Simple Schooling Unit studies from the Simple Homeschool

I recently signed up for the free newsletter at Simple Schooling, to learn more about their unit studies, to see if they would be suitable as printables to add to my Unit study curriculum, called the Weaver.  Well, during this time, they had their 12 Days of Freebies, and so I got to have a look at their online unit studies, not only printables and could see if they were suitable for South african homeschools.

The online Unit studies work via a subscription, and there are various subscriptions available. They have some really good specials on at the moment.  There is also a freebie area where you can get an idea of what they offer, or sign up for their newsletter as I did.
 
Now, about those online Unit studies...I have really been impressed with the unit studies which can be used for science and nature study, such as the Migration one, and the Bears of North America.  I cannot comment on the other freebies as I never looked at those, since it is not Winter here. 

I love Unit studies and my son loves the computer, and I had never imagined combining these two methods, but Simple Schooling has done it.  At first I was a little doubtful that I'd be happy with what was covered.  But wow, such a lot more than I expected was covered.  Even my son, who reads a lot of nature books, would learn a lot of new facts here.

We recently had to look up about caribou for our one curriculum, and were unable to find any facts about their migrations- we learned more abut Caribou from this unit study than we did in the encyclopedia.  And not just the common migrating species were covered, butterflies and even African animals were covered.

Screen Shot of Solar System Unit Study

Now, about the layout: The graphics were clear, and useful diagrams for learning were included.  Pictures were of good quality.  The tabs for navigation on the left are simple to use and the player downloaded quickly, with no hassles. I think that the study has enough interest for the young learner, but would be a good learning experience, not like a useless computer game.  The audio portion would assist the student that struggles with reading, but the text on each page was not overloaded.

If I could add anything, it would be a pop-up vocabulary box when you hover over the vocabulary words in the text.  Add the printables available and you have a well rounded unit study.  For those who like some form of evaluation, there were quizzes included in the units that I viewed.

I love the idea of hands on unit studies, and would prefer not to use the pc, but of course there are times one cannot do unit studies, such as in times of illness/crisis, and I can see these being very useful then.  Some families will prefer the "clean and crisp" way of doing unit studies.  Also, used for a resource instead of purchasing books or endless trips to the library, these units would cover it all.  Lastly, this will make learning fun not only for the child that loves computer based learning and it beats textbooks!

The e-book unit studies are available at Currclick and various topics under Social studies, nature study, physics, science and English are covered.  Simple Schooling does offer a lot- take a look!  I can see how these unit studies can be very useful for South african homeschoolers.  Firstly, no shipping cost, you get them in e-book or in the online version.  And secondly, the price is affordable and you can pick and choose the topics you'd like to study, thereby omitting American topics that the South African homeschool may not want to cover.  The more well known unit study curriculum do contain a large amount of US history, nature and such, and so the South African homeschooler pays for something they don't make full use of.  This is a great alternative.

Well done Simple Schooling!

As mentioned above, I did receive free unit studies, by signing up for the newsletter, and I have received no compensation from Simple Schooling for this review.