The Challenge of Putting Together Units

This year both the kids are studying ancient civilizations. Our units are 4-6 weeks long and I let the kids have lots of input in how we study them and what sort of activities they do to learn the material. As I begin preparing for our next unit, ancient India, I am faced with the usual problem: too much information! Google is wonderful; put in "ancient India lesson plans" and I get oodles of links! I begin to get a sense, though, that the information is just a hodgepodge. I appreciate textbooks more now because I think they can give focus to information, directing the learning and reducing the amount of work in putting together all the information.

Speaking of work: it is staggering how much effort it can be to sift through dozens or hundreds of links and decide, yes, let's do that one or no, the kids probably wouldn't be interested in that. We have ILP's that tell us what we "should" be learning about: geography, religions, art, government, architecture, etc. Yet it all has to be woven together in a way that is logical, builds on previous information and is interesting and engaging.

Obviously what I've been doing has some merit: both the kids had no interest in history before we started homeschooling and we even had quite a discussion about it this past summer, with Denver trying to convince me that we not study history. Now they both find history fascinating, or at least worthy of their attention. So even though my lessons are not totally polished and at times are downright messy, something's working. They say motivation is a key factor in learning; what has happened here? I wish I knew. If I did, I could package it and sell it for lots of money!

Bottom line, though, is that in a way this time seems wasted planning elaborate lesson plans because they will only be used once, particularly since both my kids are studying the same thing. A classroom teacher knows that even if they put a lot of work into a plan they will be able to use the material over and over again, benefiting many students over the years. The thing is, there are lesson plans out there, already done, but I have to find and revise them. Homeschooling is very time intensive!