Home School in the Woods Á La Carte

Home School in the Woods has been a favorite vendor of mine for some time, in part because I love Amy Pak's aesthetic for each item that I have used. I have also been fortunate enough to have been on many *reviews for her products over the years, in addition to picking up items independently upon occasion. Generally, each product is fairly comprehensive with many projects to complete. Now, however, Home School in the Woods is offering items, Á La Carte, so that you can reap the benefits of these creative projects if you are studying a particular subject or era, and would like to add a little pizzaz to your current curriculum without diving into a full-fledged extra study, and prices are very reasonable, ranging from approximately $2-$10 depending on the size/depth of the project.

The product range includes Timelines, Newspapers, Games, Three Dimensional Projects, Lap Book, and other miscellaneous projects of historical interest. For this review, I chose two file folder games for my history buff, The Fight for Freedom and Westward, Ho! 

The Fight For Freedom is a game based on World War II. There 105 question cards with topics that include famous people, locations, and general World War II knowledge. I appreciate that the directions include a suggestion to limit the number of cards in play, and even to only use 1/2 of the game board (either the Pacific Theater or the European Theater), especially for somewhat younger players. I chose to use this option, and to remove cards (for now) dealing with concentration camps, and some of the more technical details for my 10-year-old.

In the course of putting together the game, while I had my Youngest coloring in the game boards I read through the questions so that he would become familiar with some of them before we started play. He was also able to answer a reasonable number of them, so that was encouraging.

The goal in this game is to win the most battles. This is accomplished by getting three of your colored dot playing pieces into each battle box by answering questions correctly. There is definitely some strategy involved in that you can choose to try to work on one battle at a time, and hope your opponents go elsewhere, giving you free reign to get your three dots in, or to get one dot in each box, to stymie your opponent. *Side note: I recommend hole punching the playing dots out of cardstock instead of paper~ much easier to pick up! :) Also, I folded some little origami boxes to corral the playing dots, as they tend to want to disperse on their own. ;)

On to the next game. I felt that Westward Ho! was a little less of a stretch for him, in part because he has read a lot of books from that era, AND we have traveled cross country to Montana, visiting many national parks along the way, so he is fairly well versed in that "history."

   

You will note that in my photo this game board is not colored in. After coloring in the first game board (Fight For Freedom), he decided that he would prefer to play on black and white. He has actually asked me to reprint the Fight For Freedom pages in black and white for future play. One of the benefits of homeschooling ~ you can do what suits your child's preferences. ;)

In Westward Ho! there are more playing pieces~ Markers, dice, and "Native Guide" tents. You choose which "trail" you want to travel (Oregon, Lewis and Clark, Mormon/California, and Santa Fe/Old Spanish). Play commences as you answer questions correctly, earning a roll of the die in order to collect your supplies for the journey. From here correct questions allow you to earn a roll of the die to move across the board, and the first one to the end wins.

Games are a great way to mix things up, and the repetition of the questions is a fun way to "drill" the facts! So check it out!

Not So Nutty Nitty Gritty 

• Company: Home School in the Woods   
• Product: Á La Carte File folder games, The Fight for Freedom and Westward, Ho! 
• Ages: Varied
• Price: $2-$13 for the different projects, mine were $4.95 each

You can interact with Home School in the Woods on any of their social media pages:

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*My previous Homeschool in the Woods Reviews:

• New Testament Activity-Pak
• HISTORY Through the Ages Hands-on History Lap-Pak: U.S. Elections
• Make-A-State Activity Pak
• Project Passport World History Study: Ancient Egypt
• Project Passport Renaissance & Reformation
• Great Empires Unit

  

You'll want to be sure to check out the reviews by clicking the button below, as other crew members reviewed things like The Art of Quilling and Literary Genres Lapbook Mini-Study (pictured above). As always, I hope that this review was useful to you as you choose where best to spend your homeschool budget.

Blessings~

#hsreviews  #hsitwalacarteprojects