Friday, August 2, 2019

Review~ Project Passport World History Study: Ancient Rome from Home School in the Woods

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We love Home School in the Woods. We've used quite a few of their lap book and unit study products over the years. So when we were asked to review Project Passport World History Studies: Ancient Rome, we jumped at the chance. I's the newest release and I couldn't believe it was going to work out with our current history lessons! It launched just in time.



Home School in the Woods is a company created by fellow homeschool mom, Amy Pak. The company offers families a wonderful selection of products to help them with their homeschooling journey. Families can bring history to life with Home School in the Wood's timelines, lap books, maps, and in-depth history unit studies. The products are filled with a ton of information and offer students hands-on learning that is fun and engaging. No boring history lessons will be found here. I promise your students will love them.

The selection offered is amazing!

History Through the Ages Timeline Materials
Creation to Christ
Resurrection to Revolution 
Napoleon to Now
Timeline Collection
Add-on Pak
Notebook
Binder for Timeline
Mystery of History Timeline Figures


Olde World Style Maps
World Maps
United States Maps

Project Passport World History Projects
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Greece
Ancient Rome
The Middle Ages
Renaissance & Reformation

Time Travelers U.S. History Studies
New World Explorers
Colonial Life
The American Revolution
The Early 19th Century
The Civil War
The Industrial Revolution through the Great Depression
World War II

Hands-on History Lap-Paks
Knights
Benjamin Franklin
U.S. Elections
Wonders of the World
The 20th Century in America

Hands-on History Activity-Paks
Make-a-State
Artists
Composers
The Old Testament
The New
Testament

Hands-on History Activity Studies
History of Holidays
Great Empires

The company even now offers some of the materials from the history studies in an A La Carte Projects section. This allows families to order just what they need. We've used the Science, Inventions, and Mathematicians Timeline and the Art of Quilling project. 

As I mentioned earlier, we've used a a ton of their products. While looking at their site, I was amazed with all the ones we've used over the years. We've used all of the Time Travelers U.S. History Studies. We've used and  reviewed U.S. Elections Lap-Pak (perfect for the upcoming election), Wonders of the World Lap-PakAncient Greece, The Middle Ages, and Ancient Egypt.

What is Project Passport Ancient Rome History Study?



The Project Passport Ancient Rome allows students to travel to Ancient Rome! Students will make 25 stops along the way. They will discover the ancient Roman culture, witness exiting events, meet interesting and famous people, and learn lots of other historical facts on their travels. The 25 stops can be spread out over 8-12 weeks or you can complete the entire 25 stops in a month. It's up to the family how to plan their schedule. The itinerary for the 25 stops is all planned out for the students. How you use those stops is clearly up to you. You can follow just the stops or you can dig deeper and add a few more books, movies, projects, etc to your lessons. The history study is geared for students in 3rd-8th grade., but can easily be adapted for younger or older students. 

So How Did We Use Project Passport Ancient Rome?


Now that the kids are older, we use the Project Passport History Studies a little differently than when they were younger. They no longer enjoy all the cutting and pasting. They find it rather tedious and a little too young for them. They both would rather read and write. I can't complain about kids that love to read. So we no longer create the cute, little suitcase and passport. So long to lap books too! Sometimes I miss those days when they were little and loved to fun projects. 

Let me explain to you how we adapt the program to work for us now that both of the kids are in high school. We now use the notes and projects in a much more simpler way. We add everything to a 3-ring binder. The binder is divided up into different sections.

Text Pages & Notes
Vocabulary
Maps
Projects
Papers

The have a separate book for timeline figures and events. They add the ones from our history curriculum and the ones from the Ancient Rome Project Passport. If they have duplicates, they can chose to paste the picture provided by the Project Passport or they can do their own drawing and wording. We use the Project Passport studies along with our normal history curriculum. It's a literature inspired curriculum, similar to a classical approach. Amy recently shared a wonderful post about why it's important to add living books to our child's learning. The history program includes our Roman Catholic faith. I wanted our history curriculum to include the importance of our faith over the years. I love how we have often found a few mentions of important Catholic places or people, like the Cathedral of Notre Dame. We use Project Passport: Ancient Rome as an add-on to our curriculum. For younger students, I truly believe that the Project Passport studies are stand alone curriculum. They offer students plenty of information and activities. Since my kiddos are older, I feel the unit study is a great addition to our lesson plans.

When we received the e-Book to down load, I immediately went to the Travel Planner-Quick Stop Itinerary pages. These three pages briefly explain the 25 stops students will travel. I quickly scanned the pages and started to figure out what we would use and what we wouldn't.



So right now the kids are learning about Ancient Rome. The Project Passport Ancient Rome allowed me to add a few projects, a few worksheets, additional maps, and a text page to read. I encouraged them to read the text pages, highlight the important information, and take a few notes. I'm trying to get them to be better note takers, so these short reading pages were perfect for that. They certainly can't high light a library book!

 

The kids then worked on the maps and projects I had chosen for them to complete from the stops. The first project they completed was a map of Ancient Rome. 


I loved how this map showed both of them how the Roman Empire expanded over the years. It was the perfect visual for them to keep in their map section of their notebooks.


I will add that Therese tends to want to still complete the projects, so on many occasions she still does them. Michael doesn't particularity enjoy them so much, so I tend to print them out, color them, and out them together for him. He then reads them and adds them to his notebook. I think it's the difference of homeschooling a boy and a girl. It works for us, so we'll go with it!


What We Like About Project Passport Ancient Rome

I love how everything is planned out for you. The stops and lessons are easy to follow. I can look over the itinerary and see what is being covered and add the particular stop to our lesson plans. We don't always go in the order of the stops. We jump around so that it fits in with the topics the kids are already reading about.
Younger students can complete the projects with very little help, while older students can work independently. I know many families have enjoyed being able to work on the same history lesson with all their children of different ages. It makes the whole homeschooling journey simpler if we can work together.
I like to print everything out and create my own master binder. I love having everything printed out and ready to go before our lessons start about a particular topic. My only complaint is how you have to click on each project, itinerary, text page ,etc. to be printed. I would love to be able to open up the folder labeled itinerary stops and be able to print out all 25 at one time. It's rather tedious to print out each stop, each project sheet, etc. one by one. I usually end up breaking up into 3-5 days.

Over the years, the ids have always enjoyed the history studies from Home School in the Woods. They loved the hands-on projects, the food recipes, the costume making, etc. For them learning history was tremendous fun. I loved watching them learn and enjoy seeing their smiles along the way.
Now that they are older, Project Passport Ancient Rome allowed them to get a brief break from the reading and enjoy a little fun in their day!

Discover more about Home School in the Woods!

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Be sure to stop by and read the other crew member's reviews. The families with younger children will have fantastic pictures of the cute suitcases and lap books. 
Just click below!



Till Next Time,
Monique





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