Unit studies are such a great way to incorporate all of the kids in learning about topics in our homeschool. Our family was fortunate to get the chance to review the Native America 6 week unit study from Homeschool Legacy.
They are designed to be used once a week, which makes these simple to incorporate into your normal studies. Your family does a little bit of reading or other short tasks during the week, and then they can really dive into it on one dedicated day. It’s pretty flexible and could easily be divided into multiple days if you really wanted to.
Another thing I love about this one on Native America is that they provide the information necessary to correlate this study with a Boy Scouts badge. Several of their other unit studies correspond to various American Heritage Girls badges as well.
Using the Native America 6 week Unit Study from Homeschool Legacy
The Native America unit study comes as a Grab-N-Go (ebook, like I received) or as a paperback. Either way, you get about 50 pages of thorough and unique lesson ideas and information for under $20. It is good for grades 2-12, though my pre-k student and preschooler both loved being involved with many of the projects and books as well.
If your family loves to read, this is an excellent choice! The book has several lists of suggested books. There are a few that are required, although it does give a bit of flexibility there in case you are unable to find a specific book. We used our local library and had no trouble finding the selections needed or something similar enough to work.
The book is divided into the 6 weeks of instruction. It gives you the main focus for the week. For this particular book, they divided each week into different Native American Nations, split up by regions. All of the included activities and books related to that particular region’s Native American people and history.
For each week, they provide a list of supplies, books, a family devotional, and even some Stump Your Dad Trivia. Of course, there is also information and suggested activities throughout the weeks to relate to art appreciation or arts and crafts activities, history, language and research, music, anthropology, life skills, recipes/cooking, geography, field trips, related videos, story telling, and drama. Some weeks would incorporate a subject more than once for that particular region (especially art and recipes!).
Final Thoughts
We enjoyed using this unit study. It was a loose guide to basically walk me through making sure my children got to learn and experience this part of American history. Since they were able to do so many hands-on activities, they were able to learn the information better and retain it.
We used it by reading books two days a week and doing several of the listed activities on a third day during the week. We didn’t complete every single activity in the Native America Grab-N-Go book, but we did most of them. They were simple to pull together without a lot of prep time involved.
My kids were able to make the foods, recreate the art work, and even do some map work while learning about the different Native American tribes and their history. We also enjoyed the devotionals, because they were brief, but really related to the people that we were learning about each week. I was able to involve my 3, 5, 8, and 10 year olds together, which I really loved.
I appreciate the flexibility of this book. It is full of fun ideas on how to really teach the information about Native Americans. There are plenty of approaches to teaching the information, so it appeals to all learning and teaching styles. It incorporates reading, listening, writing, crafting, and so much more to encourage students to experience what they are learning.
I hope to try more Homeschool Legacy Once-A-Week Unit Studies in the future. I think my kids would LOVE “Weather on the Move”, so that may be our next one.
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