What Is A Block Study?

Good question! Homeschoolers that are familiar with or utilize the Waldorf-inspired approach to education will know well what block studies also known as main lessons are. If you prefer the immersion approach to learning / teaching versus the spiral method then you might be intrigued by block studies or main lessons. Many people mistaken block studies for unit studies, while there are similarities between the two approaches there are quite a few differences. Unit studies typically take a topic and focus on doing every subject under that topic, while block studies take a topic and spend a block of time just learning about that topic. Block studies are also similar to thematic units in that they focus on a particular subject for a specific age group, but block studies are broader in scope.

Let's see if some of these examples might be helpful ..... if a family wanted to do a 'unit study' on the subject of geology, they would purposely incorporate all other school subjects like math, language arts, religion, history, geography, etc. and they would all center on geology. The lessons would also be layered for multiple age groups. The family doing a 'thematic unit' would only focus on one topic of geology (i.e. volcanoes or caves etc.) and it would be geared towards one grade level. The family doing a 'block study' would immerse themselves in the subject of geology covering all aspects (i.e. formation of earth, land and water forms, rocks, minerals etc) and it would be structured for only one grade. You may do art, music, handiwork, language arts under that subject but you don't do every subject with that topic, not like a unit study.