Disadvantages of Unit Studies

Unit studies do have one rather major drawback that can make them less than ideal for some families. Teaching using unit studies requires a great deal of outside preparation and planning time. This preparation time is required both for "big picture" planning and day-to-day details, which place different burdens on the homeschooling parents.

First of all, units need to be selected carefully so that all academic areas are touched on over the course of a year. It is easy to get into a situation where certain studies are emphasized repeatedly while other areas fall by the wayside. Thus, unit studies are best done by families where one or both parents are "big-picture planners" who enjoy looking over a whole year and ensuring classroom balance.

On the day-to-day side, unit studies tend to emphasize experiential hands-on learning. While some students thrive in this kind of environment, the parents must accept the fact that this type of learning requires a great deal of daily planning and preparation that must be done outside of the teaching time. For example, making a coon skin cap out of real racoon fur is undoubtedly creative and may inspire children studying frontier pioneers. These benefits, however, should be weighed against the time and effort the teacher must put in ahead of time to procure raccoon fur.

A second smaller disadvantage is that certain subject areas are inherently more difficult to cover in unit studies. It is not uncommon for parents using unit studies to find they need to add both a math and a language arts curriculum to adequately cover those areas.

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