My son wants to learn about the great wars in the coming year, therefore we were very excited to get a chance to review World War II from the selection of Time Travelers in U.S. History series offered by Home School in the Woods. For the past bit, between bouts of readying our guest room and learning other important keeping up a house skills, my son has been watching copious Youtube videos and diving deep into World War II. Come join us in our studies won’t you?
Who is Home School in the Woods?
The Pak family in essence. Taking a dislike of history and finding a way to teach it in a meaningful, delight-filled way. Their goal is to make history fun and interactive. I urge you to check out the entirety of their Time Travelers series, as well as newest release Ancient Rome which completes their Project Passport series.
What do you get?
A WHOLE lot of PDF’s! OH MY! I actually just ordered them printed off for me at my local Staples. For $35 printed, and delivered, I couldn’t beat the time saver, and personal printing costs to me in the middle of a busy season. Just look at the binder full of paper!
I found the materials come in two formats. If you unzip the folder you can open the entire file in HTML format which walks you through all the information start to finish. Or you can follow the same format I did and simply open all the files. Print off exactly what you need, put it all in a binder so it’s all set up and ready to go and then just work your way through it. You do not have to print off everything, some of the files are simply how to use, how to print off etc. I should mention that different colours of paper were called for in the printing instructions. I chose to ignore those colour changes as I didn’t need “Why this colour mom? Can’t we print it in this colour instead?” All white is simply easier in my household. 🙂
It is SO worth looking through the intro files, teacher keys etc. You’ll find a treasure trove of information. In fact one of the pages I really appreciated having was the additional resources page listed in the intro file. Books, movies, audios, music, and websites. Just a phenomenal well done list which will save me OODLES of time (as long as I can find the materials!) 🙂
When I put things in the binder I put the Lesson reading, followed by the project list, then the copy work (for most weeks), and the weekly project. I really appreciated that they build time into the unit study for catch up weeks. Some of the weekly projects are fairly large, so instead of putting them in a page protector I gave them their own files… like the timelime and a later couple of lessons.
This study follows the events from the Close of WW1 and beginnings of the Nazi party through to the end of the war and what happened afterwards. There are almost 100 figures to add to the ten-page timeline.
A Brief Look:
My son and I put together this brief overview for you.
How we used it:
We didn’t work through our WW2 study at a fast pace. Interspersed into our summer are several birthdays, I’ve had a few “under the weather days”, caring for a house that is our own now, and a major heat wave.. speed wasn’t in our purview. Taking our time working through lessons allowed us to more fully discuss ideas and watch videos that went along with the lessons. We’ve been inspired to take a few rabbit trails as well. I love rabbit trails don’t you? They are so much fun!
Taking time to set it all up properly in the beginning was the best thing I could have done. Having the binder ready to go actually made my boy grin. “Look Mom! Look how much I can learn about the war!” My son could work through it independently beyond checking in with me to see what his work load should be.
There are 25 lessons in all. We are looking forward to these upcoming lessons: Pearl Harbour, Hitler’s Fortress, VE day and Iwo Jima and the Atomic bomb. It is SO interesting listening to my boy. “I didn’t know that!” “Mom, did you know ________________”. The questions of “I don’t understand this part, can you help me?” “Can we look this up on youtube? I want to know more.” Those questions a homeschooling parent lives for eh?
I now know FAR MORE about Hitler, his youth, and how he rose to power from a variety of viewpoints then I ever thought I would. 🙂 And think…. come January I’ll get to learn it all over again. This Time Traveler unit study will become the spine of our World War II studies. We’ll diverge now again to pick up speeches and study them, to focus on Canadian men and women of the war, and to throw in a bit more geography, art projects and to follow rabbit trails. 
My son’s opinion:
I like it. I am learning so much and I want to know even more. It makes me think of different things I can watch on youtube, and how everything connects. It’s good and I can do most of it on my own, sometimes mom helps though.
My thoughts:
My lad likes it, it’s well laid out. It provides ample opportunity for rabbit trails and discussion. It’s written at a language easily accessed by middle school and above students. It provides an easy spine for when we start our official studies of World War II in January. It will be very easy to adapt it, or perhaps adapt is not the right word, the way it is laid out it will be very easy to add additional materials or extend a lesson further. Together with The War to End all Wars Game, this history study will suit our needs nicely.
World War II
Time Travelers U.S. History Series
Home School in the Woods
PDF and HTML files received.
Also has a CD option. Pricing options here.
History, interactive, hands on
Hands-on history, history studies, best history studies, world history studies, american history studies, history timelines, history curriculum, notebooking pages
Some 90 of us on the crew took a look at a variety of products from Home School in the Woods. I invite you to go read the reviews. Perhaps the next one you come across will be just what you are looking for! I know this review is what we needed in our household.
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