Home School in the Woods (A REVIEW)

Hands-on-History is just about the best way to learn history in my opinion. That is exactly what you do with any Homeschool in the Woods project or activity. The review crew was given the opportunity to choose from several different products, and had to narrow it down to just a few choices, and from those choices we were given one to review. From my choices I was given the Project Passport World History Studies: Ancient Egypt to review. I have reviewed a Project Passport History study before, so I was pretty familiar with how this particular study works, so that was kind of neat to continue on and use some things that we had previously already made.

All of the materials from HSITW are digital, and needed to be printed. I received my materials through email that contained a zip file with all the links to our Ancient Egypt study. To access the whole study I click on the start button, and it brings up everything needed to print and do to complete the whole thing.

Since this is a "traveling" study the whole thing is divided up into "stops." There are several activities within each stop. There are also step-by-step in structions including a travel itinerary and a guide book text to read. These don't have to be printed, but they can for easier reference. I chose to print them up so we could read them together, and so I would have all the instructions for each activity ready. These instructions are down to what is glued where, and where to store the completed activities (lapbook, scrapbook of sights, etc.). There are crafts, cooking ideas, games, coloring, audio clips, newspaper articles to write, and so much more.

A few of the readings from each stop. There are 25 stops in total.

I mentioned a "scrapbook of sights" previously. What is that exactly? It's a book that each child makes to keep their cut-outs and other printed activities in. I made one for each child that participated in the study.

Scrapbook of Sights. This is a pretty important component of the whole History Study.

It also contains a map that will be added to throughout the study. The children have the option to cut out the words provided or write their own words in.  Every detail in these Project Passport packs are covered!

Map  of Ancient Egypt that is completed throughout the study.

They also store their passport and "suit case" that they make in here. We had already made our luggage folders from the previous passport study, so they were able to just put their new Ancient Egypt stamp in their passport.

A passport and luggage folder are part of the fun of "traveling" in a Project Passport World History Study.

The "snapshot Moments in History" is a pretty important part of the Scrapbook of sights. It's like a timeline, and as places are visited or people are discovered they cut out the picture of those and glue them into this scrapbook.

There are also lapbook components to create all throughout the stops. At the end, in the final stop, the lapbook is put together with all the completed mini-books put in to the folder. There are step-by-step instructions for this. The details in how all this works is amazing. The only prep for the teacher is printing everything up. There is a lot of printing, so you have to have a good printer for sure!

The biggest thing about these Passport Studies is that each step has to be completed. There really isn't any skipping around because it builds on the previous stops and activities. Just an FYI if you don't like to "follow the book." There are lots of opportunities for creativity within each stop though! Lots of writing, cooking, and crafts, and definitely some rabbit trails (seeking more information outside of the study) to follow!

Also, I want to mention that Homeschool in the Woods has their newest product available Project Passport : Ancient Rome. I am sure there is a lot of fun packed in that study!

There are many other projects that the review crew tried out. If you'd like to see more of the different products click on the banner below.