Home School in the Woods ~ Make-a-State Activity Pak Review

I always look forward to teaching our state’s history to my children. I have tried many different things to try to make it a fun learning experience, but I always feel like I could do more or the kids want to do more hands-on projects while learning about the state. When I found out that Home School in the Woods was offering a new Make-a-State Activity, I was excited. And that meant we could study, learn, and do a hands-on activity for any of the states. Their Make-a-State Activity is part of their line of Activity-Paks series which includes The Old Testament, The New Testament, Composers, and Artists.

What is Make-a-State Activity Pak?

This activity is offered as a download or on CD. We received the download version and it was easy to download the zip file to the computer. Once downloaded, all I had to do was unzip the file and click on the start file. The start file has all of the links needed to make your state lapbook. This pak includes everything you need to make a lapbook for all 50 states. There is an introduction file that explains the project and also lists some other helpful resources. The start file has all of the links to the activity pages you will need to print. It also includes a photo of each activity so you can have visual while putting your lapbook together. And it also includes directions on how to assemble the finished activities into the lapbook. There are also two bonus items- a state page that has info about each state and a “Name That State!” file folder game.

How we used the Make-a-State Activity Pak:

We will be visiting Florida later this summer and I wanted to give my kids a brief history of the state. My three older kids have visited the state before, but they were very young and don’t remember much. The last time we visited was when my older daughter was six months old and she will be twelve this year! So, I figured they could use a brief history of the state before we went this time.

I printed out each activity all at once. We decided to do one activity at a time. We worked through about 2 activities per week.  My girls did most of the coloring and cutting and my boys helped with the writing.

We mostly used the one page bonus about the state and some of the websites listed in the introduction file for our research. I didn’t want to do a full history about the state just a brief one before our visit and using the bonus page and websites helped us to learn just what we wanted to learn before our trip.

Instead of putting the lapbook all together at the end, we would put it together as we went along. After each activity, we would add it to the appropriate place in the file folder (lapbook).

Oh, I almost forgot. Each state comes with a recipe for you to try out. We kind of cheated on that one. The recipe for Florida is key lime pie. I have made key lime pie in the past, but for this project (and since it has been so hot here in NC) I cheated and bought a key lime pie for us to eat. Maybe when the weather is cooler, I will make a fresh key lime pie for us to enjoy.

What we thought:

Everyone (even my teen boys) enjoyed going through the activities and learning a little bit about the state of Florida. I think I will use this with my 1^st grade daughter over the next few years and do a more in depth study of each state. We can cover as many states as we want to each year until we have covered them all.

Home School in the Woods has so much to offer. We have reviewed the U.S. Election Lap Pak from their Lap-Paks series. We also reviewed The Middle Ages from their Project Passport series. We love the projects from Home School in the Woods because they are hands-on. It helps my kids learn a lot more when they are doing a history activity and not just reading about history.

FREEBIE ALERT! Their latest “project” is offering an A-La-Carte page full of hands-on history projects. Right now, because it is the 200^th anniversary of the Erie Canal, you can get that project free by using the code “alacarte” during checkout.

Home School in the Woods ~ Review

I hadn't really discussed the election in detail with my children even though my boys are old enough to remember the last Presidential election. The only thing that they knew about the election is that each state voted and there were representatives from each state (electoral college) who then cast their vote for the candidate that the people from the state picked. At the last election, my older children were 10, 8, and 6. Since they were kind of young during the last election, I knew it was now time to have a more detailed discussion with how the whole election process works with them being 14, 12, and 10. I was thrilled when I learned we were going to review the HISTORY Through the Ages Hands-on History Lap-Pak: U.S. Elections from Home School in the Woods.

This election lap-pak is the most detailed that I have seen. Everything from the definition of election to the Inauguration Day. There is about an hour of mp3's included about the U.S. election. These are great to listen to while you work on each project in the lap-pak. Some of the lap-pak activities include: Different Forms of Government, The American Experiment, Suffrage, Terms of Office, Caucuses & Primaries, National Conventions, The Presidential Campaign: Media -- News Source, Raising Money, Election Day, The Electoral College, and The Electoral Race. And all the masters to make all of these projects are included, as well as step by step instructions for putting them together. 

The one thing I like about this lap-pak is that you can either put it together as a lapbook or put it into a three ring binder. It also comes with a 24 page booklet that you can store with the lapbook. So now that you learned a little about what is included in the election lap-pak, I'm going to let you know how we used it in our homeschool.

When I first received the download version of the lap-pak, I looked through each project and printed several to begin. I also printed the booklet in full pages, because we had decided to put this project into a 3 ring binder. And lastly, I printed out the directions for putting together each project.

We worked on the lap-pak two times a week. I decided I wanted to try to spread the lap-pak out over a few months. Each day we worked on the lap-pak, I would read through the booklet, whatever section we were going to be working on that day, and after ,while my daughter and I worked on the project, they listened to the mp3. My boys didn't like the putting together part of the projects, so I helped my 10 year old daughter put them together. My boys just listened to me read the booklet and listened to the mp3. That was fine with me, because they were still learning plenty. They also looked at each project after we put them together.

In the above picture, you can see a sample of the projects we have completed. My daughter and I decided to use markers and colored pencils to make the projects more colorful and mount them onto different colored construction paper for the binder. We are having fun creating our binder and it will be a treasure to keep for many years.

Below is what the lapbook would look like if you decided to do it that way instead of a binder:

You can also check out more pictures of the lapbook on the website.

My children and I are definitely enjoying working on this project. We (yes, including me) are learning so much about the whole election process. My boys told me that they were glad we were able to review this because now they understand the election process a lot better than they did. My daughter told me she enjoys putting the projects together and is learning some about the election. I can see me using this lap-pak again in four years with my younger daughter who will be 9 in 2020. I enjoy learning with my children and we have had a great experience with the HISTORY Through the Ages Hands-on History Lap-Pak: U.S. Elections from Home School in the Woods.

The lap-pak is available on the website as a download ($18.95) or as a CD version ($19.95).