Gather ‘Round Homeschool Unit Study Review
We are HUGE fans of Gather ‘Round Homeschool and the unit studies they offer. The units are well planned and really do gather the whole family ‘round to learn.
Listen to our review or watch it here!
What is Gather ‘Round Homeschool
If you aren’t familiar with unit studies, we talk about them at length in Episode 29. In short unit studies are topic based curricula that include multiple subject areas. Gather ‘Round Homeschool units cover:
Social studies
Science
Language arts
History
Geography
Fine Arts
Bible
Each unit study is driven by a beautifully illustrated Teacher’s Guide designed to be read aloud to students pre-reader through high school. Unit studies can be purchased as print editions and mailed to you, or digital for you to download and print at home. I prefer pulling up the teacher’s guide on my computer or TV to cut down on paper and ink. On the TV, my children can see the images and illustrations as I read aloud.
Student notebooks are also illustrated but tend to use less ink than the teacher’s guide making printing a little more manageable. Notebooks are broken into age appropriate levels:
Pre-reader
Early Reader
Early Elementary
Upper Elementary
Middle School
High School
Each unit provides activity suggestions (experiments, crafts, video links) and a recommended book list to compliment the topic. Gather ‘Round units are 20 lessons and designed to be completed in 4-5 weeks; however, I often have two units going at a time and spend a little longer on each. There are also mini units that are less in depth and designed to supplement main units.
While units can be purchased a la carte and plugged into your homeschool life however you want, Gather ‘Round is planned out into a 4 year cycle with years 1-3 available for purchase as bundles. Year 4 will be released soon. The idea is you go through each year as laid out in the bundle and after completing Year 4, start over again as your children will be in high levels and ready to take in the information once more.
3 Reasons Why We Love Gather ‘Round
First, Gather ‘Round provides Christian World View - it doesn’t shy away from difficult topics in history: slavery, war, civil rights, etc; but it does so through the hope of Jesus.
Second, it really does work to bring all ages together for learning time providing each student with appropriate notebook work to reinforce and enhance learning. Because everyone learned the same content, it offers beautiful opportunities to discuss together organically at other times
Third, each unit is a perfect base to build upon and customize with additional resources or materials that you might find.
How We Use Gather ‘Round
Last school year, I offered my fourth grader a choice of several unit studies I thought would be appropriate for the year. She told me which units she was most excited about, which helped me decide how to layout our school year.
For the last two school years, Mandi and I have done at least some parts of the Christmas units together. It is so magical to be able to share in the beauty of these homeschool units by learning together. This year, we added the Easter mini unit and went through all the lessons, about half together and half separately. We got both of our families together for a Seder dinner using the script and recipes provided by Gather ‘Round. The entire experience was incredible.
I also use units to help build out a larger curriculum plan. For 4th grade, we were studying California, so I used the Oceans study to help us learn about the coastal habitat and creature found in the Pacific Ocean. I’m planning to use the US History Mini Units 1-4, US Government and possibly North America, Indigenous Peoples and Underground to Canada together with other resources to build my own 5th grade American History Curriculum for Sofia.
We highly recommend Gather ‘Round Homeschool whether you homeschool 1 child or 10!