A La Carte Projects from Home School in the Woods - A Review

Home School in the Woods is an award winning publisher of a variety of educational materials for the study of history. Their products are suitable for classroom or home school use. They have created visually appealing timeline materials, lap books, maps and games to encourage and enhance the study of history.

As a Review Crew member, I was given the opportunity to download two A La Carte projects published by Home School in the Woods to use and review. Each project is an easy to use supplemental activity. Complete with detailed instructions, including reminders about the optimal use of the art tools needed, these products are excellent for self directed completion for older students or together with an adult for the younger ones. The down load-able projects each contain valuable factual information that can be added as a supplemental activity to a history or geography curriculum for a wide range of ages. Each of the two projects I downloaded add a slightly different activity and approach to the learning.

I downloaded one project on the Erie Canal and another on Route 66. The Erie Canal Lap Book project was easy and quick to to complete. The information presented would add to a wide age range of curriculum.

Route 66 Folder Game

Despite the content being valuable for many ages, the lap book activities were not of high interest to my teen aged daughter, fortunately, I spend a significant amount of time with a couple of younger children that I can try products and activities with.

So my six year old friend and I colored and cut and learned a bit of history and geography related to the Erie Canal together. We made a wonderful little lap book with information and drawings. He has a project to display and share.

The second project I downloaded is a folder game. Using the pages provided, we created a dice and question card board game with the theme of Route 66. Living just a few miles from that historic hi-way made that an interesting activity and one we can relate to as we travel in our own community. The theme made this game fun and creating it essentially from scratch it is possible to make it unique and colorful.

Though I found the concept appealing and the questions to move through the game interesting, it was a challenge to bridge the gap of the ages needed for creating the game and playing the game. To put it all together, dexterity is needed. While playing the game may be directed at someone younger with less fine motor skill. My younger friend who colored the Erie canal lap book found cutting and folding the game pieces difficult. It's not a big deal, but we lost a couple of the game pieces in the process of their creation.With my teen the questions about the places along Route 66 were interesting, playing the game not so much. This download is attractive, complete with directions and fun questions for a game but probably not the most age appropriate for the students I used it with (my young six year old friend and my teen). Both projects seem best suited to use with students in 8 - 12 year old range to be the most effective. With younger ones be prepared to help with the making of the game.