One of my favorite benefits of homeschooling is the flexibility to embark on interest-led learning, especially in the early years. And there’s a certain someone in our family who enjoys projects and unit studies from Homeschool in the Woods. [This, my friends, is a gross understatement.]
In fact, this certain someone has specifically requested to embark on three Time Travelers Projects next semester to research the American Revolution, the Civil War, and various events throughout the 19th Century…
In past Homeschool in the Woods studies, we haven’t stuck to a hard-and-fast schedule to complete projects – we just use them to add something special to each week at a pace that’s comfortable and doable for us. In the end, we have a magnificent masterpiece of assorted projects, review games, and notebooking activities, which we take out and review many, many times.
But because the Time Travelers studies are geared more for older elementary and middle school students, we’ve not had much participation from his younger brothers. But now… now Homeschool in the Woods has Hands-On History Lap Paks for grades K-2, which includes simple projects and reading material suitable for students to work towards independence in cutting, coloring, and project-assembly skills!
And so… without further ado, we introduce to you Benjamin Franklin, a study completed by a trio of boys entirely led by our household’s Homeschool-in-the-Woods unit study fanatic…
Stephen split up the tasks according to difficulty, explained instructions to his brothers, and coordinated the whole effort while I tackled important tasks like taking a nap with Isaac.
The Benjamin Franklin Lap-Pak comes as a lapbook with a reading text about Benjamin Franklin’s life, including simple stories about:
- Young Ben
- Ben in Philadelphia
- Ben the Good Citizen
- Ben the Scientist and Inventor
- Ben the Ambassador
- Ben Helps a New Nation.
The story booklet is also provided in audio format so that children can read along or color and cut while listening. Very nice.
Because this is intended for a younger audience, many of the hands-on projects contain pre-printed information.
Activities include (shown below):
- The Franklin Family
- Important Documents (also shown above)
- Ben, the Good Citizen
- Ben Franklin, the Printer
- Vocabulary
- A Timeline of Ben Franklin’s Life
- Leather Apron Trades
- Benjamin Flies a Kite
- Poor Richard’s Almanack
- Printer’s Type
- Franklin’s Inventions
- Pocket of Virtues (copywork)
- Much simpler to print than other Homeschool in the Woods project packs. (Especially helpful for those who are new to lapbooking or new to Homeschool in the Woods products.)
- Simple enough for young children to understand
- Good overview of the life of Benjamin Franklin
- Creative graphics
- Detailed masters (with instructions and illustrations) explaining how to cut, fold, and assemble the pieces
- Hands-on method of learning some extra history
- Includes a timeline, and we love timelines!
- Our children know a whole lot more about Benjamin Franklin now
Check out the scope and sequence, listen to a sample narration of the “Benjamin Franklin” Lap-Pak Booklet Text, and/or view a video and photos of the completed projects by clicking here. You may also want to check out our past Homeschool in the Woods posts by clicking here. For those studying U.S. History, we enjoyed putting together the Industrial Revolution through the Great Depression and World War II Projects a couple of years ago. (Click the following to see what it was like to complete those two studies: WWII Wrap Up | Through the Great Depression | A little about WWI.) All of the Time Travelers projects correlate with U.S. History, and they are all fantastic!
If you’re not sure if you or your children would enjoy something like this, visit Homeschool in the Woods to see photos of all the projects and to download samples of Timeline Figures, Time Travelers, Project Passports, and Olde World Style Maps. (In fact, we tried out several of the freebies before we ever purchased a Homeschool in the Woods unit study.)
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