Unit Programs or Daily Lesson Plans? - Train up a Child Publishing

Black homeschool mom deciding between Unit Program Tools and Daily Lesson Plans

Which is best for your family – our Unit Program 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 Program Tools or the Daily Lesson Plans. How do I know which one would be best? How are they different?

Similarities between Unit Program Tools and Daily Lesson Plans

I’ll start with the similarities:

Both are literature-based curricula. In other words, rather than textbooks, you’ll use “real” books–excellent non-fiction and fiction books with both programs. You can get books at your public library, from used bookstores, from Amazon.com, or from the bookseller of your choice.
All of our curricula, including our high school courses, are written from a Christian worldview.
Our Unit Program 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 Program Tools are more Charlotte Mason-ish, our Daily Lesson Plans lean toward Classical in a few areas.)

Part of the Westward Expansion Unit from the Intermediate Unit Program Tools — Part of the Intermediate Unit Program Tools’ Westward Expansion Unit (3rd-5th grades)

What is the difference between Daily Lesson Plans and Unit Program Tools?

You.

The most important difference between these two programs is you.

You may still need to learn this about yourself, but you have a teaching style you’re most comfortable with. And it may change as you discover more about homeschooling, teaching, your kids, and yourself. But start where you are right now.

The most significant difference between the two is that we designed them with two different teaching styles in mind.

You’d prefer our Unit Program Tools if…

The homeschool mom who is comfortable with and prefers to have less structure because she likes to create her own structure will choose our Unit Program Tools. See if you can relate to the bullet points below.

- You’d like nothing better than having curated book lists, assignment ideas, and the Teacher’s Overview of each time period, so you’re not starting from scratch to feel organized.
- 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 copy work, spelling, and vocabulary words.
- And the tips on what to teach at different age levels and grammar checklists make you feel secure as you plan lessons (or journal what you get done after the fact).
- You also love that all of your children can study the same history period at the same time. Finally!

Related Post: What comes with Daily Lesson Plans?

Learn more about our Unit Program Tools & see samples

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

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

Primary (Kindergarten through 2nd grade)

Intermediate (3rd-5th grades)

Preparatory (6th-8th grades)

Secondary (9th-12th grades)

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 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 dealing with separate books for history, reading, geography, science, grammar, punctuation, composition, poetry, and fine arts.