Homeschool Complete Unit Studies by Debra Arbuthnot are designed to provide a fun-filled unit that covers grade-level skills in all subject areas. Subject integration builds understanding and helps students transfer knowledge from one area to another, tying learning together. Themed units help students retain the information better.

Ms. Arbuthnot’s unit study begins with an introduction and includes detailed lesson plans built around a five-day week, with four days of instruction and one day for additional activities. Subject areas in the unit study include language arts, math, science, social studies, fine arts, fitness, character development, and Bible. The unit study will give guidance for the subject matter and help teach problem solving and higher-level thinking skills.

Some of the helps early on in this soccer unit study include an introduction about unit studies, a page of teaching suggestions and helps, and a list of the skills that will be developed through the soccer study in each of the subject areas. You will also find a list of materials needed, divided by materials needed weekly as well as for each individual lesson. Most of these are household supplies and should be easy to gather for the study. There is also a page of literature titles that should be gathered before beginning the lesson, as more than one title is needed for most lessons.

There are several pages to be printed off to assist with different activities. These include things like a hundreds chart, base ten squares, letter blocks, a calendar, and sight words, to name a few. After these helps, comes the meat of the program - the lessons.

There are 12 lessons on soccer in this unit study. Each lesson includes the teaching guide for that lesson and any printable worksheets that are needed. The teacher’s guide for the lesson lists the skills that will be gained. There is suggestions for a calendar time and then the activities, divided by each subject area. For lesson one, there are activities in language arts, math, and art. These activities include reading a biography, reading a fictional story, learning multiplication facts and practicing them, and designing soccer jerseys.

To show some of the other skills worked on in other lessons, lesson four is a good example. In this lesson, student will work in language arts, social studies, math, science, and physical education. Some of the language arts and social studies activities involve reading a book about well-known soccer players, researching and writing about a soccer player, and learning vocabulary. The math and science skills explore scientific method, physics of a soccer balls being kicked, practicing multiplication, and writing simple math equations with addition and subtraction (one example was 15 + 3 = 18 from a word problem about soccer balls). The physical education skills revolve a bit more around soccer with practicing kicking a soccer ball and dribbling around a set of cones but also includes playing red light/green light.

This unit study on soccer came to me as a download. It includes 165 pages. Below is the layout of the entire download with the worksheet pages both included in each lesson and also combined an the appendix at the bottom. This makes it easy for any type of mom; ones that like the whole lesson together and ones that like to print the worksheets at one time.

Introduction

Teaching Procedure

Skills List

Materials List

Calendar

Hundred Chart-Number Line

Spelling Squares

Place Value Board

Base Ten Pieces (templates)

Square Tiles

Sight Word Flashcards

Literature List

Daily Calendar Routine

Lessons 1-12

Appendix: Student Workbook Pages

Complete Unit Study: Soccer is definitely a complete study, covering all of the areas you would want to discuss if you were using this for your entire school day. There is even a page that tells you how to begin your day with reciting the pledge, doing calendar work, reciting Bible verses, and more. If you are looking to have everything written out for you and all your work figured out, this is the unit study for you. It is extremely detailed and will take all the research work out of a unit study for the teacher.

-Product review by Lori Hooten, The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, LLC, June, 2018