Interest-Led Learning with The Waldock Way
The Waldock Way offers hands-on, interest-led unit studies and activity packs that can enrich your homeschool and provide opportunities to explore delight-directed learning. Keep reading for our experience with using these homeschool unit studies in our family, plus all the great options to choose from to add variety into your homeschool in an affordable way.
Education is a lifelong journey, and the way we approach it can have a profound impact on our learning experience. Unit studies are one of our favorite ways to learn for many reasons, including the fact that they can easily fit into our delight-directed learning approach, also known as child led learning.
One of the ways we accomplish that in our family is through unit studies. Unit studies are a great way to follow interests. They can be as in-depth or as simplified as you want them to be, taking just a few days to a full week or even several months.
The Waldock Way is one of our favorite sources of unit studies because they offer a wide variety of engaging topics to explore. They are literature-based and easy to open and go. If the task of planning a unit study has prevented you from trying them out, this is the ideal solution for you!
Interest-Led Unit Studies
Unit studies are an integrated approach to learning that centers on a particular theme or topic. Instead of segregating subjects like history, science, math, and literature, unit studies combine these disciplines into a cohesive learning experience. The goal is to provide a comprehensive understanding of a topic by exploring it from multiple angles. An interest-led unit study is based on something your child is especially curious about and would like to learn more with a themed unit study.
Here are some key features that make The Waldock Way’s unit studies stand out:
- Wide Range of Topics: Whether your child is fascinated by space, history, animals, or Harry Potter, The Waldock Way offers unit studies that cover a vast array of subjects. This diversity ensures that there’s something for every learner’s interests.
- Multi-Age Approach: The Waldock Way recognizes that homeschooling often involves teaching multiple children of different ages. Their unit studies are designed to be adaptable, making it possible to include all your children in the same learning journey while tailoring activities to their individual levels. This family-style learning makes things easier for busy homeschool moms to plan!
- Hands-On Learning: Unit studies from The Waldock Way prioritize hands-on learning experiences. They include a variety of activities, projects, and experiments that allow children to actively engage with the material, making learning both fun and memorable.
- Cross-Curricular Integration: By integrating subjects, unit studies foster a holistic understanding of a topic. The Waldock Way’s approach ensures that children see the interconnectedness of knowledge, which can deepen their comprehension and critical thinking skills.
- Flexible Scheduling: Homeschooling offers the flexibility to adapt to your family’s unique lifestyle. The Waldock Way’s unit studies are designed to be flexible, allowing you to pace the learning according to your child’s needs and interests.
Benefits of Interest-Led Unit Studies
There are so many benefits to learning with interest-led unit studies! The Waldock Way makes it easy to incorporate things that your child is passionate about, which makes the learning really stick. From Space to Hogwarts, Wilderness Survival to Traveling the World, The Waldock Way has something educational and fun for every learner.
Unit studies from The Waldock Way are designed to support parents as they navigate interest-led homeschooling, and always include book lists, videos, hands-on activities, games for learning, and links to additional resources to support every style of learner.
Here are some more of the advantages we love in our homeschool:
- Engagement: Children are naturally curious and thrive when they’re excited about learning. Unit studies tap into this innate curiosity, making education engaging and enjoyable.
- Deep Learning: By immersing themselves in a single topic, children can develop a deep understanding of the subject matter, rather than merely skimming the surface.
- Critical Thinking: Unit studies encourage critical thinking by requiring students to connect information across different subjects, fostering a well-rounded intellectual development.
- Flexible Learning: Unit studies are adaptable, making them suitable for various learning styles and allowing parents to tailor the curriculum to meet the unique needs of each child. You can learn at your own pace as a family.
- Memorable Learning Experiences: The hands-on nature of unit studies often leads to memorable learning experiences that leave a lasting impression on children.
Our Favorite Unit Studies from The Waldock Way
We’ve tried several of the interest-led unit studies from The Waldock Way in our homeschool. My daughters especially like the mini units based on the Who Was/Who Is? series of books.
There is a huge variety to choose from, including:
- Sacagawea
- Thomas Edison
- Nikola Tesla
- Laura Ingalls Wilder
- J.R.R. Tolkien
- Charles Dickens
- Anne Frank
- and so many more!
These mini units are a great way to get an introduction to important people in history from all walks of life, from ancient history to more modern history.
We enjoy using them in our morning basket time. We read the book aloud together, then my daughters complete the worksheets and activities. Sometimes we want to learn more, so we extend the research and discussion beyond that. The mini units are a good springboard to jumpstart that type of delight-directed learning. As long as you have the companion book, there really is no prep time other than printing out the pages you need to complete. The Waldock Way makes it simple for homeschool moms and fun for the kids!
On top of making things easy, they’re also very affordable! I know that being frugal and sticking to a budget is essential to many (most?) homeschool families including ours, so this is another plus. You can easily get the books from the library to save money.
Right now you can save with the Buy 5, Get 1 Free deal from The Waldock Way, making it an even more affordable option for homeschool families.
The Waldock Way also offers mini units that cover the What Was? series of books. Kids learn about important landmarks, wars, and other events from history, including:
- The Twin Towers
- Boston Tea Party
- Titanic
- Pompeii
- and several more!
Unit studies from The Waldock Way provide a holistic, engaging, and flexible approach to homeschooling. By incorporating multiple subjects into a single theme or topic, children can deepen their understanding of the world around them while enjoying the learning process.
If you’re looking to breathe new life into your homeschooling experience in a fun and affordable way, consider exploring the world of interest-led unit studies with The Waldock Way.
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