Unit Study Tools or Daily Lesson Plans?

Which is best for your family – our Unit Study Tools or Daily Lesson Plans? Here’s what you need to know.

The most common curriculum question I get is this: I don’t know whether to get the Unit Study Tools or the Daily Lesson Plans. How do I know which one would be best for me to use? How are they different?

Keep reading for links to see samples of our Unit Study Tools components and our Daily Lesson Plans. Then you can download the age levels for your children and compare each program side-by-side.

Editor’s Note: There are affiliate links in our posts to books and other homeschooling tools that we have used and loved. Should you buy something using one of these links, we might make a small commission on your purchase at no additional cost to you. Thank you for supporting us in this way!

Similarities between Unit Study Tools and Daily Lesson Plans

I’ll start with the similarities:

• Both are literature-based curriculum. In other words, rather than textbooks, you’ll use “real” books–excellent non-fiction and fiction books with both our Unit Study Tools and our Daily Lesson Plans. You can get books at your public library, from used bookstores, from (aff. link) Amazon.com, or from the bookseller of your choice. 
• All of our curriculum, including our high school courses, are written from a biblical Christian worldview.
• Our Unit Study Tools and Daily Lesson Plans cover history, science (K-8th), language, and fine arts.
• All of our programs are Charlotte Mason-inspired with a smattering of Classical. (Although our Unit Study Tools are more Charlotte Mason-inspired and our Daily Lesson Plans lean toward Classical in a few areas.)

What is the critical difference between our Daily Lesson Plans and Unit Study Tools?

You.  

The most important difference between these two programs is you.

You may still need to learn this about yourself if you’re new to homeschooling.

But you have a teaching style you’re most comfortable with. And it often changes as you discover more about homeschooling, teaching, your kids, and yourself.

So, start where you are right now.

And we’ve found over the years that most homeschooling moms (or dads) fall into one of two camps.

Please read over the two descriptions below, and see which one sounds most like you.

You’d prefer our Unit Study Tools if…

You’re most comfortable with and prefer to have less structure because you likes to create your own structure. If this is you, you’ll choose our Unit Study Tools all day long.

See if you can relate to the bullet points below.

• You’d like nothing better than having curated book lists, assignment ideas, and a Teacher’s Overview of each time period, so you have a structure to follow instead of starting from scratch. But you’re going to make any curricula you use your own.
• You want to be free to take your time and go down rabbit trails as they appear.
• You appreciate the included Teacher’s Manual to teach you how to pick out copywork, spelling, and vocabulary words.
• You’d find it useful to have tips and lists of what to teach at different age levels (especially the grammar!), but you’d be strangled by a curriculum that tells you exactly what to do and say.
• You also love that all of your children can study the same history period at the same time. Finally!

Learn more about our Unit Study Tools & see samples.

Read more about our Unit Study Tools here. (Note that each program offers more as you go up in levels.)

To see and download sample units, click on the link(s) below for your kids’ grade levels:

You’d prefer our Daily Lesson Plans if…

Alternatively, the homeschool mom who is a newbie or more comfortable with having a more structured, open-and-go curriculum will love our Daily Lesson Plans. (Read to see if this sounds more like you.)

• You want to stop worrying about make sure you are covering “enough” and “the right things.”
• So you relax having daily plans in history with narration prompts and discussion questions.
• You appreciate the extra time you get having the copywork, memory work, grammar and punctuation lessons, poetry, science experiments, and general projects already picked out for you. 
• And you can relax having the week year planned for you in advance (even the projects are figured out for you, along with a weekly list of any supplies you need).
• Knowing that you have what you need in one curriculum book thrills you. Instead of buying and shlepping around separate books for history, reading, geography, science, grammar, punctuation, composition, poetry, and fine arts.  

Learn more about our Daily Lesson Plans & see samples.

Read more about our Daily Lesson Plans here.

See sample weeks of our Daily Lesson Plans by clicking your child(ren)’s grade level(s) below.

So which one sounds right for you? — Unit Study Tools or Daily Lesson Plans?

If you have specific questions you’d like to ask, please contact us anytime using the contact form found in the menu bar at the top of the page.

If you’d like to learn more about literature-based home education, click on the graphic below!