BEFORE YOU START:

1. List the subjects you want to teach this year.
2. As you work on the unit, try to fill in as many of the subject areas as possible.
3. Be creative. Look for every possible connection-most nouns can lead to units.
4. Ask yourself these questions:
*What books can we read?
*What hands-on activities could we try?
*What creative writing activities or reports could we do?
*Is there a food possibility here?
*Is there a field trip possibility?
*Art projects?
5. Think about your budget, materials on hand, materials available and time. These will affect the choices you make.

GATHERING RESOURCES

1. List the time period and culture you are studying. (I am doing California gold rush to early 1900s industrial age.)

2. I often use a text book to get a list of items to cover. If you are doing this, make a chronological list of main topics.

3. Fill in each with the details. If you are typing, make names, events, and places bold. If you are handwriting, underline them. If you are using a prepared text book, you only need a basic list of people, places and events to use in researching thematic activities. If you are creating your own curriculum, as I am, you will need much more.

4. Pick out what you are most interested in building on. We used to live in California, so the gold rush will be my first unit. I will cover everything on my list of course, but some subjects will get extra time, or outside activities.

5. Pay a visit to your favorite librarian. Tell her the topic you are researching, and the ages of your children. Ask her to help you find interesting fiction and non-fiction on this topic for each age group. Check out the most promising ones and read them. Don't forget to look for videos, music and any other resources your library offers.

6. Read with a notepad and pen nearby. As brilliant ideas come to you, jot them down. Note any topics covered in the book that could be used in your planning: the attitudes toward minorities, women or religion, for example. Note the way people dress, talk and live. Make note of real people you can research. Note the author.

7. Make a list of books you like enough to use. List the call number so you can find it again, which child it will be for, and the topic. You'll probably want at least one fiction book and one non-fiction.

8. Make a list of possible projects your children could do using these books, if you're interested. They could think up their own, too. They might want to make diaramas, paint pictures, make a costume....Use your imagination.

9. Now try the internet. I like this search engine Inference Find. You type in what you want, and it searches other search engines for you. The list isn't as long, but the sites are grouped by category, and the results are usually pretty relevant. You might need to type it in several ways to get what you want. For instance, you could type in George Washington, but you could also try Mount Vernon, presidents or Martha Washington. Putting a name in quotation marks is a good way to get the exact person. Start a history folder, and then add a folder in your favorites file for each category, person or time.(It is not a kid-safe site. Inappropriate things come up when you typed in perfectly innocent words, just as with other search engines.)

10. See if you can find ready-made lesson plans on the subject. In Inference Find, try typing "lesson plans". Try typing that with whatever you are studying, such as George Washington lesson plans. Maybe you'll get lucky!

11.All homeschool parents need a list of good field trip sites. Review your list to see if anything fits your topic. Also keep an eye open for activities in your area that fit, such as speakers at your library or re-enactments.

12. Keep a list of people you know who are knowledgeable about various subjects or who are from other countries. Someone from England might be able to tell you how the Revolutionary War was viewed over there. If you are from the north, a Southerner might be able to give you a perspective on the Civil War you don't have. We've learned Native American history from a real Native American and writing from a picture book author. Add these to your resource list.

13. With all these things gathered into one place, you are ready to start. Gather your courage and find a quiet few hours. (Good luck on that!)

MAKING PLANS

1. This is harder to explain in a generic way. You will be taking all the materials you've gathered, and organizing them into a unit. You will try to squeeze in as many other subjects as possible.

2. Decide first how you will cover the overview. You need to introduce your children to the basic facts of the event you are covering. Let's say you are covering the origins of the war. You need background, which you may have covered in earlier lessons. Then you will want to show the events leading up to the war. A history book can be used for this. You can even write your own if you are brave. Remember that school history books are often inaccurate, but you can work with that in your lessons. At least they will get the basics.

3. Now you can start supplementing. Maybe you will want to spend time on Abraham Lincoln. There are lots of books about him, so finding reading material will be easy, no matter how young your children are. (You can choose any aspect for the books. I am just making an example here.) Have each child read material written for his own age or reading level. Then you can have each one do a book report or a book report project. (This is a fun art, writing or drama activity your child plans to show what the book is about.) You can also choose a book to read aloud, either picture books or chapter books you read one chapter a day. This lets you work with books that might be hard to read or that need explaining. Decide how fast the children need to read their books. Assign the reading, and every day, ask the children to tell you what they read that day. This lets you check up, but it also lets you find out what excites them about the book, and make sure they aren't misunderstanding what they read.

4. While the reading is going on, you can assign other activities. Look through the material in terms of your subject list. History is covered, of course.

5. Art: There are so many good art projects for history. It's fun to build models of things, or to paint pictures. You can learn about clothing by sewing or drawing the fashions. Build diaramas, or make a quilt. (I have an article on my Suite101.com site on the history of quilting, with lots of information on Civil War quilts.) There are some good picture books on Civil War quilts too.

6. Math. You can make up math problems based on the time period, or have your children do it: A Confederate soldier marched 12 miles the first day and 10 miles the next. How many miles did he walk all together? How many more miles did he march the first day than the second day? Choose one southern state and one northern state. Find out how many miles apart they are. Figure out the area of the quilt square you are working on.

7. Science: Also find out what was happening in the scientific world during the time you are studying and what scientists were famous then-or about to be famous. Cameras were a new thing then. Matthew Brady was a famous Civil War photographer. He had a hard time getting soldiers to sit still for his pictures though. Many of them thought his camera was a new kind of gun. This was the first heavily reported and photographed war. By telling your children about the adventures of Brady, and looking at his pictures, you can capture their interest. Be sure they think about how the use of photographs affected the way people saw the war. Then learn about cameras and photography. That's science. The telegraph made it possible for people to learn over breakfast what was happening during last night's dinner. How did that affect public sentiment? Try studying telegraphs and even communications. You could do a whole side unit on the scientific improvements in communications over the years and how they changed history. Stars make a good science unit for the Civil War. Many conductors on the Underground Railroad used the stars to chart their path. Buy a telescope and do some star watching.

English: This one is easy enough. You will want reports done on any important topic. You can assign an entire report or term paper, or just a composition. You can also try poetry or fiction on the topic. What about writing a book on some aspect of the war, written and illustrated by your family? Each child could research and write one chapter. Add some drawings, and some of your fiction, and you have a great book. You might also try reading some biographies, and writing some of famous people of the times. Try autobiographies and write your own. Louisa May Alcott worked as a Civil War nurse for a time, and wrote about it. You could read those reports. You could even assign Little Women and study the author. Try Invincible Louisa for your reading material to learn about the author. If you are doing pioneers, buy the Oregon Trail. There is a journal feature there. Have your children play the game and keep the journal, which can then be saved to disk and printed out. Supplement by teaching them how to keep their own journals. Be sure to freate a vocabulary and spelling list from the unit too.

Map skills: Make maps of the country as it looked then. Color free states one color and slave states another. Label Confederate states with the year they left the Union. Try marking all the major battles and when they happened. What else could be mapped? If you're covering pioneers, try drawing the Oregon Trail on a map.

Graphing and Charting: Every history unit has good possibilities here. Try them by hand and then learn to make them on your word processors. There are lots of types of charts. Learn about the different kinds and talk about how to choose the best kind. Try graphing and charting events in your history: The number of soldiers on each side of the war. The number of slaves compared to the number of free blacks. The number of people killed in each battle on each side. The number of popular votes compared to the number of electoral votes. (This leads you into a discussion of how people are really elected.)

Public speaking: The Lincoln-Douglas debates were a big deal for this time period. Learn what was argued there. Learn how debates work. Learn about giving speeches. Try giving them, or holding a debate. They could even write their debate, and then act it out. If they have any chance to give a speech-at church, in a homeschool group, or where ever, take it. Our church has the younger children (under twelve) give two and a half minute talks in the children's meetings, and the older children speak in the regular service. This is incredibly valuable. My children have been doing public speaking since they were three.

Music: There was good music from that time period. Research the war songs of each side and learn the songs. Talk about the use of songs like "Yankee Doodle."

This site I've linked to has the words to the song, plus a confederate parody. You could talk about why the Confederates made fun of the Union side. Learn about parodies and make up your own-music and poetry combined!

Physical Education: Hmm...this is tougher. Try finding out the games played in this time period, or some of the dances. Try having a party of the sort they had back then-it's a fun break, and the research and preparation is educational.

Have I forgotten anything? This should get you the general idea of how to decide what to include. Now it's time to put it all together.

PUTTING THE UNIT TOGETHER 1. A notebook or dayplanner is essential here. Start by deciding how long the unit will be. Make a space to record your plans for each day - numbered in case you don't start the day you thought you would.

2. You'll have to start with the overview. Decide how it will be done and how long you want to spend on it. You might have them read the textbook and answer the questions. You might just tell them about the time if you like storytelling. Be sure to include all the boring basic facts.

3. Have the children make a timeline of the events. This can be done on banner paper with illustrations and decorations, to include some art. The first time we did this, it was harder than we expected. We had to do some mathematical planning to make everything come out right. How many years should each mark cover? How far apart should the lines be? Which events are important enough to list? Plan on a few days to get it done. This is a good group activity, and can be hung on the wall for future reference. (Homeschoolers have weird decorations!)

4. Start reading. If you're going to read aloud, figure out how much you have to read each day to finish on time. A chapter a day at the end of each school day or even in the evenings is always good. Figure out how much reading the children will be doing on their own and chart it out.

5. After they've been reading for a while, they can start planning their projects if you're going to have one. Have them submit a written plan that includes needed supplies (so you can veto expensive ones!)

6. Start working on the term papers early on. As they read, tell them to start thinking about what they want to write about. If they have never done a paper, use the article on my site that tells you how to do that. Be sure to include those lessons on your planning sheet.

7. Intersperse the other activities. Don't do all the fun stuff first, and start planning a big finale- like the party. You should have a plan showing what events you want to do for each subject, and you can break them up- one historical math question a day, an art project every week, etc. choose one thing that takes no help on your part for a day when you are sick or in crisis. Every teacher needs an emergency lesson plan.

8. At least once a week, plan a time when you conference with each child to see how their work is coming along, and how they feel about their research. Plan a family time when the kids can share with each other what they've learned. Be ready to do emergency research when questions come up. Plan to spend a day a week at least in the library and be sure to plot out internet research time when they can look at the sites you found.

9. Have fun!

This has been a really basic explanation of what I do. I will list some sites here with ready-made plans to help you study. I hope it helps!