American History Unit Study

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This school year in our homeschool we are going to be focusing solely on American history for our history and geography and literature studies. I have been searching for great resources to accompany it and came across the Time Travelers history unit study sets by Homeschool In the Woods.  I got in touch with them and they offered to give me the Colonial Life set along with one of their brand new lap-paks about Benjamin Franklin.

(I received these products for free and am being compensated for my time in writing this post. All opinions are my own. See my disclosure page for more information.)

I will start by explaining the Time Traveler history study. These history unit studies are so packed full of information and projects that it hard to even begin to describe it!  We have only gotten about half way through ours and have taken a bit of a break for the summer. But we are really enjoying it. So far we have learned about the colonial homes, schools, food, faith, villages, and clothing. We have cut and colored and glued, we have done some sewing, we have baked some yummy food and read some wonderful things to help us learn all about the different parts of colonial life.

What is Included in a Time Travelers American History Unit Study?

You get a CD-Rom or download with all of the files included. Our Colonial Life CD has 25 lessons that can last 5-10 weeks. It is recommended for grades 3-8.  You could use this as your sole history curriculum during that period or as an extra supplement to something you are already using.  The lessons include lessons about America’s Colonies Begin, The Colonial Home, Clothing, Food, Family Life, School, Faith in the Colonies, Villages & Cities, Health & Medicine, Artisans, Crime & Punishment, Plantations & Slavery, Pleasures & Pastimes, and Holidays. The lessons have a written text to read together, then each lesson has different project pages to print and work on related to what you learned about in that lesson.

The projects include: Creative writing  (making their own newspaper), colonial recipes (We made a Johnny Cake), File Folder games, penmanship pages, timeline, science experiments, 3-dimensional creative projects and crafts  (sewing, weaving, pop-up pages, etc.), and even a Colonial Spree (party) to celebrate at the end.

Projects We’ve Done in the History Unit

This is my daughter sewing  the rope bed. She loves sewing and there are a few hand-sewing/weaving projects in this history unit study!

We made a Johnny Cake that was better than any cornbread I have EVER tasted! It was really fun to learn about Colonial cooking. (Sorry, but I am not sharing their secret recipe.)   🙂

We learned about the different things that would be on a Colonial farm with this fun little pocket barn.

We learned about the different types of homes in Colonial times with these pop-up houses.

All of these projects and more go into the student notebook, or into the lap book that is completed at the end of the unit. We are excited to keep learning more with this fun unit study about Colonial life. We will definitely be finishing it up when we start school back up in another month.

What I have loved about the Time Traveler history unit study is how much information is covered, and how many useful projects are included. The projects actually teach you things about the time period! This is a very high quality unit study and well worth the cost. ($27.95 for a download or $28.95 for a CD-rom) This is one of the few unit studies that I have tried that I really want to complete, and I really want more of them!

We also received the Benjamin Franklin lap-pak to review from Homeschool in the Woods. This one is geared towards the younger grades (k-2). It is a lap book all about Benjamin Franklin and includes a printable storybook about him.  It includes the book in audio as well, so your kids can listen to it on their own.  The lap-pak includes 12 mini-projects with coloring, drawing, writing, cutting and gluing involved. Each one teaches a different aspect of Benjamin Franklin’s life.

Included projects are: The Franklin Family, Leather Apron Trades (his different jobs), Ben Franklin: the Printer, Benjamin Franklin Flies a Kite, Documents (Constitution, Declaration of Independence, Treaty of Paris), Vocabulary, a Timeline of his life, Pocket of his 13 Virtues, Franklin’s Inventions, Printer’s Type, Ben: the Good Citizen, Poor Richard’s Almanack.

With the set you get detailed instructions as well as photos of how to assemble the lap-pak. This lap-pak is also an incredible resource for teaching American history. The images and stories are such high-quality and can be re-used with multiple children.  It was great for my daughter (in 2nd grade) to work on. She enjoyed reading the story and doing the projects. She was excited to learn more about Benjamin Franklin because we have learned about him a little already this summer.

The lap-paks sell for $15.95 (download) or $16.95 (Cd-rom).