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Frequently Asked Questions
Will unit studies give my children "what they need?" Are you sure my children will learn without textbooks and workbooks? Yes - we are sure your children will learn in the unit study approach (and without textbooks)! Children actually learn best when they experience things, so the Learning Adventures curriculum guides are filled with hands on activities, experiments, and projects (instead of textbook and workbook assignments and tests). When children are listening, reading real books, writing, experimenting, cooking, role-playing, researching, and playing on a theme, they really will learn it! You will know they are learning from their comments in family discussions, by their written performance, in their attitude toward their projects and by their involvement in and enthusiasm for learning. We also want to remind you that textbooks were written by committees of writers who used REAL BOOKS as their sources! In addition, textbooks provide a summary of information about each topic. In wondering about "missing something" and materials "being enough" - we wonder if you think it is "enough" to include, as the textbooks do, only a few paragraphs about a war, as long as important battle names, outstanding personalities, and dates were squeezed into those few paragraphs. Oh - there would also be a worksheet and test that included those facts in the textbook approach - so it would potentially equate with "knowing" those things! Right? At Learning Adventures, we hear parents saying all the time that they can't believe how much they missed in learning with traditional methods prior to their switch to a real books method. We also believe that reading numerous books on each topic helps children develop critical thinking skills as they discover differing viewpoints and opinions and must dig deeper to learn the truth.
Yikes! I'm just not sure if I'm ready to break away from textbooks and workbooks! Can you provide more evidence of the benefits of real books in a learning method? A real books method will provide your children with a rich, meaningful, and thorough learning journey! A story is told by Charlotte Huck about a boy who was INDIGNANT when he found that his history textbook had summarized the dissension among the colonists of Jamestown in ONE SENTENCE. He compared that one sentence to the entire, emotion-packed story of the founding of Jamestown in This Dear Bought Land, by Jean Lee Latham and could not believe the difference! The story had touched the boy's heart and had introduced him to characters in history that had feelings and experienced many hardships. It made history come alive in such a way that the boy felt it was if he had traveled back in time to Jamestown and watched the story unfold before his very eyes! We challenge you to let your children experience this same delight in learning!
Do I need to supplement with grammar, spelling, writing, or in other areas of language arts? While many other unit studies do not require a comprehensive coverage of the elements of language arts, the Learning Adventures volumes do! Many parents are so used to having to add these elements, that they feel compelled to continue adding them when they begin A World of Adventure. Our focus is on literature and writing; all other elements of language arts are a means to that end. There is a balanced coverage of each of the elements of language arts in order to provide that focus on literature and writing. Our lessons may not look exactly like the long lessons in the workbooks you grew up using in grammar or spelling at school. However, it's important to understand that in order to support the philosophy of a whole learning approach, the lessons won't look like many of the lessons you might be used to using. In other words, when you are seeking a different approach to learning - you have to understand that a different approach really WILL look and feel different! There is definitely a leap of faith involved in beginning a new approach to learning. But, you really don't need to supplement with language arts workbooks! Here's what one mom shared about her experience in NOT supplementing. After putting our children back in school this past year due to work schedules, "my oldest
child was placed into honors English I as well as honors math. She recently took a high school placement test and scored in the 99th percentile for language arts, and even received a
scholarship to a private high school! My second oldest child's English teacher praised me for doing such a great job teaching my daughter, and she went on about how advanced her writing
skills are. I believe with all my heart that they are doing so well and above their peers due to Learning Adventures. I never supplemented your program, it was never overwhelming, and
they enjoyed every bit of it. I am hoping to homeschool my boys in the future, just to be able to do this program with them! Out of six years of homeschooling, this was by far the best
thing that we did, and we have so many fun memories! Thank you for all you do."
Will the information in the curriculum guides be "enough" in areas such as science and social studies? This is almost always a question that we get from current or former textbook parents. When they ask this question, they don't completely understand how the unit study method works. The unit study method REQUIRES the use of real books to complete the study and it is up to the parent to provide a book selection (in quantity and difficulty) that is appropriate to each child's ability level. That doesn't mean an advanced student can't learn from a wide variety of books - everything from the simplest to the most challenging. In fact, we believe that learning is best achieved in starting with less challenging books and materials followed by more challenging books and materials when approaching a given topic. We provide a foundational outline of information in the form of commentaries each day in the curriculum guide. However, that information is ONLY a springboard! We fully expect the parent to be following up on that information with additional library books on a daily basis! So when we hear this question of something being "enough" - we respond with a question of our own . . . "Are you making it enough?" That's what the multi-grade unit study is all about - using the foundational information and adjusting it to meet the needs of each individual student. In a successful unit study application, even the most advanced students should be reading MUCH more information than they would ever be covering in a chapter of a science textbook - and it is up to the parent to see that come to fruition! Projects for students should also have individual objectives - and those should be provided by the parent, based on the lesson provided in the curriculum guide.
The multi-grade approach is new to me. How can children in different grades learn the same things? This works in largely the same way as the concept of attending a museum with your whole family. Although there are many ages of children and even adults - each of you will come away having learned a lot from the experience! Each takes something different from the journey! Yet - while you will admit that you all learned much - you achieved that result without a first grade room, a fourth grade room, and an adult room in the museum! Because we don't rely on worksheets, the daily plans enable you to tweak as you go through your day and apply the same lesson to many ages according to the abilities of your children. So, all the children will listen to the same literature passage, each will take away something unique from it - and you might even direct the discussion questions toward children with varying abilities. While all the children will have the same basic writing lesson, each child will be carrying out that lesson in different ways. Some will do the lesson independently exactly as directed, while others will do it orally with a parent and still others will have a scaled-down version for their lesson that is done with the parent orally. On the more advanced side of the spectrum, some students will do the same lesson but will expand it to a five-paragraph essay format. The parent tweaks the provided lesson and assigns the specific objectives and expectations for each child appropriate to age and ability. A list of spelling words might be shortened in some cases, and in others, the parent might have the student add challenge words from the vocabulary or topic words in the curriculum. More advanced students will read more library books at greater challenge levels and have higher objectives and expectations on assignments and projects than less advanced students.
Do the curriculum guides come in a binder? No - each guide comes three-hole punched and shrink-wrapped in a loose-leaf format so each family can decide how to use it best. We do not include a binder so that families may place the pages in any size binder they like. This flexibility enables parents to choose the best method for their own family. Most families prefer using a separate, smaller binder for each unit since they only use one unit at a time and this is most convenient. If you only bind one unit of the study at a time, just be sure to keep the remainder of the study in a safe place where it won't be misplaced!
Tell me about the Student Pages There is a packet of student pages for each volume. Because the curriculum guides are teacher's guides and include answers, they are not formatted for student use. Required student exercises can only be carried out by the student if the parent copies the information on a marker board and the student works on it there or copies it onto his/her paper. The parent could also re-type the information from the guide for each student. Either way, it's a lot of extra work for the parent when the student pages already exist. Although we include fewer and shorter written "exercises" than the typical textbook/workbook program, there are certain exercises that do require a work-page to complete as a means of practicing a certain skill or concept. Most of these pages are spelling and grammar exercises, but there are history and science pages scattered throughout the student pages as well. We call them Student Pages because they only include student -friendly formats of things that we also include in the curriculum guide. There are NO additional crossword puzzles, word finds, and the like - which would just add more "worksheets" to the curriculum.
What should I order if I'm just beginning this curriculum? You should order A World of Adventure (that's your teacher's guide), the Student Pages for A World of Adventure (for each student in grades 4-8, since this is a consumable package), and Worlds of Adventure, the learning game. These three components work together to make your first year a successful one!
Can I buy the Learning Adventures volumes used? Probably - but we really wish you wouldn't! Here's why - when you purchase your materials directly from us, you are investing in our work - AND you are investing in your child's future education. You are helping to ensure that future materials will be written for your family to use. Learning Adventures is a small, home-based family business. We are dedicated to providing the best quality curriculum at an affordable price for you! We could charge twice what we do for our products, but we are committed to keeping them affordable, so we ask for your commitment in return. Our ability to do any of these things really does depend upon your support by purchasing materials directly from us. When people increasingly purchase used materials from each other, we are forced to work elsewhere to make a living, which means that we are unable to write future materials because there is no time to do so! You can help the Learning Adventures series to continue by supporting our work in the direct purchase of your materials from Learning Adventures.
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