Activity-Pak: Make-A-State from Home School in the Woods Review

 Disclosure:  I received this complimentary product through the HOMESCHOOL REVIEW CREW.

If you know me, you know that I absolutely love resources from Home School in the Woods.  They are always on point and so great to have in our homeschool.

We have been so blessed to receive their Activity-Pak: Make-A-State for review, which is part of their Hands-on History Activity Paks.  As the name implies, this set provides us with the materials to study every state in the U.S. as well as Washington, D.C.!  There are so many projects that incorporate research, creating writing, coloring, mapping, and so much more.  This is a great resource to pair with U.S. history and is geared for grades 3-8.

 

Our Make-A-State Texas Activity Pak

It seemed appropriate to dive into the state we live in, Texas!  The kids and I have been working through the projects and piecing together our lapbook and I just love the way it is coming along.  I love that the kids are learning and exploring about our state.

 

E enjoyed adding cities and landmarks to our Texas Map.

It was placed on the inside center of our lapbook along with a few other projects.

Our change purse contains a Texas quarter and a bit of information that we researched on it.  We added Velcro to open and close it easily.

I love that there are clear and concise directions for every state activity.  It tells you what to print, what to research and how you will assemble it for your lap book.  Of course you can customize it a bit - if you want to color it, print it on colored paper, include other research, etc.

Likewise, there are fabulous directions for assembling your complete lap book.  It clearly tells you where to place each project or activity and has nice illustrations for how it will come together.  I personally really appreciate all of these instructions as it takes any confusion or guesswork out of this resource!

 

Inside panel of our lapbook, you can see the change purse I mentioned above.

 

Another page of our lapbook!  These activity projects are so fun.

We are still working on our Texas State book but we are almost done.  I am super excited to have the kids work through all the states - it's going to take awhile but it will be so awesome when they complete them all!

If you can't tell, I am a huge fan of this resource and I would definitely recommend it.  You could pair it with your history curriculum as it would make a great hands-on addition, especially when studying the U.S.!

There is also a Printable "Essential Timeline Library" for grades K-12 that is worth checking out.

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Home School in the Woods Maps Combo-Pak (US & World Maps) Review

Disclosure:  I received this complimentary product through the HOMESCHOOL REVIEW CREW.

If you know me, you know that I absolutely love resources from Home School in the Woods.

We have been so blessed to receive their Maps Combo-Pak (US & World Maps) to use in our own homeschool.  As the name implies, this set provides you with both World and U.S. Maps and these can be used for pretty much every grade, K-12.

World Maps

I love that there are both Ancient (physical map format) and Modern (contain political lines) styles for the maps.  This set includes a variety of maps in an assortment of ways - you have maps with labels, maps without labels, maps with certain borders, maps without certain borders, etc.  This is so fabulous because you can really tailor this set to your own unique needs.

I so appreciate all the bonus material included in this set as well - notebooking pages, fact sheets, research sheets, flags for all the countries, etc.

E spent some time studying Africa.

I love her finished map!

 

With the Tokyo Olympics coming up in just a few weeks, I think we are going to spend some time looking at our country flag pages and make notes when the kids recognize various ones throughout the games.  I think that will be a fun opportunity to watch and learn.

U.S. Maps

This gives us maps of every state, Washington DC and even a dozen or so maps of American History (13 Colonies, expansion of states, etc.).  Similar to the World Maps there is an assortment here as well - maps with labels, without labels and in an outline form.  There is a plethora of ways to use them.  Younger students can simply color them.  Older students can do their own labeling.  They can even use these as a guide or stepping stone to being able to hand draw the Unites States of America.

Bonus material is fabulous here as well.  You will have fact sheets for each state, state flags, etc.

 

E wanted to learn about California so I printed the California fact sheet for her to learn more about the state.

{We have these for every state!}

I love that it has an answer key as well.

 

E with her finished fact sheet!

It would be so fun to pair the U.S. Maps with the Timeline Set: America's History (Explorers to the 21st Century).

This Maps program is such a fabulous resource to have within our homeschool.  I love hands-on resources and these maps do not disappoint.  And the bonus material is stellar.

Be sure to click on the banner below to visit the Homeschool Review Crew blog to read even more reviews of Home School in the Woods resources including Individual Timeline Sets, Project Passport World History Studies, Time Travelers U.S. History Studies, Lap-Pak: Wonders of the World, Activity-Pak: The Old Testament, Activity-Pak: The New Testament and even more reviews of their Maps Combo-Pak (US & World Maps).

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U.S. Elections Lap-Pak from Home School in the Woods Review

{Disclaimer:  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.}


Home School in the Woods is chock-full of amazing, family-friendly, flexible resources that integrate well into a plethora of school plans.  You may remember our previous review of their Composers Activity-Pak, which we loved.  We were blessed to receive their digital U.S. Elections Lap-Pak, recommended for 3-8th grade, for review.  Our family loves hands-on activities and lapbooks so this was a perfect resource to use when learning about the U.S. elections process and how a U.S. president is chosen.

Introduction to our U.S. Elections Lap-Pak

Included in our lap-pak is 21 lap booking projects or activities: 

• Definition of "Election"
• Different Forms of Government
• The American Experiment
• The Three Branches of Government
• Suffrage
• Who Do We Vote For?
• Terms of Office
• A "Handful" of Political Parties
• Caucuses And Primaries
• National Conventions
• The Presidential Campaign:  Platform
• The Presidential Campaign:  Stump Speaking
• The Presidential Campaign:  Media - News Source
• The Presidential Campaign:  Campaign Advertising - Spreading the Word!
• Raising Money
• Statistics
• Election Day
• The Electoral College
• Inauguration Day
• The Electoral Race!
• The "Vocabinet"

 Here is the printable for The American Experiment project.

Above you can see the project directions.

And here is A with our completed activity!

Project directions for The Presidential Campaign: Stump Speaking activity.

 Assembling our project

Final project

Finishing The Three Branches of Government Project

I absolutely love the step-by-step illustrated directions for assembling every project, the text booklet as well as the entire lap book itself.  This eliminates any confusion that one may have using this resource. 

Here is a sampling of the Lab Book Assembly Instructions.  I love the color illustrations.

We set up our lap book a bit different, using different colors in different areas (but remember, you have flexibility).  Above you can see, we started assembling our lapbook.

 A close up view...

Another page complete

Another view of our lapbook

One of my personal favorites was this glitter wheel.  It makes it look like confetti is falling on the candidate's family.

The projects incorporate creative writing (if you choose), coloring, drawing, research and more.  It's a great springboard for learning all about the U.S. Elections process.  The reading text comes in several formats.  It can be printed and placed in a binder or it can be printed in a smaller booklet to keep with your lap book.  In addition to the text is an audio option.  You can read along with the narrator or work on your projects while listening.  We found this option to be amazing.  I love the flexibility and customization of this lap-pak so you can really use this resource how it fits your needs the best.

I also really appreciate that this digital resource is geared towards multiple students and reproducible within a family - so great for our large crew here!  We chose to make a "family" U.S. Elections lapbook.  Some of the kids are learning about the election process for the first time while others are brushing up on the ins and outs and learning new things.  This is such a fun resource and I highly recommend Home School in the Woods for quality resources!

Home School in the Woods  U.S. Elections Lap-Pak is a great resource to introduce your student to the U.S. presidential elections process with hands-on activities, perfect timing for this presidential election year!  Home School in the Woods has a great post on how to use this specific lapbook and what it contains as well, check it out here.  I also really appreciate this post on Why Teach With Lapbooks?  We are not completely done with our U.S. Elections Lap-Pak but we are close.  We should finish it this month!

Who doesn't love a giveaway?  Get a free copy of Homeschool in the Woods Greek Life! File Folder Game when you use the code TOSGameNight at checkout, no purchase is required.  I hope you take advantage of this fun freebie.

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Home School in the Woods Composers Activity-Pak Review

{Disclaimer:  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.}


Home School in the Woods is chock-full of amazing, family-friendly, flexible resources that integrate well into a plethora of school plans.  We are really enjoying our Composers Activity-Pak, recommended for 3-8th grade.

Our Hand-On Digital Activity-Pak for Composers

Our Finished Composers Lapbook

Print Outs from our Composers Activity-Pak

This Activity-Pak is designed for students to learn through hand-on activities and projects.  It can be used in addition to other study or it can be used to launch independent study on the topic, in our case Composers.  This lapbook introduces students to 42 composers from the Middle Ages through the 20th century, beginning with Guido of Arezzo through Bernstein.  Students learn about the periods of music (Baroque, Classical, Romantic, etc.), vocabulary and gain an appreciation by listening to great works by these musicians included in this download.  There are 6 projects included in our lapbook with 2 additional activities - Periods of Music, Keyboard Vocabulary, Collection of Composers, Composers Timeline, Pieces with a Purpose, and Music Appreciation are all inside the lap book while The Orchestra File Folder Display and Composers Cards can be used additionally.

Our Composers Activity-Pak has many sections.

We put together all 6 of our lapbook projects and then we assembled our completed lapbook.  There are great instructions for completing each project individually as well as assembling everything all together.  I appreciate that the instructions include pictures making it crystal clear.

We cut out several of our pieces.

B colored the Composers cover and A colored our music staff.

Creating our Composers Timeline

We cut out all our pieces with a purpose:  CD player, hymn book, money purse, crown, flag and Opera program.

Inside each of our pieces with a purpose we inserted the information.

We cut out all the composers and assembled them into booklets.

Completed Composer Booklets

 Our Finished Lapbook

Let's go inside our finished lapbook!

 What you see when you first open our lapbook.

There are 42 composer books inside our lapbook.  Inside each book you can record the composers year of birth, year of death, country, period of music and compositions and interesting facts.

 

 The keyboard vocabulary is located on both sides of the lapbook.  When you lift up the keys, the word definitions can be found underneath.

 A peek in the middle of our lapbook

 A peek at the back of our lapbook.

Our completed Composers Timeline.

I also love that this digital resource is geared towards multiple students and reproducible within a family so this is perfect for our large crew!  We chose to make a "family" lapbook this go around.  Now that our Composers lapbook is complete we can start to fill out the individual booklets for each composer as we study and learn about them.  This is such a fun resource and I highly recommend Home School in the Woods for quality resources!

Home School in the Woods has a great U.S. Elections Lap-Pak that can be used to introduce your student to the U.S. presidential elections process with hands-on activities.  Home School in the Woods has a great post on how to use this specific lapbook and what it contains, check it out here.  I also really appreciate this post on Why Teach With Lapbooks?

Be sure to click on the banner below to visit the Homeschool Review Crew blog to read even more reviews of Home School in the Woods.

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