Since I began teaching my own children, History has become one of my most enjoyable subjects to teach. We love taking a deep dive into a period of time or a way of life that sparks our imaginations! When we get really excited about exploring an era of the past, we love pulling together resources from various sources to get a full view of the big picture. That’s why I was thrilled to learn we would be receiving a digital copy of the Time Travelers U.S. History Studies – The American Revolution unit study from Home School in the Woods for review.
About Time Travelers U.S. History Studies
The Time Travelers studies are super-charged, hands-on history unit studies that are geared towards grades 3-8, but can be adapted for older or younger students quite easily. Downloadable and affordably priced, these 25 lesson units stand on their own two feet to give you a comprehensive history study that will draw in even the most reluctant learner. Everything you need for each 6-10 week study is included:
- Teacher Helps & answer keys
- Lesson Planner
- Easy to navigate interface
- Project gallery full of examples of completed projects
- Printable binder covers
- Recommended additional resources (optional)
- Text for each lesson (1-4 pages)
- Project pages with detailed instructions for each hands-on activity
- Project “masters” to be printed, colored, cut and assembled
- Built-in “project days”
- Lapbook instructions
- Ideas and materials for a unit-end party or presentation
Home School in the Woods has a great blog post on their website about Using Time Travelers to Teach American History, so definitely check that out.
For a great overview of what these units entail, check out this video from Home School in the Woods…
How We Used This American Revolution Unit Study
We chose to use the American Revolution unit study to complement our existing curriculum. We had used several of the Project Passport World History Studies last year, so we knew this study would be rich with hands-on activities and projects to help reinforce what we were learning.
The text for each lesson of the American Revolution unit study hits on all the important aspects of this important period in American history, while still being concise and easy to read and understand. Some lessons we read the text to review and reinforce what we had already read, others we opted to do just the activities.
What I really LOVE about the History materials from Home School in the Woods is the varied activities and that my children have something tangible to show at the end. In fact, they usually have a LOT to show off to family and friends. At the time of this writing, we are maybe a third of the way through the American Revolution unit study (because we are using it as a supplement) and just look at all the cool things my children and I have created together…
Keep in mind that we opted not to do every single activity and we have still produced an impressive array of interactive projects! The projects vary in difficulty so there is something for everyone. For the projects that required a bit of writing, I had the kids narrate to me as I wrote their words down. This particular unit includes the following kinds of projects and activities:
- map activities
- 3-D models
- mini books of various shapes (all interactive) for the final lapbook project
- notebooking activities
- Taxation Frustration card game
- timeline
- vocabulary
- important people
- newspaper project (creative writing)
- shadow play project
- copywork
- recipes
- print shop activity
- experiments
- candle dipping project
- miniature painting
- haversack project
- diorama
- poetry
- secret messages activity
- flag craft
- Battle Blitz folder game
- Liberty at Last folder game
- lapbook
- Tribute to the Revolution unit end celebration
That is a LOT of options if you ask me! That being said, if you are not fond of lots of crafty, hands-on types of activities, or your children don’t enjoy them – this may not be the unit study for you. However, there are a lot of less craft-intensive activities you could still do. Even using just a handful of the included projects would make this American Revolution unit study well worth the purchase price, in my opinion.
Final Thoughts
As I anticipated, my kids and I are all thoroughly enjoying using the Time Travelers American Revolution unit study to enhance our history curriculum. They can’t wait to show off everything they’ve created at the end of the study! They love doing lapbooks and they come in handy anytime we want a quick refresher of something we have already covered before.
These studies are very thorough and have a little bit of everything. I feel they are well suited to most learning styles and are easily adaptable. I highly recommend this and the other history materials available from Home School in the Woods!
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Make sure you click the image below to visit the Review Crew blog and read more reviews of this and the other awesome materials available from Home School in the Woods!
[…] HISTORY, GEOGRAPHY, & WORLDVIEW – We are very excited to be continuing to use Pathway to Liberty this school year! Once we finish up Year 3 – US History, we will move on to Year 4 – World History and hopefully finish it by next summer. This is an all ages program that we do together and Joey will be working with Level 2 materials. We also have really enjoyed supplementing with Homeschool in the Woods Time Travelers so we may continue to do some of those hands-on activities as well (read our review here). […]