Home School in the Woods Make-A-State Activity Pak

Home School in the Woods has once again generously provided a variety of hands on history products to the Homeschool Review Crew for review. This time my youngest and I took a look at the Make-A-State Activity Pak, part of the Activity-Paks series. Crew members received other titles in the Activity-Paks series, as well as titles from the Time Travelers American History Series, the Lap-Paks, and others received the Timeline Trio, so if you've been wondering about any of these products, make sure you click through the link at the end of my post to read those reviews.
You can also check out my previous reviews for Home School in the Woods:
Activity Pak: New Testament (2009), Olde World Style Maps (2010), Great Empires Unit (2013), Project Passport World History Study: Ancient Egypt (2015), Lap-Pak: U.S. Elections (2016) Project Passport World History Study: Renaissance & Reformation (2017)

My first experience with Home School in the Woods was using their New Testament Activity Pak, which is still one of my very favorite resources (I love the Armor of God project!), so I was looking forward to using the new Make-A-State Activity Pak. It is a little different than the New Testament Pak in that it allows your child to make a Lap Book for each state in the union! Shew! That's a lot of bang for your buck right there! :)

Each State Lapbook will have some similarities and some differences. Some activities use the same template for each state that just need to be filled in with the pertinent information, and others are state-specific.

Topics covered (With printing hints)

• State/Generic Template (print multiple copies at once to save time) 
• Key State Facts
• Origin of State Names
• State Song
• State Wildlife
• Regions
• Sports Teams
• State Timeline
• State Government
• Famous People From... 
• Native Tribes
• State Industry/Agriculture/Climate
• State History

• Combination~ some components are Generic and can be printed in multiples, others are Specific and only need to be printed once
• State Symbols
• State Quarter
• State Seal and Flag

• State/Specific (Print one of each page) 
• State Motto
• State Landmarks
• Recipes
• State Vocabulary
• State Geography

We chose to start with the state I was born in, and will move on to the state we live in, and the state where my Eldest is going to go to college, OR possibly one of the Dakota's per Youngest's interest. We're also going on a cross country road trip this summer, so he may add some states to his interest pile. ;)There are a number of ways that the Make-A-State Activity Pak can be approached. You could study them in the order they entered the Union? By Region? Alphabetically?  You could simply study them as they come up in core subjects, or study them as you visit them if you are a homeschooling family on the go, or if you have relatives spread all over the place, you could start with the states of their residence.


HOW WE USED OUR ACTIVITY PAK
We received the downloadable file for this Pak, so when I want to get started on a state, I head to that folder, and click the Start.htm file which opens a browser window with a welcome and instructions on how to proceed. If you haven't ever used an Activity Pak before you will definitely want to go through the Introduction.

  

From there, my habit has  been to print the papers needed for each activity. This can be a lengthy process (think an hour and a half for the entire project), but I like to get it done all in one fell swoop if possible. I enlisted the help of my eldest to load the printer with the colored and white paper and/or cardstocks required for each activity as they came up in the Project directions. Nice thing those directions! They tell you exactly what you'll need to complete each project. You'll see in my screen shot below that I had the project directions open. I also had the window you see on above on the left open on my computer that has all the pdf files. I find it easiest to work this way, because the directions tell me (how many) of which kind of paper to load for each activity. 

I will mention that I took this printing opportunity to print a bunch of the pages that had multiple state information on them (ie: I printed ALL of the motto pages, so that next time I go to do a state, that will already be printed), and I printed 3 copies of all the generic project templates so that I would be ready to go with the next states that we decide to study. You can see that I ended up with a pretty hefty stack of printed pages!                                                    *Note~ one thing that I would appreciate, if any of these projects are revamped at all: Currently the pdfs for printing are all separate files, which is helpful at times. However, with the advent of smarter printers that can handle printing front and back, I would appreciate the ability to have a single pdf file with ALL the pages~ the few that require front and back printing took me sooooo much longer than they would have if I could have simply printed them "duplex." 

Once the pages were printed... 

I created the lapbook. The first project was to color the Montana postcard for the cover page, so we put that on right away, and then began to work through the activities. Our pace because it is summer-time was one or two projects/week, but if doing this during the school year, I would anticipate completing one/day. At that rate, you could complete one state in four weeks, as there are 20 activities for each one. 

A generalized note about boys and girls and different ages~ it has been my experience that girls tend to be more interested in the crafty side of things~ cutting and pasting and coloring in, while boys tend to be more about getting the task done.

 My son enjoys doing some of the coloring, but he's not big on cutting and pasting, so I pre-assembled the majority of the projects that required a little bit of fancy work (to avoid frustration on his part), and just let him fill things in. (The Industry and State Gov't booklets are cool, with pop-up pieces! ~ not a terrible rendition of the Montana State House! :) ) 

All this to say that if you have crafty kids, they are going to LOVE these paks, and mom will only be minimally involved~ but if not, plan to do a fair amount of cutting, gluing, and taping yourself (this isn't a problem for me, because I enjoy it!). If you have older kids (And yes, I do think this can be a valuable resource to supplement history or geography for an older student), you probably won't have to do anything beyond purchasing the paper and ink to complete it! :) 

A bonus project is included~ Name that State!  ~ a file folder game. I haven't created this just yet, because I want to laminate portions of it, and I just haven't had time to get that done, but I hope to do so before we head out on our road trip~ because everyone can use a little help brushing up on their US Geography! :) You can see it in the bottom right of this sample graphic... 

Really, for the amount of material included in this Pak, I think it is a HUGE deal. If you are planning to cover any states in detail, I highly recommend checking out Amy Pak's Make-A-State Activity Pak! 

FREE SAMPLE!!! 

If you'd like to check out a mini project, Home School in the Woods now has an A' La Carte page with (currently) about 50 component projects/activities from larger packets available individually (fantastic for adding a little pizzaz to your current studies!). They are offering the Erie Canal project on that page for free if you use the code alacarte at checkout. It was specifically chosen because it is the 200th anniversary of the beginning of the canal this past week!

Not So Nutty Nitty Gritty 

• Company: Home School in the Woods
• Product: Make-A-State Activity Pak
• Ages: 3rd-8th grade
• Price: CD Version: $19.95 Download Version: $18.95 

You can visit Home School in the Woods on their social media pages ~ I'm sure Amy Pak would be delighted to hear from you! :)
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Please click the banner below to visit the TOS Homeschool Review Crew and see what others had to say. As always, I hope that this review was useful to you as you choose where best to spend your homeschool budget.

Blessings~

#hsreviews  #HistoryUnitStudies  #HomeschoolHistory #lapbook #handson #history #bible #timeline #timelinefigures

CHSH-Teach.com (Christian HomeSchool Hub) CHSH Download Club Annual Subscription (Review)

As a homeschool parent, Support Group Leader, Awana Leader, Church Musician, and general chauffeur to dance, baseball, youth-group, and any other activity, I don't have the time OR the energy to reinvent the wheel. I'm sure that many of you feel the same, and that's why sites like CHSH-Teach.com are such a boon to the busy homeschooling family. With over 50,000 pages of educational material, many homeschoolers are sure to find useful a number of ready-made worksheets, as well as forms and other pages to use for notebooking, lapbooks, journaling, and general portfolio-building.

While there are quite a few free resources available, in order to access the entire site, members of the TOS Review Crew were given an annual subscription the CHSH Download Club. In order to get a feel for the quantity of downloads available you may wish to peruse their catalog. You'll find the downloads organized in a few different ways:

By Subject:

• Arts, Music and Crafts
• Bible Related Resources
• Electives
• Health
• Language Arts
• Languages
• Math
• Science
• Social Studies

By Grade Level
Pre-K/Kindergarten
1st-3rd Grade
4th-8th Grade
9th-12th Grade (High School)

By Month (2 months at a time, with seasonal highlights)
General Organization and Classroom Helps
Miscellaneous including Curriculum Treasures from the Past, Fun Pages, and Lapbooking and Notebooking Units.

Sampling of some of the variety of pages/units available to download.

Because it was summertime during our review period, we weren't doing a lot of work that was required "extras," plus we spent two weeks on a cross-country road trip, so I actually mostly checked out some of the e-books available, rather than using worksheets.

I was intrigued by the "HomeEc" section of of the "Curriculum Treasures From the Past" and downloaded A Little Cookbook for a Little Girl. As many books printed around that time, the instruction comes in the form of a story about a young girl who wanted to learn to cook *now* not when she was older. Her mother, grandmother and aunts all work together to create a cookbook for her birthday with some of the "simple" recipes from their cookbooks.

How interesting (And what a history lesson) to read through this cookbook! While some recipes could be attempted today, some of them might be harder to alter, as the instructions are based on cooking over a fire, or possibly on a wood stove. I was also amazed at the recipes that were considered "simple" as some of them are nothing my graduate would like to attempt.

At any rate, it was a learning experience that gave a little glimpse into the practicalities of one of the basics of life (cooking) a little over a hundred years ago.
An excerpt discussing how to cook bacon. I especially love the way it ends... ;)
This is much nicer than bacon cooked in the fryingpan or over coals, for it is neither greasy nor smoky, but pink and light brown, and crisp and delicious, and good for sick people and little children and everybody.

I did take a peek at some of the other areas, and am sure that as we get our fall school schedule up and running there will be a number of useful items. These really only touch the very tiny tip of the iceberg as far as the pages available...

The Graphic Organizers file includes 80 different organizers as well as a number of examples, which is very helpful. There are generic organizers as well as author study sheets, graph paper, storyboards, language/grammar/writing organizers, science, reporting, and more. Pretty useful bunch of printables!

I was pleased to find a unit on Johnny Appleseed geared for upper elementary ages rather
than the usual first and second grade offerings. Johnny is a favorite of ours, as he shares a birthday with one of my sons, and got his start in Massachusetts. The unit found at CHSH-Teach.com has some information included that I had never read before, so will be new and interesting to my Youngest.


I am also looking over the High School World History course (Student textbook and Teacher manuals all available for download). School starts for us on Monday coming, so I haven't gotten that far with him just yet, but it looks very thorough. Part 1 covers 3100BC-1800's with 21 units and over 600 pages in the student text. The 242 page teacher manual includes Unit Focus, Suggestions for Enrichment, Unit Assessment, and Answer Keys for each unit.

I am very impressed with the quantity of resources presented on CHSH-Teach.com, and expect that I may find myself checking here first if looking for a resource for a specific topic.

Not So Nutty Nitty Gritty 

• Company: CHSH-Teach.com
• Product: CHSH Download Club  
• Ages: Resources to use for K-12
• Price: $25 Annually OR $99.99 Lifetime

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Please click the banner below to visit the TOS Review Crew and see what others had to say. As always, I hope that this review was useful to you as you choose where best to spend your homeschool budget.

Blessings~

Don't know much about U.S. Elections? Lap-Pak from Home School in the Woods (Review)

Goodness, I just LOVE Amy Pak's Home School in the Woods products! Really, you don't hear me gush too often, but I'm telling you, she creates something really special!  If you've been reading my blog for a while, you may have seen other Home School in the Woods products that I have reviewed in the past, one as recently as this summer (Home School in the Woods: Project Passport World History Study: Ancient Egypt), as well as near the very beginning of my blogging with the New Testament Activity Pak in Spring 2009, and a couple in-between, Olde World Style Maps in winter 2010, and the Great Empires Review in spring 2013. This time we were sent a very timely and appropriate product for review, HISTORY Through the Ages Hands-on History Lap-Pak: U.S. Elections.

Eldest is all set to vote in the
Super Tuesday Primary!

For the purposes of our review (especially with this specific pak, given that it *is* an election year, and I have a new "Millennial Voter" in the house), we chose to do this study together, and everyone had a part. This was a great gap-filler/review for my olders, and introduction for my youngest into the political process.

This particular product was sent to us as a digital download. When you open the zip file up it should look something like this:

The easiest way to go about things is to click that "Start" file at the bottom. It will open up in a browser window that has everything laid out for you. You can see that I have the main page open, as well as the Full Page Text, the Project Directions, and the Lapbook Assembly Directions.

The Homes School in the Woods products do require a little organization on our end, but the end product is sooooo worth it! (And so much of the organizing has been done for us, we just need to put it into action!) All the way through, with almost every project, my 18 year old daughter kept exclaiming how neat each one was, and how almost each one surpassed the next. This truly is a product for all ages. :) 

Our Process I decided to print ALL the pieces ahead of time so that we wouldn't have to stop to print before each section. It took me about 45 minutes to an hour to collect the assorted papers/cardstock sheets, put them in the correct order, and to print them.

The text:

One can choose to:

• Use the audio MP3s (this is great if mom has lost her voice, or even just to give her a break... my kids greatly prefer when I read to them, so we listened to the audio enough to note that it is read by a very pleasant male voice)
• ***Read aloud (via the "Full Page Text")*** (This was our choice)
• Have the student independently read the printable booklet. (We didn't print it up ourselves, so I'm including a photo of the booklet for your information)

Projects for Lap-Pak:
When completing the projects, it is important to use and follow the project directions, as some answers are found there, and not in the text.

cooperative coloring project between 8 and 18 year olds

• Mom read the text out loud (With the exception of our brief foray into the well done audio).
• Eldest (who has an affinity for things paper-pieced) was in charge of the cutting/pasting/assembling of each project. She also helped out with some of the coloring, which ended up being a cooperative effort. 
• Middlest was mostly responsible for anything that required being hand-written, as well as being on the hook to help answer questions. He did a little bit of cutting, and coloring as well. 
• Youngest did the majority of the coloring, and was also involved in answering questions, "dictating" some of them to his older brother. ;)

A few things to note: There are 21 different labbook projects which correspond to the text. I didn't time it, but I would guess that if you do 2-3 projects/day it will take about 1/2 hour to 45 minutes (depending on your student, whether they are coloring in detail, or whether you simply print on colored paper, with no coloring), reading to finished project. You choose how much time to spend by how much you do each day.
*You should allow for 1-2 hours to assemble the lapbook once all the project pieces are assembled, and you will probably go through almost an entire roll of double stick tape. :) 

Finished Lapbook

Here are some more photos of our project with a few closer details (kids were camera shy as everyone is dealing with colds and feeling a little miserable, so you just get to see their handiwork):

As you can see, my 18 year old daughter had fun adding some detail to various parts of different projects~ stars, stripes, and fireworks, anyone? This was very enjoyable to do as a family project. As I mentioned before, it was definitely a good review/gap-filler for my older children, as well as a good introduction to the political process for our youngest. Now he understands more of what we're talking about as we've listened to some of the debates and have discussed the caucus and primaries that have taken place thus far. I highly recommend the U.S. Elections Lap-Pak for any homeschool. 

Not So Nutty Nitty Gritty 

• Company: Home School in the Woods
• Product: HISTORY Through the Ages Hands-on History Lap-Pak: U.S. Elections
• Ages: Suggested ages 3rd-8th grade (Great for review through high school in my opinion) 
• Price: Download version $18.95, CD version $19.95

You can visit Home School in the Woods Social Media Pages: 

Facebook, Google+, Pinterest, and Twitter

Please click the banner below to visit the TOS Review Crew and see what others had to say. As always, I hope that this review was useful to you as you choose where best to spend your homeschool budget.

Blessings~

Home School in the Woods: Project Passport World History Study: Ancient Egypt

Home School in the Woods is synonymous with gorgeous, detailed artwork, most frequently mentioned in reference to Amy Pak's History Through the Ages Timeline Figures, which I have appreciated from a distance for years. Up close and personal I have enjoyed being on the Great Empires Review in spring 2013, Olde World Style Maps in winter 2010, and one of my favorites, the New Testament Activity Pak in Spring 2009 (I am anxious to do this with my youngest when he's ready for it... maybe this year!).

Yep, I've been doing this review thing for quite some time, and guess what? Amy Pak keeps coming out with new products to enhance your history studies. While her timeline figures can be used with any history curriculum, the Project Passport World History Study: Ancient Egypt (One of three currently available units reviewed by the Homeschool Review Crew) are stand-alone, activity based studies.

Technical Details:

• For the purposes of review the TOS Review Crew received the download version of this study. I don't know how it works on a Windows machine, but on my MAC the files were accessed via the Safari Browser. I tended to open up the main page, and then open the lesson Text, the Travel Itinerary (Teacher's guide), and the various pages to print for each project. 

Note the tabs across the top.... ;)
_~-~-~__~-~-~__~-~-~__~-~-~__~-~-~__~-~-~__~-~-~__~-~-~__~-~-~__~-~-~__~-~-~_

• A Printer and a variety of paper and cardstock are required to print the various files and graphics. 
  
• Colored Pencils, glue sticks and double stick tape will also become staples when completing a Project Passport study. 
• There are a few projects that might require something you don't already have in your home, but sometimes there are also alternative materials given (Or you can adjust like we did, and use what you have...). 

Organizing the Project Passport can take a variety of forms. You can print EVERY last file before starting, you can print the pages required for each Itinerary Stop (Lesson) all at once, or as you go. A virtual trophy to the first person who guesses which way I choose to organize. ;) 

One of the best ways for you to get a feel for the scope of what is involved in a Project Passport is to watch this very thorough video produced by Home School in the Woods:

Because my guy is on the very youngest edge of the recommended age range (Grades 3-8), we have definitely been picking and choosing what we do.

For every Itinerary stop

• I read the text aloud
• If there is map-work or timeline figures he adds those in. *Side note for the timeline~ I printed the teacher's key, cut out the provided names and he finds them on the key, then glues them on his timeline. 
• If there is a postcard, Youngest illustrates it with something that has to do with the message on the other side. 
• The rest of the activities depend on his level, interest, and what is going on in life as we speed through summer activities as a family. There are a few hands-on projects that didn't jive with our schedule (or the weather, depending...) that he would like to attempt at some time, so we may have an end of unit project week... :)  

This is one young lad that likes that big Egyptian "BLiNg" for the Boys! :) 

Once we started doing this unit my Youngest pulled out some young reading material on Egypt (And he knew the answers to some questions before I even asked them, thanks to that reading...), and decided that he wants to build an Egyptian world on MineCraft~
I'll have to get back to you on that.... ;)

A couple more notes~

• If your kids hate using scissors and glue, they might not enjoy this as much, but if they like to watch *you* use scissors and glue, they can still get a lot out of it. 
• If your kids *love* scissors and glue and tape, and all things constructive, they'll probably enjoy this, but they might get frustrated (Depending on age) with some of the fine detail~ mom or dad might just have to step in and help once in awhile. 
• By and large, the majority of the projects are *not* overwhelmingly difficult. 
• The quality of the product is fantastic, from the graphics to the content to the audio, and the instructions~ just amazing! 
• One minor constructive criticism~ I wish that some of the project files were offered as continuous page pdf's as well as singly, so that I could choose to use my duplex printing capabilities when the project calls for double-sided pages... I find that option much easier. However, I'll deal with removing, flipping, and printing if I have to. ;) 
• Whenever my kids do a hands on project from Amy Pak and Home School in the Woods, the materials stick with them (And I *don't* mean the glue sticks!). They remember them for years. :) 

Not So Nutty Nitty Gritty 

• Company: Home School in the Woods
• Product: Project Passport World History Study: Ancient Egypt
• Ages: Grades 3-8
• Price: Download Version $33.95, CD Version $34.95

You can visit the following Home School in the Woods Social Media pages: 

Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Google+ 

Please click the banner below to visit the TOS Review Crew and see what others had to say. As always, I hope that this review was useful to you as you choose where best to spend your homeschool budget.

Blessings~

A Journey Through Learning Lap-Book/Unit Study

Over three years ago (Fall of 2009... WOW! Where does the time go?)  I reviewed an autumn lapbook from A Journey Through Learning, which I completed with my middlest (When he was 9).  This year A Journey Through Learning gave members of the TOS Review Crew the opportunity to review their choice of lapbook from the following options:

• Letters, Numbers and Shapes (ages 3-5)
• The Earth (grades 1-4)
• Knights and Castles (grades 2-7)
• Astronomy and Space (grades 2-7) 

Because Middlest has enough on his plate at the moment, I decided to do a little work with my youngest. He is beyond the preschool option offered, so we went with The Earth, which was a little bit above his level, but definitely of interest to him. 

screenshot of an info page

The pdf download incorporates a study guide with information that can be read directly to the older child (you can have them read it directly depending on age), or you can use it as a guide to modify the information for your younger learner. 

screenshot of a page element

The pages to print include directions for each element, as well as placement instructions, which is nice! 

about the Earth

Youngest was very excited to be doing Science, and made me realize that I need to do a little more. He also thought it was cool that we had all of these little books to put together that would help him remember what he learned. Most of the time I took dictation, but as you can see by the very fancy "EARTH" he wanted to be involved a little bit. :)

He really enjoyed talking about the makeup of the earth, and various rock formations. I had to laugh because we ended up referring to Minecraft during those conversations~ since he's often "mining" for iron, the fact that the Earth's core is made of iron and nickle was very interesting to him. We also talked about obsidian being an igneous rock and not made in  a reactor ala Minecraft.

Another conversation about igneous rock included the example of melting sugar (A crystal) into a liquid, and then letting it harden. We discussed how igneous rocks can be of different hardness depending on how hot the liquid rock was, and how it cooled etc. . . I  tied it into candy-making this Christmas, when I heated up sugar (and other ingredients of course) to make caramels that were soft and chewy, and then heated up some of the remaining liquid to a higher temperature to make a more toffee-like candy. If I had heated it even higher, we would have had a very hard candy. Fun stuff! 

He was already familiar with the concept that rocks are made of minerals because we had recently (before starting this lapbook) watched the Reading Rainbow episode that includes "The Magic School Bus Inside the Earth," which covered that concept rather well.

One other fun coincidence... when we were done talking about the various forms of rocks, I went off to do something else, and Littlest decided to settle down with "Eyewitness Living Earth" (Nice coffee-table book)which was hanging around the living room. I had hardly been out of the room for one minute when he called me back to see the page he had turned to... it just happened to be one on "The Changing Earth" which included photos of all three types of rocks, as well as descriptions of moving plates, etc... Totally unplanned! Nice little confirmation for him that God is interested in the smallest details of our lives, including what we are learning about each day. :) 


What I Liked:

• Super Easy to use~ Information AND graphics are at your fingertips
• Each "graphic booklet" element page followed the relevant information page~ I really liked that organization, instead of having all the information first, and having to hunt for each element that related to what we talking about.

What I didn't like:

• A bit of a catch 22 here... I tend to be fairly frugal with my paper, so I felt that some of the Graphic pages were a little  wasteful of my paper (Especially when I chose to print on colored paper for variation). Some of them could have been set up to print using only 1/2 the page, and then be flipped over to print the other 1/2. However, I would then lose the aforementioned ease and simplicity... not precisely a "Con" but possibly worth pointing out? Efficiency vs Economy ...  ???

Really... that was the only thing that I didn't care for, so not really a big deal! 

Not So Nutty Nitty Gritty 

• Company: A Journey Through Learning
• Product: The Earth Lapbook
• Ages: (grades 1-4)
• Price: $13 for instant download

Please click the banner below to visit the TOS Review Crew and see what others had to say about this or one of the other options we received. As always, I hope that this review was useful to you as you choose where best to spend your homeschool budget.

Blessings~