Taking Literature Further with LitWits Kits {Product Review}

I love teaching literature and I especially love teaching it in a unit study style. The challenge is finding a program that does all the "hard work" for providing hands-on projects as well as literature comprehension work. This is especially true for me when I took on the new role of teaching a literature class at my co-op to ages 12-16. It was a small group and I wanted to offer them more than the typical read and discuss literature experience. I had eyeballed several programs in the past, including a lesser-known resource called LitWits. Imagine my joy when I had to chance to review the LitWit Kits! I finally decided on My Side of the Mountain, The Phantom Tollbooth, Carry On, Mr. Bowditch, and Around the World in Eighty Days. I really hoped it would be just what I was looking for to take our literature studies further and make them more meaningful and enjoyable for all!

About the Product

LitWits Kits are a product from LitWits. These are online literature kits that help you bring beloved classics and modern books to life. These kits help teach literature into kids "in hands-on, fun, and meaningful ways." A LitWits Kit is a web paged devoted to bringing a book to life with unique ideas and downloadable activities, as well

Time Travelers U.S. History Studies: A Unit Study of the Industrial Revolution thru the Great Depression {Product Review}

I'm always on the lookout for things that make history come alive. One of the ways to do this is to incorporate unit studies into the subject and one of the top makers of history unit studies is Home School in the Woods. Their Time Travelers U.S. History Studies include many in-depth explorations of key moments and people in US History not usually expanded on in other history courses. For the last several weeks, we have been reviewing the Time Travelers U.S. History Studies: The Industrial Revolution through the Great Depression and today I'm going to share our thoughts on this material.

About Home School in the Woods

Home School in The Woods is a multi-award winning company that is dedicated to providing materials to make history come ALIVE in your classroom! Steering clear of the typical history textbook, Home School in The Woods chooses to help your child make living and real connections with the men, women, places, and events they experience through their history experience, with hands-on materials. One of the ways they do this is through their Time

Solar System: Online Unit Study from Techie Homeschool Mom {Curriculum Review}

If you have been a follower of the blog for a while, you know by now that our family does really well with unit studies when it comes to homeschooling certain topics. We love being able to bring together different resources and dive down different rabbit trails as we explore a topic. One of the hardest parts about a unit study, however, is the gathering of materials. They tend to be much more intensive in their preparation--one of the reasons some homeschool parents just can't do them. I recently was introduced to a series of Online Unit Studies from Techie Homeschool Mom. An online unit study where all the "work" is done for me? That still lets us dive deep into topics with a variety of resources? Something that my kids can do independent of me? Could this even really be true? Join me today as I share our experiences with reviewing the Solar System Online Unit Study from Techie Homeschool Mom--is it really the answer to so many issues with unit studies?

About the Product

Techie Homeschool Mom is the brainchild of homeschooling mom Beth who loves cool web tools and online learning resources. One year she decided to start creating fully Internet-based unit studies for her own children and decided to start offering them the homeschool community. Each Online Unit Study is an eLearning course that focuses on a specific topic but integrates various subjects. The course allows students to access websites and videos in order to learn about a topic. Incorporated into this are hands-on and digital projects to apply what they've learned. Unlike other unit studies, there are NO downloads or paper activities. Everything is recorded ONLINE. 

There are several different online unit studies available including:
Ancient Egypt Online Unit Study
Ancient Greece Online Unit Study
Ancient Rome Online Unit Study
Famous Artists Online Unit Study (Vol. 1)
Famous Artists Online Unit Study (Vol.2) 
Famous Inventors Online Unit Study
Solar System Online Unit Study

We have been reviewing the Solar System Online Unit Study. This course includes studies on the following areas:

Solar System Overview
The Sun
Planetary Orbits
Gravity
Planets
The Rocky Planets
The Gas Planets
Comets, Asteroids, and Meteors
Project: Solar System Model
As a bonus, along with hands-on projects, students will learn to use Google sheets to record and evaluate scientific data.

We completed this review as a family with both boys working together on the assignments.

Our Thoughts on the Product

First off--I will just go ahead and tell you that this was possibly the EASIEST science course I have ever done. Why? Because I basically didn't have to do anything but pull the course up on my computer. Techie Homeschool Mom did everything else! And--NO BOOKS! Nothing. It truly is a "paper-free" unit study option.

Okay, so now that I have that out of the way, let me share what this program looks like and how we used it. First off, you will need to log in and just start the course. We easily completed all the assignments and videos with a Chrome browser. If you don't have good internet this course WILL have issues as it is 100% internet driven. There aren't any issues with navigation--simply login and get started!

These courses are designed for students who can read and navigate around the internet--so I would put this at starting with 2nd grade and up--unless this is being used by a family. We used it with a 3rd and 7th grader and it was perfect for each of them.

After each lesson is completed, the student simply clicks "complete and continue" and the next lesson or assignment opens up. If there are website images or hyperlinks, you just click them and they open up in new tabs (LOVE THIS!). If you see a video, you click it to get it started. If you get lost somewhere along the way or don't remember where you left off, simply go to the left side of the screen and look at your course menu. The lessons that are completed have check marks--so just click the next one in line.

Our unit study began with basic chitchat about scientific theory as well as introducing some of the free reading book club ideas to go with the topics. With the book club, there is a commenting box where the students can talk to each other about the books they are reading.

Unfortunately, we couldn't get any of them, so we just went to the library and found some other solar system themed books to work through.

Reading about the Solar System

Reading about the Hubble Telescope

There are eight modules and a final project in this unit study. Each module could easily be completed in a week as there are three to four lessons in a module--typically 2 lessons, a project, and a book club discussion. It would totally be possible to do multiple modules in a week if your students wanted to move quickly. But I think a week per module works best. At this point, we are finishing up our 6th module working through one per week.

Sample Page View of a Lesson

The lessons are mixed media collection of internet materials. Some are videos, some are slideshows, some are readings, some are diagrams/images. Most of the lessons have quizzes to check the comprehension--they are all multiple choice/true or false. Every module also has a project--this is where the experiments, data collection, or art projects happen.

Let me take a minute to talk about the data collection projects.

Entering Sunspot Data

Sunspot Data to Record--we chose to print it off

Graphing the data we collected in order to answer questions

These projects were amazing because they TEACH my sons how to insert data into excel like spreadsheets using the ONLINE resource Google Sheets. Not only do they learn how to enter the data, but they learn how to tweak their chart AND how to turn the data into a graph.

Side note: I had NO IDEA that Google Sheets was so amazing, nor had I ever used it before! I am well versed with excel, but having an ONLINE option for this was a serious bonus for me as a teacher! I even was able to upload the Google Sheets app to my phone!

My boys took turns recording the data--it worked well having one read the information off and the other to record it. We recorded the number of sunspots from 1960-2014, compared the data of average hi/low temps for our city in Kentucky with my sister-in-law in Arizona, recorded information from our Gallileo experiment, and recorded planet data to compare different aspects. 

Our art project kicked off the course and we all enjoyed using chalk pastels to create a solar system.

The Inspiration for the Art Projects

My Oldest's Rendition

My Version

My Youngest's Solar System

We enjoyed adding planet identification apps to my iPhone so we could observe the night skies more clearly.

And I look forward to the final project that we will be completing in 2 weeks--making a solar system model. The course offers different suggestions on how this can be completed and encourages the students to share their creations on social media.

Okay--so what about the boys? What did they think?

They loved it. They enjoyed varied videos and information. One of their most favorite activities was the Mars exploration activity where they got to completed a "realistic walk-through of a 3-D model of a Mars base for the first humans to land on Mars. Over 100 images representing a Mars habitat, a greenhouse, a Mars car, and robot rovers." I think they spent about 30 minutes looking at every single thing in that walk-through activity!

I think the boys will be really sad to finish this unit study. It's been so nice to let them have their independence working through the program. They worked together to answer all the quizzes helping one another remember the answers. 

This takes them to a video for them to watch--and then a comprehension quiz

One of the boys enjoyed the data collection activities more than the other--my youngest. He's my math guy, so those activities of entering numbers and making graphs were right up his alley. 

It seems like this unit study is about an 8 week study. Unfortunately, there isn't an entire year's worth of science unit studies available from this company yet. The online studies available cover a range of topics from science to history to holidays to fine arts. I think these would be excellent for someone who is getting started with homeschooling and just needs something to take some burden off the planning. They would also be useful for a family on the go--like an RV homeschooling family--who needs the option of schooling WITHOUT papers. And of course, for the unit study family who wants everything already laid out for them! 

I think the biggest selling points of this product are:

1. Completely online--no extra resources or paper needed

2. Complete planned out for you--just turn the kids loose

3. Kid-Friendly and engaging!

These three things set this product apart from all the other unit studies I have explored for my family. I would absolutely use this product again!

Want to Know More?

We have spent the last several weeks reviewing the Solar System Online Unit Study from Techie Homeschool Mom. I encourage you to visit other crew members on this review to see what unit studies they completed to get an idea of the range of options this product provides.

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*****

CrossWired Science~ A Smorgasbord of Science for Your Family {Curriculum Review}

Our family has two subjects that we enjoy more than anything else: history and science. We could fill our days with these two subjects and be perfectly content. Of the two, my boys definitely prefer science and I'm always on the hunt for more ways to add science or more ways to explore science topics within our classroom. For the last few weeks, we have been reviewing a new program called CrossWired Science and their first two projects: Sound, and Fluid Dynamics. Our family has laughingly nicknamed this science curriculum "smorgasbord" science and today I am going to share our review of this program and talk about why it did or didn't work with our family--you might be surprised at the answer!

About the Product

CrossWired Science (which I will refer to as CWS) is a new online science curriculum geared for multi-age learning and an eclectic learning style. It can be used as a complete or supplemental curriculum depending on the family needs for a science program. This is a Christian worldview science

Exploring the Exciting Life of President Ronald Reagan with YWAM Publishing {A Unit Study Curriculum Review}

We have settled into the fact that our family definitely has a literature-based learning style. We love to read read read! History is one of the areas where literature based products are the most useful to get away from boring textbooks. YWAM Publishing has a GREAT line of historical biographies on men and women throughout history who have contributed to the Christian cause or were key parts of world history in general. We previously have worked through Davy Crockett, Daniel Boone, Laura Ingalls Wilder, and Orville Wright (you can read the previous reviews of YWAM Publishing on my blog). I was surprised when my boys decided to have us review Heroes of History- Ronald Reagan from the Heroes of History series this time. Join me as I share our unit study of the 40th President of the USA!

About YWAM Publishing

YWAM Publishing is a company determined to produce quality biographies and unit studies on men and women who are considered heroes—either to the Christian Faith or to history itself. With that in mind, they have created two series, Christian Heroes: Then and Now and Heroes of History, offering an extensive collection of biographies of men and women throughout the ages, who need to be recognized for their accomplishments.

Here is a sampling of the titles included in each series:

Exploring Paddington with Branch Out World {Product Review}

Do you love the stories of Paddington as much as I do? There is just something about that darling bear which warms my heart. We were recently asked to review a unit study of Paddington Bear from Branch Out World, a British company.

About Branch Out World

Branch Out World is a British company producing educational resources like the Picture Book Explorers series. These are a collection of literature based unit studies created around beautifully illustrated picture books with links to the British Isles. These are all downloadable units that incorporate reading aloud with a variety of coordinating fun and educational activities.

Creating an Old Testament Activity-Pak with Home School In the Woods {Product Review}

I have written many times about unit studies and lapbooks and why our family enjoys them. One of the favorite companies for us is Home School in the Woods. We have reviewed several of their products over the last few years with great success. We recently had another chance to review on of their great products and have been enjoying putting together another one of the Hands-on History Activity-Paks, this time working through The Old Testament.   

About The Old Testament Hands-on History Activity-Pak

The Old Testament is just one of the many products in the Hands-on History Activity-Paks series from Home School in the Woods. Other products in the series include: Make-A-State, The New Testament, Artists, and Composers. Each of the Activity-Paks includes projects on the topic that together create an entire lapbook. Providing a hands-on experience for gaining and demonstrating knowledge on a subject. Home School in the Woods prides themselves on being a hands-on history company with multiple product lines. 
Every Activity-Pak includes step-by-step directions for each project, directions and photos for all the aspects of the lap book assembly, and all the printable pages needed to complete each activity. They can be used to accompany any text you are using--curriculum, unit studies, or just books in general! Another option is to use the lap book as a guide for your studies, simply add the reading and research each project as you do it! (Scripture references accompany the New and Old Testament projects.)
The Old Testament Activity-Pak includes 15 different lapbook covering different parts of the Old Testament including:

Learning About Science Collection, Level 3 from WriteBonnieRose {Product Review}

There are times when at the early elementary levels, you want a science program that is more of an introduction to a subject over rigorous study. But perhaps you desire something that allows you to fill it with loads of library books, Netflix programs, and other resources. Let me introduce you to WriteBonnieRose and her Learning About Science Collection, Level 3 (Cursive), where your children can explore life science, physical science, and earth science in a gentler more relaxed method.

About the Learning About Science Collection

The Learning About Science Collection, Level 3 from WriteBonnieRose contains seven books of science study. Included in the collection are:

Learning More About White House Holidays with Unit Studies from Silverdale Press LLC {Product Review}

We recently were given the White House Holidays Unit Studies from Silverdale Press LLC to review. We are big fans of unit studies, so I was curious to see if these were a style that we could use in our home to learn more about some holidays we haven't spent as much time going over.

About Silverdale Press

Silverdale Press LLC provides homeschool unit studies and curriculum on history, social studies, and writing. They currently carry the following

Exploring a Storybook Life with Laura Ingalls Wilder and YWAM Publishing {Curriculum Review}

We have settled into the fact that our family is a literature based learning school style. We love to read read read! History is one of the areas where literature based products are the most useful to get away from boring textbooks. YWAM Publishing has a GREAT line of historical biographies on men and women throughout history who have contributed to the Christian cause, or were key parts of world history in general. We previously have worked through Davy Crockett, Daniel Boone, and Orville Wright (you can read the previous reviews of YWAM Publishing on my blog), but this time, we picked the Heroes of History- Laura Ingalls Wilder: A Storybook Life to review! My son was curious to see whether or not all those Little House on the Prairie stories were really true or not...

About YWAM Publishing

YWAM Publishing is a company determined to produce quality biographies and unit studies on men and women who are considered heroes—either to the Christian Faith, or to history itself. With that in mind, they have created two series Christian Heroes: Then and Now and Heroes of History offering an extensive collection of biographies of men and women throughout the ages, who need to be recognized for their accomplishments.

Here is a sampling of the titles included in each series:

Let it Snow: Our Favorite Books and Activities to Help Bring Winter Inside

I won't lie. I actually do enjoy SOME of what winter brings. Especially living out here in Kentucky. Once fall hits, the scenery becomes rather dreary, bleak, and...well...Brown. There just aren't enough evergreens to keep it green. Therefore, one of the highlights of winter out here is SNOW! It seems to be hit and miss most winters. We maybe get 16" or we might barely get a dusting. But oh how lovely it looks outside when it is all fresh white and clean! When the winter arrives, so does my desire for all things winter themed: hot cocoa, hot cider, winter themed books, and fun winter themed activities. Today I want to share some of my favorite winter themed books and activities for school.

The links on this blog and in the posts may be affiliate links.  Please see my disclosure policy for full details and thank you for your support!

Favorite Winter Themed Books

One of my most favorite ways to enjoy winter, is with our favorite winter themed books. This is the time of year when I hit up the library hard to find our family favorites to read again. By saving them for once a year, it keeps them special!

U.S.A Activity Bundle from The Crafty Classroom {Product Review}

I am always on the lookout for easy to use resources that will supplement what we are already learning in our classroom. Geography is one of the subjects that is the easiest to coordinate with something you are already learning. Especially when studying world or American history. I recently had the chance to review the USA Activity Bundle from The Crafty Classroom and I knew from my first glance at it that it would probably be just the type of resource I enjoy the most. 

About The Crafty Classroom

The Crafty Classroom provides digital resources to help you as a parent/teacher save time in your schooling. Whether looking for supplemental resources, crafts, or curriculum, The Crafty Classroom has designed products to save you time and money! 

5 Days of Popular Homeschool Teaching Methods~Day 4: What is Unit Study? {5 Days of Homeschool Blog Hop}

Welcome to my fourth installment of my Popular Homeschool Teaching Methods series! I hope you ahve been enjoying my discussion this week. Thus far, we have spoken about why knowing your teaching method style is important, and I have explained what the Charlotte Mason and Classical method are all about. I also have mentioned that I have not yet shared the style that our family relates to the most yet--could it be today? Let's talk about another of the popular homeschool teaching methods: Unit Study!

The links on this blog and in the posts may be affiliate links. 

Please see my disclosure policy for full details and thank you for your support!

What is the Unit Study teaching method?

Before we go any further, let's take a minute to talk about what a Unit Style teaching method is all about. In the unit study method you find find the following to be true:

Bringing Ancient Egypt History to Life with Home School In the Woods {Product Review}

History history history. Our family ADORES all things history. My oldest has had a fascination lately with more ancient history--especially civilizations mentioned in the Bible. We recently were given the opportunity to review HISTORY Through the Ages Project Passport World History Study: Ancient Egypt from Home School In the Woods. Because of our past success with this company (read my US Elections review) and our love of Unit Studies, I had high hopes that it would be everything we loved--and could feed my boys love of history.

Pirates or Privateers: You Decide A Once-a-week Micro Study from Homeschool Legacy {Curriculum Review}

One of the aspects of homeschooling I enjoy the most, is being able to do a unit study. Unit studies work well for us, because they allow me to teach both boys at once, incorporate multiple subjects into one lesson, and allow for a variety of activities to be done. A company well known for their best selling unit studies, is Homeschool Legacy. Over the past couple weeks, we have been reviewing their Once-A-Week Micro Study Pirates or Privateers: You Decide.

About Homeschool Legacy

Homeschool Legacy is devoted to providing high quality unit studies to the homeschool family. With unit studies covering a plethora of subjects from holiday traditions, to colonial cooking, to historical events, and more—there is a unit study topic for just about everything. They also offer shorter unit studies like their once a week unit studies, lasting just 4 weeks, instead of their 6-8 week studies.

Our review crew was allowed to choose from the following list of unit studies to use in our classroom:
Once-a-Week Unit Study:
*Christmas Comes to America 

Once-a-Week Micro-Studies:
*Pirates or Privateers: You Decide 
*Cooking up History with the Founding Presidents
*Victoria and Her World
*Thanksgiving with the Pilgrims   
*Many Nations

These unit studies incorporate language arts, history, geography, civics, life skills, and more!

We chose to do the Once-a-Week Micro-Study Pirates or Privateers: You Decide over the last couple weeks.

My Thoughts:

The #1 appeal of this unit study, is its length. A once a week (30 minutes) session is a great mini-unit length for us to work in. I can see that it would be a great way for someone to explore how the Homeschool Legacy unit studies work. Having experienced Homeschool Legacy before, I knew that the shorter length of the unit study, was in no way going to decrease the meatiness of what the study covered.

I was happy to see that I was right. Every week’s lesson gave in depth history on the subject, as well as a rich vocabulary relating to the topic. There were links for us to do maps and other activities—like labeling the Spanish Main or reading about and labeling the parts of a Spanish Galleon.

After learning about Sir Francis Drake, Little Britches was to write some facts about him—so I used the links and printed off a short biography. I had him record the information on some notebooking pages I had which were even themed Sir Francis Drake. My youngest drew the sailing route that Drake took, on a blank world map I found—great geography practice. We also had fun remembering the audiodrama Under Drake’s Flag which we reviewed last year, because it mentioned several of the same things we talked about in the unit study portion about Sir Frances Drake.

We are reading the suggested book Treasure Island, which we hadn’t ever read before. The boys were very eager to read it, because it has primarily male characters and is about pirates! We read it daily, even when the unit study is a once a week lesson.

An added bonus for our unit study, we went to a pirate themed mini-golf course on our recent trip to Panama City Beach, FL! Throughout the course—at every hole plus along the path, there was the tale of Blackbeard! It gave factual information about him as a man and pirate, and threw in extra bits of information relating to pirates and privateers. Talk about perfect timing!

one of the silly ditty gravestones

Daddy in stocks

Some suspicious characters apprehended!

The final aspect of our study is to dress like a pirate and watch one or two of the suggested old swashbuckling adventures. I appreciated that the unit study links them up to YouTube recordings—perfect since we have YouTube on our TV!

The boys have enjoyed learning about pirates and we had some great discussions about how a piece of paper granting you permission to rob others, doesn’t make it right in the sight of God. They now don’t think that being a pirate is something to want to be in a costume, because of what they really represent. This is something that I appreciated them learning all on their own—thanks to this unit study.

Would I Recommend This Product?

I definitely recommend Homeschool Legacy for anyone desiring to do focused studies on particular aspects of history—the units provide you all the information you need for the basic instruction and give you plenty of supplemental information to take it further. Their digital pdf’s are linked up to websites with activities, maps, movies, sound bites, and other very useful information, so you don’t have to find it yourself.

All in all, I think I actually prefer these mini-units of once a week studies, to the longer units, because I can easily fit them into what our schedule already contains. I will be checking out others in their mini-unit collection for sure after using this one.

Want To Know More About Homeschool Legacy?

Over the last couple weeks, we have been working on the Once-a-Week Micro Study Pirates or Privateers: You Decide from Homeschool Legacy. We've shared about our study, but make sure you check out the other studies the rest of the crew members picked!