Home School In The Woods Lap-Pak Review

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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.

The Presidential Game Review

Our family has a whole host of serious board gamers!! When we were offered the chance to review the The Presidential Game we jumped at the chance to review this product. As you will see, sometimes you roll the dice and don't get what you bargain for in the end. The Presidential Game is a game of strategy to see who can get the most Electoral Votes: 270 wins the game. Teams consist of Republicans and Democrats.

The Presidential Game comes with a 20" x 30" GAME Board, Score Pad, 3 Blue Dice, 3 Red Dice, 80 Politics Cards, 40 "Write-Your-Own" Politics Cards, 150 Republican Votes (red chips), 150 Democrat Votes (blue chips), 1 Electoral WebMap™ Calculator Access Code. The game is for ages 11 & up, I would think that most 9+ year olds could play on a team with an older child or adult. The game retails for $35.00 plus shipping. Either 2 players can play or you can set up 2 teams.

 

What this homeschool Momma liked about The Presidential Game.

1) Games works on math skills, lots of dice to count! More math comes into play when chips are used.
2) Works on reading skills.
3) You can decide how long you will play, picking 15 weeks runs about an hour. We played 30 weeks the first time and it took us about 2 hours, but we had a few interruptions along the way. After that when we played the games went pretty quickly.
4) Once we got the hang of the game it was pretty easy to play.
5) Nice large sturdy board game.
6) The website has a nice FAQ section.


What this homeschool Momma did not like about The Presidential Game.
1) The Presidential Game website says "entertaining and educational". I would say it's more entertainment than it is educational, as you really only learn the total number of Electoral Votes that you need to win a particular state.
2) I have a minor in political science and I had hoped for a bit more education in this game, such as campaigning laws and fundraising laws. It would not take much effort to include a few definitions in the instructions.
3) I thought we would learn how the number of Electoral Votes are decided upon for each state.
4) As parents we were very disappointed in some of the Political cards that were not too our liking regarding our family values. Here is just a sampling of the cards that we removed from our deck when we played. Let me just say that we are NOT sheltering our child, but we do not wish to make light of serious matters in our country that can result in jail time such as the "arrested for disorderly conduct" card. Some of the Political cards awarded chips or took chips away based on what the card topic was, including the following topics: legalizing marijuana, gambling, arrested for disorderly conduct, drunk uncle, separations in marriage, drinking beer, there were a few others we were not thrilled with, but to a Mom the ones that I listed were the worst offenders.
5) I was expecting a family friendly board game, but for our family the The Presidential Game did not deliver. Based on my review you can decide if those cards effect your buying decision as each family has their own values that they follow.  Had we known ahead of time that the Political cards dealt with adult themed items (or cards for mature audiences), we would have been prepared to answer questions that were brought up, but while we played the game, we were caught off guard by those cards.
6) We play a LOT of games in this house, yet we found the instructions were difficult for us to follow.
7) Wish that the Political cards gave the name of the candidate that they were speaking of, it would be a nice history lesson.

Electoral WebMap™ Calculator on our Kindle Fire

What this homeschool young man liked about The Presidential Game.

1) I liked Electoral WebMap™ Calculator and how I could keep score on the Kindle.
2) I liked trying to plan ahead what I was going to do in my game play.
3) Learned to work with teammates on game play.
4) I liked the write your own political cards.
 
What this homeschool young man did not like about The Presidential Game.
1) I was not real happy about some of the Political cards, especially living in a state where many of our political leaders are now in prison.
2) The game instructions were hard to follow, and I am still not sure that we are keeping score just right. I'm a numbers kinda guy and this bothers me! lol
3) The Electoral WebMap™ Calculator kept locking up on our Kindle, not sure if it was an Internet issue or not, but it happened each time we played. Maybe I was inputting info too quickly for it to process?
4) I did not like that Mom kept winning! LOL!
 
The concept of the The Presidential Game is AWESOME! But I think that they may need to tweak a few things to make the game more family friendly and more educational. Because think about it folks, what better way to learn about our political system than through playing a game!