related to that topic, just place it into the folder. When the folder grows too much you can divide it into sub-categories.

Here’s an example;

On the back of a cereal box they had a maze in the shape of a honeycomb. I cut the maze out and put it into the file folder marked Insects.