Some units come together because they are inspired by the curriculum, other units come together because they’re inspired by the seasons, and yet other units come together because they are inspired by my children. Recently, my daughter became enthralled with horses. She asked to take horseback riding lessons, and when we signed her up, she was overjoyed. I took her interest and turned it into a unit study. But as we homeschool multiple children of multiple ages, this unit study need to serve not just my daughter, but my older son as well. For this reason, we included several picture books and simple non-fiction books on horses to appeal to my daughter as well as activity books, sticker books, and coloring books. To appeal to my older son and to make this unit more robust, we included historical fiction, non fiction and other books on how horses change the landscape of the United States. These books were thrilling to read. Not just for my children, but for myself as well. Since I did not have any books on horses to begin with, maybe only a couple of references in other zoology books, I decided to purchase a variety of books, kits, and other resources.

Typically when I put together a unit study, I will look through the materials that I have already and if I need more, I will purchase those either with personal funding or with educational funding. So often times I will include a homeschool haul as part of our unit study so that you can see the books that we purchased why we purchased them and where we got them from. In this case, I have a few homeschool hauls as I collect the materials for this unit. As this was a unit I had never done before nor would I have considered it, I had a really good time pulling resources together for this unit. While I do not have a lot of lessons and activities to show for it, I do hope that you will check out some of the books intended for upper elementary or middle school as they were excellent resources that would serve not just a unit study on horses, but a unit study on history. Usually when I put together a unit study, I showcase the books and materials we are using for the unit, I share the projects and activities, and finally I share a review video of the unit. In the review video, I shared the projects and the lessons we did, the books and the resource we used, and most importantly, the things that we liked versus the things that we didn’t like or that we didn’t get to. in this case I fear, I have not made a horse unit study review (yet)!

As much time has passed since we put together this unit, I may not be able to do justice to a review at this point. But I do want to share two resources that I think are amazing for an older student specifically for a history unit. The Winter Horses by Philip Kerr and the Equine Legacy: How Horses, Mules and Donkey Shaped America by C S Purdy are two books I would highly recommend for middle school or high school.