unit study

Creation Illustrated {Crew Review}

April 3, 2018 by Dana

Creation Illustrated asked us to review two Unit Studies this year: Snow Unit Study and Pine Trees. They also have new Digital Editions of their magazine that these go with for expanding learning. They are the Fall ’17 Digital Edition and the Winter ’18 Digital Edition. They were a lot of fun to work through.

We were introduced to Creation Illustrated a few years ago through the Homeschool Review Crew when we reviewed physical editions of their magazine. These editions were beautifully designed and full of wonderful, educational information. Their digital editions are just as wonderful as their print editions are. And best of all, they are Creation based so they show nature through a Christian perspective.

You can read our previous review here: Creation Illustrated 2012 Review

For purposes of this review, we were given access to the Creation Illustrated Fall ’17 Digital Edition and the Creation Illustrated Winter ’18 Digital Edition along with the unit studies that go along with these editions.

The Creation Illustrated Fall ’17 Digital Edition goes along with the Pine Trees unit study. Information for the study begins on page 8-9 of the Fall ’17 Digital Edition. The study is designed for grades 5-8.

The study begins by sharing information on reading and educational resources to use with the study. Next you’ll find a selection of links to Educational Videos that can also be used along with the study. Next, you learn a bit about the history of the word “Pine” followed by a list of related vocabulary words and spelling words.

The study includes a Bible study on Pine Trees as well. I found this very interesting. Did you know that Fir trees do not grow in Palestine? I didn’t before this study!

This study includes Geography, Science, and even Math. It has a little of everything so you get a full learning experience. The study ends with a word search on Pines.

This study is designed to be easy to use. It is easy to get started and work through. You could use it with a younger child if you’re guiding them or with an older child as a review. We used it all together.

The Snow Unit Study goes along with the Creation Illustrated Winter ’18 Digital Edition. You will find the information related to this study beginning on pages 20-21. The images are outstanding.

The Snow Unit Study follows the same design as the Pine Trees unit study. It begins with related information and videos, followed with important vocabulary and spelling. I like that these start out with the important words to know so it makes it easy to cover these before you work through the full study if you wish to.

This study also covers relation to the Bible. Did you know that the word “Snow” appears 24 times in the Bible? I sure did not!

Both of these unit studies end with the answer keys so you can find the answers easily as well.

The BEST part of these Unit Studies is that they are so CHEAP. They are both priced at $9.95 each but they are currently available for $6.95 each. That’s a 30% discount!

Creation Illustrated offers both Digital Editions and Print Editions for purchase. You can also subscribe for future magazines to be delivered right to your door. These magazines are beautiful and will bring you much joy.

You can find Creation Illustrated Online at:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CreationIllustrated/timeline

Twitter: https://twitter.com/CreationMag

YWAM Publishing – George Washington: True Patriot and Unit Study {Crew Review}

October 11, 2013 by Dana

George Washington is the first President of the United States and one of the most well-known names of U.S. History. He is a favorite in our household and a person that we each truly look up to. So when I heard that YWAM Publishing was offering to allow the Schoolhouse Review Crew review their book George Washington: True Patriot from the Heroes of History series, I was excited!

For this review, I received a PDF download of George Washington: True Patriot, the book. This book is 224 pages in length and includes 19 chapters each focusing a different aspect of Washington’s life. Washington was destined for Great Purpose and George Washington: True Patriot shares his story with us.

We always enjoy reading books on George Washington. Washington traveled here, to Georgetown, SC in 1791 and visited several nearby places. He was greeted here by cannon fire and uniformed Infantry before moving on to his next destination.

Living in Georgetown, in close proximity to Charleston, SC, we are able to personally visit the places where President Washington walked, attended balls, had a meal and even lodged for the night. Washington saved a tree on a nearby plantation that we have seen first hand and he left behind a legacy that myself and my children can look up to. George Washington: True Patriot only proved that to us even more.

To go along with the book, we were given a PDF download of the George Washington: Unit Study Curriculum Guide in two parts. Part one is 64 pages long and begins with sharing a photo of George Washington himself with birth and death date below. The entire PDF is in black and white, making printing more efficient.

There are 9 sections and 2 appendices in the George Washington: Unit Study and it was specifically created to go along with the book, George Washington: True Patriot. The unit study reinforces creative writing, critiquing, History and Geography concepts and so much more. The entire guide is set up to allow the teacher to pick and choose activities that will work with their student’s learning style and abilities. The unit study can also be easily adapted for group studies which worked great for us!

The guide begins by teaching the student about Key Quotes speaking of Washington’s life and related to the United States personally. There are suggestions for setting up a display corner to focus on certain aspects about George Washington which will be covered during the reading and study of the book. Chapter questions are provided to further expand on the lessons and to check comprehension of the readings during this study.

The 4th Chapter is called Explorations and provides the meat of the study in suggesting Essay topics, audio, visual and art projects which bring the study to life. These explorations show what the reader is learning and bring Washington to life. Combined with Chapter 5’s community links, this really challenges the student to expand lessons past the book itself.

In the section labeled Social Studies, the student will focus on Vocabulary, Geography, time line events and similar lessons. Connecting into the lessons in Exploration, these build a thorough lesson for the story of George Washington’s life. They can be expanded further through the suggestions in the Related Themes section of the unit study. There is also a section on resources that shares other books to read and movies to watch which help to expand lessons even farther.

Part two of the George Washington: Unit Study provides a fact sheet on George Washington, complete with photograph. It also includes a map of the Eastern United States and a map of Virginia and West Virginia to use along with the study. A timeline finishes up this 4 page section of the Unit Study.

My family and I greatly enjoyed reading about President Washington’s life and his belief in the United States, as well as his belief in God. His Biblical foundation was apparent in every section of the story and showed the values that he wished for all Americans. It was nice to read of the man who began the country and projected his faith onto the new nations beginnings.

We learned so much from George Washington: True Patriot and the accompanying George Washington: Unit Study and you will too! Purchase your copy of George Washington: True Patriot for $6.99 in either print or e-book form. The George Washington: Unit Study is also available for purchase for $7.49 and is the perfect complement to the book creating a full study of the First American President and this True Patriot, George Washington.

To read more reviews of George Washington: True Patriot and other YWAM Publishing titles, please click the banner below!

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Moving Beyond The Page {Crew Review}

July 1, 2013 by Dana

When I signed up to review Moving Beyond the Page, I thought it was just going to be the usual, boring old kind of curriculum where the student reads the book and completes the worksheets involved. I had no idea that Moving Beyond the Page was going to be so awesome, so amazing, so wonderful! From the moment, you open the box the package arrives in, the excitement begins and does not stop.

Our curriculum package arrived in the average cardboard box, once again leading me to believe it was nothing more than a box of books. But upon opening the box, my opinion quickly changed. Inside the box was everything needed to learn about the subjects we had chosen to learn, except for common items like pencils and paper.

The package I chose to review from Moving Beyond the Page was something we could easily relate to our hometown in Georgetown, SC and our family interests. I chose to do a Literature and Science/History combination, choosing American Tall Tales and Legends for our Literature portion and Colonization and Revolution for our Science/History portion.

American Tall Tales and Legends interested me because these were my personal favorites to learn about when I was a child, as well as Josh’s. It is often something we find ourselves discussing and I had been looking for a way to introduce more of these wonderful stories and legends to our children in our homeschooling lessons. As usual, God provided a way to make this happen through our Moving Beyond the Page review.

I’ve also been looking for ways to get my children involved more in our local history. There’s no better way then to take them straight back to the foundation of our town, by teaching them more about how our area was colonized and the Revolutionary War that led to our nations founding. Being able to take these ideas even further by showing them things that relate to our readings makes it even better.

Back to our curriculum package. Upon opening our box, I discovered our Colonization and Revolution lesson book. This spiral bound book contains everything needed to complete the Science/History portion of our program. The box also contained the books we needed to read to learn more about our lessons. The New Americans: Colonial Times 1620-1689, The American Revolution for Kids: A History with 21 Activities and You Wouldn’t Want To Be An American Colonist!: A Settlement You’d Rather Not Start were all included to use with our Colonization and Revolution study.

Our lesson book for American Tall Tales and Legends was available for use online through the Moving Beyond the Page website. This program allowed me to read through the guidebook straight from the website and print copies of the activity pages needed to complete our lessons. This was wonderful since it allowed me to print copies of lesson activities for each child, as needed. In the box for this part of our lessons, I received an American Tall Tales reader and Cut From The Same Cloth: American Women of Myth, Legend, and Tall Tale. Both these books came together to provide the wonderful stories needed to teach my children about the legends and tales of the United States.

One additional item came in the box for use with our curriculum. A kit to create our own dream catcher was provided as an activity to be used with our Moving Beyond the Page American Tall Tales and Legends package. This was a fun addition to the program and something that the kids really enjoyed creating.

The online version of our American Tall Tales and Legends lesson book was a bit different than our printed version of our Colonization and Revolution lesson book. The printed version laid out how to use our Moving Beyond the Page lessons in the front of our book, then provided a list of required books and materials for the unit study by lesson. This made getting everything together very easy.

Following the materials list is a list of vocabulary taught throughout the unit, listing words and definitions for each new vocabulary word. A Unit Review sheet follows the vocabulary list, allowing for a look ahead at each lesson taught through the unit.

Lessons themselves are broken down, beginning with a Getting Started section that shares stuff you will need for the lesson, ideas to keep in mind during the lessons and things to know about the lessons. A list of questions for the lesson is provided next, followed by lesson activities to complete. Activities are simple but thorough and get the child thinking about things they have learned, allowing them to absorb the lessons, not just hear them.

Each lesson in a unit builds in preparing the student for a final project to be completed at the end of the unit study. The students are asked to complete five of the eight final project suggestions for the study but could do more or less depending upon your schedule. Some of the projects will require assistance and supervision from the parent to complete.

Much like the print lesson book for Colonization and Revolution, the online lesson book for American Tall Tales and Legends provides an intro to the lesson, complete with lists of materials needed for each lesson. This is followed with the activities for each lesson, which are to be completed by the student. Rounding out the end of the lesson is a conclusion that provides additional activities for student completion, like reviewing stories and vocabulary discussed in the section and the sections of the region being discussed at the time. Just like the print addition, the end of the unit wraps up with a final project for the student to complete.

A nice addition of the online lesson book is that there is an Idea Share section that allows users to go in and add their personal ideas for the unit. This allows others to share things that have worked for them in aiding to provide projects to make students break free from paper learning and expand to projects in relation to the lessons being learned. Each lesson has one of these sections to provide additional ideas for activities.

These units are amazingly thorough and so well prepared. It did not take a lot of work on my part to put them together and the company does provide everything possibly needed for studying the units, included the necessary books for completion. The only I did not receive for my units was the Timeline of American History but this was not something that I had to have for my unit though it would be a great addition if I were to purchase a full curriculum package from Moving Beyond the Page.

Moving Beyond the Page provides unit studies in full year curriculum packages or in various individual units to study, like was provided for our Schoolhouse Reviews. They provide studies to be used with children beginning with ages 4-5 up through ages 12-14. Individual units can be mixed and matched to meet interests and needs of the child. Individual units do include suggestions for unit matches in the description. The two units I chose for review were not a suggested match but they worked well together for our needs.

Moving Beyond the Page’s American Tall Tales and Legends Literature Unit is available in print form or as an online version. It is written to be used with students ages 9-11 and is Relationships: Unit 3 of the full curriculum package for this age group. Books needed to complete this unit are included in the unit package. The print version of this package costs $33.47 while the online version costs $29.41. Once again, this includes all books needed to complete the study.

Moving Beyond the Page’s Colonization and Revolution Science/History study is also available in print or an online version. It, too, is written to be used with students 9-11 and is Discovery and Survival: Unit 1 of the full curriculum package for this age group. The print version of this unit costs $51.88 and the online version costs $47.82. The price of this unit also includes all necessary books to complete the study.

This was a review that my children and I truly loved. We will be purchasing more Moving Beyond the Page curriculum very soon and look forward to learning more from this company.

A Journey Through Learning {Crew Review}

April 5, 2013 by Dana

A Journey Through Learning creates the most amazing lapbooks for your use. There are 100’s of lapbooks to choose from on many varied subjects. From educational to fun, you can find the perfect lapbook at A Journey Through Learning.

What’s a lapbook? A lapbook is a hands-on, creative activity using mini-books featuring a topic you are learning about to create a sort of journal in a folder. The finished folder can be viewed on the lap of your child, therefore being termed a “lapbook”. This is a fun method of learning for almost anyone.

Lapbooks are something that we enjoy using in our homeschooling. For this review, I chose to use two different lapbooks: Letters, Numbers and Shapes with Laycie, and Astronomy and Space with Winston, Emmalee and some of it also with Laycie.

Letters, Numbers and Shapes

Learning Lapbook

From the “I Can Do School Too!” series

This lapbook contains 51 color-filled pages. The first 5 pages are a lapbook introductory showing the key elements of lapbook how-to’s: creation, storage, purpose. Page 6 provides a guide to putting this particular lapbook together, followed by the Table of Contents on page 7.

The next 34 pages are jam-packed with activities teaching letters, numbers and shapes to the early learner. Every letter of the alphabet is covered, basic shapes and numbers 1-10. The activities make a great introduction to any preschooler or review for a child who may just need a little extra lesson review.

At the end of the lapbook, the teacher can find suggestions for things to teach letters. Listed are several suggestions for every letter of the alphabet and are a great guide for teaching or just getting ideas to expand the lessons you may already have in mind. There are also suggestions for learning about shapes with food, fun activities and games, fingerplays for shapes and numbers, printing poems, and a suggested book list to use with this lapbook.

Astronomy and Space

Unit Study

Astronomy and Space is a full color-filled 70 page unit study. The first two pages of this lapbook provide a brief explanation of a unit study. A supplies sheet is also included in the beginning of the lapbook so that the educator can prepare ahead, followed by a thorough Table of Contents.

This particular study begins with Creation in Genesis 1. Other things covered in this study are where you live, particulars of the solar system, day and night, and so very much more. There are planet information cards for the student to fill out in detail.

Near the end of this study is an included Bibliography with websites used to create the study. These websites are also a great source of additional information that can be used to expand upon this particular study. A set of enrichment pages can also be found towards the back of the study which includes additional reading suggestions, a NICK list, a reading tracking sheet, planet book report, and narration forms.

We used these lapbooks in our homeschooling over the past few weeks as a center of learning for our daily lessons. I used the Letters, Numbers and Shapes lapbook with my soon-to-be five year old and she had no problems completing it. She enjoyed pasting the shapes into place, practicing her letter and number writing, and creating her mini-books. This particular lapbook was a little more of a review for her than it was a challenge as she already knew much of what it provided but it will be a perfect lesson for her brother when it comes time for him to learn the same things in the future. I suggest it used with an early preschooler over an almost Kindergartener.

We used the Astronomy and Space unit study as a family study. I read all of the inclusive materials, as well as took the kids on a quick tour of the websites listed in the Bibliography to expand our lessons. Each child found a different planet that interested them and we learned many strange and specific details for each. The kids shared in filling out the worksheets and answering the questions provided in the study. We did not use the suggested reading selections since we did this study quickly but we did track our reading of books already in our libraries as an addition to our lessons using the sheet provided in the study itself. We also used the planet reports to research more about each planet we learned about.

Overall, we all enjoyed these studies. Both are wonderfully thorough and exceptionally made. They are easily implemented and can be used to create a full lesson on their intended subjects. Colorful, fun and challenging the student to learn more.

You can purchase A Journey Through Learning Lapbooks through their website. Letters, Numbers and Shapes Lapbook is available as a download for $13, on CD for $14, printed for $20 or assembled for $29. Astronomy and Space Unit Study is available as a download for $13, on CD for $14 or printed for $21.

For more reviews of A Journey Through Learning, please visit the Schoolhouse Review Crew blog!