Home School In the Woods Olde World Style Maps

I'm guessing that most of you are familiar with Amy Pak and Home School in the Woods (HSITW), most well known for their History Through the Ages Products. If you read my blog last year, you may remember reading my review of Home School in the Woods' New Testament Activity Pak . Well, HSITW is back as a repeat vendor for the TOS Crew with a new offering....

(Click the graphic to go directly to that page)

Amy has taken her lovely "olde world style" maps from the "Record of Time" Timeline Notebook, and expanded them into their own unique offering. If you prefer "detailed and artistic" to "utilitarian", then these will probably appeal to you.

The maps come as two sets~ United States and World Maps. They both include "historical" maps, as well as modern "political" maps. These all come with the option to print them with labels, non-labled(With spaces to fill in), or simply, outlines. These are not plain flat black line maps, but inorporate some geographical details, like mountains and rivers... very nicely done.

The United States maps include historical maps of the colonies and various growth periods of the US, maps of slave and free states and a map with the locations of the various Native American Tribes. There is a bonus notebooking file with a "State Fact Sheet" to fill in and color, as well as small versions of each state flag to print in color and add to the Fact Sheet. There is also a teacher's key for each one... NICE!

The World maps set includes two basic categories~ Ancient and Modern, with most of them again, printable with labels, fill-in options, and outlines only. The Ancient maps include geographical terrain, but the Modern maps stick to political boundarys and waterways. The bonus notebooking file with the World Maps set is great! Amy has included a lot of great templates to spark your student's imagination and creativity:

• a newspaper or newsletter template (We used this to help pass a T&T section at AWANA... : ) )
• a blankrealestate/travel brochure
• Daily Life in____
• Explorers ("fill in" Biography pages)
• Missionaries ("fill in" Biography pages) (I can see this being helpful at AWANA as well!)
• Christmas and Holidays in ______
• Postcards from _____
• Recipe Cards from_____
• Generic "Country" report pages
• Flora and Fauna in_____

and others~ This is a real fun section with so many ways to use it, that I KNOW it will keep us busy for quite some time. :)

I printed up the Ancient Vikings Map, an Atlantic Ocean Map and an Arctic Region map to accompany us as we read "The Voyages of Henry Hudson". How nice for R & J to be able to follow along and see places mentioned as we read about them(And fill in some others that weren't already labeled). This is particularly helpful for my daughter, who, as we discovered last year when reviewing for HS ITW , remembers what she *heard* read when she *sees* something that she was *working on* at the time. (The brain is so interesting... , and yes, she's a mix of the three types of learning! But I digress....)

These will make impressive additions to portfolio work for "Review" by the school district, and nice "show-off" pieces for those interested folks (Like grandparents) who might ask to see some recent work.

I am certainly very happy with these, and if you are interested in notebooking/lapbooking/scrapbooking as part of your child's education, you might want to take a little "looksee" at these. Samples of the World Maps can be had here, and samples of the USA maps here.

The nitty gritty~ each "Set" (World or US) is available separately as a download ($18.95) or on CD ($19.95) They are also available as a combo~pak ($28.95 for the download, and $29.95 for the CD)

As always, I hope that this little look at how we used some of the HSITW Olde World Style Maps and what we thought of them at "our" school will help you choose what products to spend your homeschool budget on at "your" school. :) ~If you would like to read a few other opinions, head on over to the TOS Crew, to see what some other homeschooling families thought~
Blessings~


Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this/these item(s)/service for free as part of the TOS Crew Review Program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commision's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."