Home School In The Woods Lap-Pak Review

Please note that prices and offers may change after this blog post has been published.
We are SUPER CHARGED with excitement to share with you The 20th Century in America Lap-Pak for grades 3rd-8th from Home School In The Woods.

Hard at work? Or hardly working because this is so much FUN?

 We received a download version to review for The Old Schoolhouse Review Crew. Home School In The Woods also offers a CD versions too. You can find it here at 20th Century in America Lap-Pak.
　

Completed Home School In The Woods Lap-Pak for ages 3rd-8th grade is seen above and below is a list of what is included.

The 20th Century in America Lap-Pak comes with the following areas of study:

Newspapers & TV Media
Sports
Persons of importance
Conflicts around the world
Politics
Medical
Space travel
Art history
Architecture
Writers & books
Musical movements
Transportation
Historical events
Missionaries
Disasters
The Stock Market Crash
Science and Inventions
Food Trends of the 20^th Century
Clothing styles
Jargon of the 20^th Century
Timeline
WarsThe 20th Century in America Lap-Pak also comes with a booklet to make that contains more information about the history of the 20^th Century.





What this homeschool Momma did not like:

I failed to read the TEXT ASSIGNMENTS & PROJECT DIRECTIONS SHEET. I just jumped in and started printing everything off. Big goof! Some pages needed to be printed on colored paper and some needed to be printed back to back. My goof, but I think for us rushed home schooled Momma’s it would be great if on the main page we were told to read the TEXT ASSIGNMENTS & PROJECT DIRECTIONS SHEET. LOL...chalk this up to operator error and nothing against Home School In The Woods. I'm must showing that I am a real life person and do goof up!

I think this would be hard for younger kids to follow all the detailed instructions by themselves, so younger kids would need a lot of supervision with this, BUT I think it would be a great learning experience and lots of fun to work on together.

What this homeschool Momma liked:

I found that this Lap-Pak contained projects that work on the following skill sets including art, drawing and creative writing. This Lap-Pak allows the student to delve into fun topics all the while learning historical facts. Use of research skills and math skills (using measurements to make sure that the pieces went together correctly) were also used.

Our student got totally lost in this Lap-Pak, he would spent hours working on it. He was coloring, cutting, gluing, taping and putting brads on. I was so impressed by the work that he was doing. Following each direction to a T.

This was so cool! We used overhead projector transparencies to make windows for these.

 Our 12 year old 7^th grade student was able to work totally on his own with this.

Our student was thrilled with this Lap-Pak and wants to tackle The Civil War one next.

Our student did have some difficulty figuring out the photocopying of the back to back/back to front of pages, but I am putting that down under the “What I liked” section, because he learned how to use the copier and flip the pages over to photocopy on the backside. So I was very pleased that he learned some real life skills through this review. How many of us homeschool moms struggle with “which side do I put up in the paper tray, when we are making photo copies. (waving hand in the air)

This record player is the neatest thing! It spins and has different saying that show up.

What this homeschool student liked:"It was really a fun project.” “I liked the section on “Dining Through The Decades“, the recipes were fun and I liked learning about the different foods such as the Dagwood Sandwich.

Instructions were very detailed and easy to follow. I was able to complete the Lap-Pak during the review. Everything was explained step-by-step.

I really liked how the project shapes for each area corresponded with each area I was studying. For example, the “Medical Advances” used a syringe that you cut out and put together. You then pull the plunger up and a new medical advancement shows up in the window.

Fun way to learn history.

“I liked the fact that there was more to do than in an ordinary lap-book. I think that this Lap-Pak was made for older kids and was a lot of fun to do.

I want to review the Civil War Lap Pak next!

I plan to use this with my 4-H project this year too.

LOVED IT LOVED IT LOVED IT!

What this homeschool student did not likeI wish that there was an easier way to figure out how to photo copy the pages from front to back, I goofed several times and ran out of colored paper. I started to get frustrated and then finally figured it out. YEAH!



The Home School In The Woods Lap-Paks are fun and a great learning tool for your homeschool. There are several to choose from and lots of fun learning to be had by all ages. We are thankful to Home School In The Woods for allowing us this great learning opportunity to review The 20th Century in America Lap-Pak.

Jim Elliot: One Great Purpose Ebook & Unit Study Review

  

As members of the TOS Review Crew we were privileged to review of YWAM Publshing’s Kindle Ebook Jim Elliot: One Great Purpose and we also received the Jim Elliot Unit Study Curriculum Guide part 1 and part 2 inPDF format. Part 1 includes the actual study guide Ebook and part 2 includes all of the maps that go along with the study. (if you get the physical books the maps are located in the center section of the paperback book). The Ebook is$6.99 and the Unit Study is an additional $7.49 for the Curriculum Guide. The age ranges are 10+, but I will tell you that we were reading these books long before age 10 and enjoying them.

Homeschool Young Man here, Homeschool Momma asked me to write up a bit about this review, so here goes. I liked that this was on my Kindle because I could take it anywhere and even read in the dark car when we traveled.

The book and unit study Jim Elliot: One Great Purpose starts out with Jim Elliot and Pete Fleming on the boat Santa Juana to Ecuador, which is in South America. Jim has some flashbacks to his earlier years. The book moves and goes onto talk about when Jim was living in Ecuador, his marriage of Betty, work at Shandia, and finally his work with Operation Acua. The later half of Jim Elliot: One Great Purpose, deals with his involvement in Operation Acua, which ends in disaster but there is a positive outcome. But I am not going to spoil this for you. You will need to get the book yourself and read. It’s REALLY GOOD! Be sure to read the epilogue for more details.

I’ve read about Jim Elliot before and enjoyed the stories as well as watch a DVD about some of the missionary work that he was involved with.

 YWAM Publishing has some incredible missionary stories, we have a entire library in our home of them and they are read and re-read. We have also used their Unit Study Curriculum Guides for Christian Heroes: Then & Now by Janet & Geoff Benge from YWAM Publishing.

The Curriculum Guides cover so many topics that your child will glean much by doing them. Here is just a sampling of what you can pick and choose from: creative writing, Bible memorization, creating time lines, DVD's, further reading, oral presentations, art projects and much more!

 

I’ve always allowed our son to pick and choose what he wants to study from the guides. A favorite has been the timeline activity, this was one of the projects that he chose to do from the Christian Heroes: Then & Now Jim Elliot Unit Study Curriculum Guide. Get as simple as you want and just follow along in the book for creating the timeline, but with a 13 year old, you can have them dig deeper. Using an Internet search engine my student did some extra research and added more to his timeline than what was in the book, it also helped that he had read a book on Jim Elliot in the past.

 Homeschool Momma make sure to read the introduction of the Unit Study book for an explanation on how to use the book as well. There are sections on learning styles and grade levels. I remember back when my student was in the younger grades, I heard homeschool mom’s talking about unit studies all the time, had no idea what those were. So they always intimidated me. While at a homeschool convention we found the YWAM Publishing booth and I looked over the Unit Study Curriculum Guide by Janet & Geoff Benge, it was so easy to understand! We were sold on it from then on. My son always had some extra pocket $$ at convention to buy the next one or two Christian Heroes, Then & Now books. Now that they available on the Kindle are so inexpensive at just $6.99 each and $7.49 for the PDF's to go along with them.

For the younger students reading Christian Heroes Then Now: Jim Elliot One Great Purpose there some fun activities such as the Student Explorations chapter that includes drawing or painting the effects of flood at Shandia in chronological order. For a bit older student they can have fun writing down language examples, such as writing down the Spanish phrases found in the book and maybe searching online to find a few more. There are fun tasks like bark rubbing with crayons or colored pencils. For high school age there are essay questions, terms and vocabulary too. This would be a great addition to a Spanish class. The neat thing about these ideas in the Unit Study book is that you can go as laid back or as in depth as you want in your learning.

 

I am thinking STOCKING STUFFERS this Christmas on the Kindle! What a great Christmas morning present, turning on the Kindle and finding some new YWAM Publishing Ebooks! As a side note YWAM stands for Youth With A Mission and these books will give your kids a heart for missions as they are exciting to read and captivating.


Some TOS Crew Members got a different YWMA Publishing Ebook to review, so click below to learn more.

 

Seed Sowers: Gospel-Planting Adventures Book Review

We have been given the privilege to review the paperback version of Gwen Toliver's book Seed Sowers: Gospel-Planting Adventures. The paperback is available at Grace and Truth Books for $12.50, there is also a Kindle Ebook version. The book is full of 21 true missionary stories. Some of the missionary names have been changed because of the sensitivity of the country (this protects the missionaries from being found out).

 

As a side note, Gwen Toliver is a fellow TOS Crew Review member, homeschool mom and her family serves with Wycliffe Associates which is a ministry for Bible translating organizations. And as I think of it, our church has supported the Burnham family as missionaries, Gracia Burnham wrote the Foreword for Seed Sowers: Gospel-Planting Adventures. The book would be for ages 5+, with the younger ones being read to and the older ones reading alone or as a family.

The homeschool young man is writing this review so you will be getting the homeschool student perspective on this review. As the homeschool Mom, I read over the book very quickly (in about an hour) and found it to be a real page turner! I wanted to know what was going to happen next in the story. Very exciting! I loved that it was a GOOD book that captivated my 13 year old son! It's hard to find a good, clean, wholesome and quality paperback for a teenage boy!

 

What this homeschool young man liked about the book Seed Sowers: Gospel-Planting Adventures:

1) I liked how they had examples of he whistling man.
2) I liked how the website had extra stuff, the pictures were really cool! The photos were too old to be used in the actual printing of Gwen Toliver's book Seed Sowers: Gospel-Planting Adventures so they put the pictures up on the website just click here to see them pictures.
3) I really liked how the forward was actually a shortened story.
4) I loved all the fun stories.
5) I liked how some of the missionaries were related.
6) My favorite story was "The Blood Arrow."
7) I was already familiar with the story "The Five Empty Vessels" with Don Johnson, but it was nice to read it again.
8) I think back to when I was younger, this would have been a great book for my parents to read to me before bed.
9) The stories would be fine for girls, but I really think that little boys and young teen boys would really enjoy reading Seed Sowers-Gospel Planting Adventures.
10) I liked the drama, excitement, suspense
11) I liked to read about how the missionaries never gave up, they just kept on serving the Lord, many of them never seeing the fruits of their labor.

 

What this homeschool young man did not like about the book Seed Sowers: Gospel-Planting Adventures:

 

1) I thought some of the stories were very short.
2) I think that there should be chapter breaks in the longer stories so that they can be read up to a exciting point and then leave a cliff hanger for the next days reading. Boys like books like that  :O)

Over all it was a fun book. My mom used this as a free read book for me as a treat when my school work was done for the day. It was nice to have something exciting to look forward to at the end of my school day. I was never disappointed. I enjoy reading missionary stories and seeing how missionaries don't just give up, they keep on doing the Lord's work, even though they may never see the harvest.