Take a Project Passport into the 20th Century in America with Homeschool in the Woods! (curriculum review)
I received a FREE copy of this product through the HOMESCHOOL REVIEW CREW in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way. All opinions I have expressed are my own or those of my family. I am disclosing this in accordance with the FTC Regulations.
If you've homeschooled for any length of time, then you most likely have heard of the company that we'll be talking a Home School in the Woods! They have really made a name for themselves in providing quality historical units studies, lapbooks, and workbooks for homeschoolers, that being FUN back to what can be a boring subject for most kids !
We were lucky to be able to get one of their Hands-on HistoryLap-Paks to review! Like their other products, it is intended for grades 3-8, and offers a way to bring history ALIVE for kids! This series includes U.S. Elections, Benjamin Franklin, Kinghts and our new fav: 20th Century in America!
20th-century America was filled with decades of progress, from advances in science to inventions of modern convenience to an array of interesting people, and so much more! It was a time frought with war - whether global between countries or between parents and children over the length of their hair!
The 20th Century in America takes a look at this modern era through reading material and hands-on projects to reinforce the lessons, as well as introducing your child to information not included in traditional history books! There are 22 lap booking project topics in the module, that incorporate creative writing, coloring and drawing, and research,into each! There's even a project that looks at the changing fads in food, from sliced bread to T.V. dinners, of course, with recipes for classics such as tuna noodle casserole for you to try for yourself!
Topics covered include World Wars and Other Conflicts, Political Events and Movements, Disasters, Science & Invention in the 20th Century (including Medical Advancements and The Space Race), Art Movements of the Modern Era, 20th-Century Authors and their Literature, Music of the Century, Transportation and Architecture, Sports Figures and People of Interest, the aforementioned "Dining through the Decades", as well as Fashion through
the Decades!
This is a DOWNLOADABLE product, which means you download multiple files. there IS a lot to download, so make sure you have enough black ink and paper, ebfore you start! The first file is your set of instructions which thankfully includes step-by-step illustrated directions, for the printing and assembly instructions, for each part of the lapbook, each project, and the lap book assembly itself. For my 6th grader this was great, as I was able to print, read, and then go over the instructions that required special instruction with her, then send her off with all her materials, the instructions, the reading text, and the projects pages!
The reading text comes in two formats to print, so you can pick which works best for the format you want to make- full-size pages of text for a binder or a 32-page booklet to store with the lap book. And if you want your child to add research skills, there is a list of additional suggested resources for reading, for them to check out and learn from as well. The third file is the detailed masters for all of the 22 projects in the lapbook, so you have all your printables in one place! I love that there are so many different project areas, so that she could really see HOW many changes were made!
I'd love to show you what Miss Grace's finished lapbook looked like, as she worked very hard on it for a week straight, but we had a mishap last week, that ended in it being a very very soggy mess, and not picture worthy at all! SIGH, this is what you get when you send your 11 year old off to her dad's for a week, and she insists on sitting out on the pier, on the river, to work on it. No matter how much mom warned, she, 'the tween' knew best. SIGH. Right until the dog bounded out of no where, hit her back and she dropped it into the water. FYI, water based markers tend to run when exposed to a LARGE amount of water. Let's just call it a hard science lesson of 'Mom knows right' to learn. Course that left us without a lapbook to show you for our review. SIGH.
So in the issue of fairness, Miss Grace said she would show you how she put a couple of the projects together, although she said she was going to put it all in a binder this time, as she didn't want to take a chance of loosing it ALL at one time again, and wanted more room to work the second time around. So she printed out the reading text on the binder print size, BUT then cut each section and put them on color coordinated paper, for her heading pages. Her plan is to go back and add color pictures, illustrating what is being talked about on the page.
Then she is doing the flat projects first, and putting them on a different color page, and putting them in their proper category. Each page can be lifted out from the plastic holder and opened up, like the lap-book, to see the info underneath still. One she gets the book done, then we'll add holes to the pages, and take them out of the page covers, so the pages are easier to access, but for now she's being uber conscious of any damage happening before she is finished (HA, FINALLY, lesson learned! LOL).
The only issue she is going to have is the science wheel, as it is meant to be 3 dimensional, and that will not work for a binder. So she has a problem to solve, but I know she'll come up with a great idea for it eventually!
She told me she had a lot of fun putting this project together, as she was able to ask people she knew what THEIR memories were of the different time periods, and get ideas for coloring in the fashion pages (anybody remember Miami Vice pink tshirts under white suits? for example), finding out what foods everyone grew up eating out of the included menu, and getting different opinions on the art, political and historical movements during the time period. AKA, the stuff that you CAN NOT learn from a history text! the project has really made history come ALIVE for her, and she's eager to check out another project! I like how your child has the choice fo making it a binder, or the fun lap-pak, out of a file folder! it could ba a fun projects for homeschool, co-op studies, and even history fairs! We highly recommend it for making studying a chaotic century more personal and meaningful!
Besides this great Lapbook study, and it's co-horts, Home School in the Woods offers other great hands on history project ideas, like:
Time Travelers American History series,
Hands-on History Activity-Paks series,
À La Carte Timelines (Note that these are for grades 3-12),
and
Project Passport World History Studies series, including their latest release:
You can literally travel through all the ancient civilications now, thanks to all the entries in the series!
Some of my fellow reviewers got to check it out, as well as many others-you can check out all their reveiws by clicking on the link below:
Be sure to follow Homeschool in the Woods on their social media sites for new releases, special editions and special sales and discounts of their products:
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