Homeschool Crew Review: Home School in the Woods Project Passport: The Middle Ages

Home School in the Woods is one of my favorite homeschool companies.  They offer multiple product lines that include hands on history components.  I have used many different products from Home School in the Woods including products from their Time Travelers American History series, Hand-on History Activity-Paks, Hands-on History Lap-Paks, Hands-on History Activity Studies and Project Passport World History Studies.  For this review we have been traveling through the Middle Ages with Project Passport: The Middle Ages.  

The Project Passport World History series will take your students on an up close journey to different eras of the past.  Geared for grades 3-8, each study has 25 stops in which students will read about the topic, listen to audio tours, make hands on projects, create maps, a timeline, lapbook components, notebook components, postcards, newspapers, and more.  Tips and tricks for completing the studies are included along with a travel itinerary with instructions for making the projects at each stop, and extra resources for further study.  Answer keys for timelines and maps are also included along with photos of what completed projects can look like. Each study should take around 8-12 weeks to complete but the pacing is entirely up to you.  A stop can last one day, or several days.  There are now 5 studies in the Project Passport World History series including: Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, the newly released  Ancient Rome, The Middle Ages, and Renaissance and Reformation. 



Topics in Project Passport: The Middle Ages include:

Laying the Foundation: Introduction
Laying the Foundation: Barbarians in the South and East
Laying the Foundation :Barbarians in the North and West
Everday Life :Family
Everyday Life :Clothing and Food
Everyday Life :Community
Everyday Life Crime: Punishment and Entertainment
Business: Towns and Guilds
Business: Merchants Trade and Exploration
Science and Invention
Education
The Arts
Medicine and Disease
The Church :History
The Church : Other Religious Events
The Church :Monastic Life
The Crusades: The Big Four
The Crusades: The Other Crusades
Knights and Chivalry
The Vikings: Viking Life
The Vikings: Era of the Viking
Battles, Wars, and Conflicts: The Muslim Invasions
Battles, Wars, and Conflicts: Eastern Europe
Battles, Wars, and Conflicts: England
Packing Up

To complete this study you will need a printer with plenty of ink, colored and white cardstock, colored and white paper, tape, scissors, glue, colored pencils, a 3 ring binder, and folders.  If you choose to complete the hands on projects you will need specific supplies for each of those projects.

I have been using the Project Passport: The Middle Ages study with my 9, 11, and 12 year olds.  My 7 year old has also participated in some of the activities.  Since we have completed other Project Passport studies we already had a passport and luggage folder ready.  Instead of printing components for all of the children, we work on one lapbook and Scrapbook of Sights altogether.  I do not print the Guide Book Text for each stop, instead I read that aloud to all of the children from the computer.

We love these Project Passport studies!  They have been great for us for summer learning.  The information is presented in a way that holds the interest for a wide range of ages.  There are so may fun projects and activities for all types of learners that bring history alive!  You do not have to feel pressures to complete all of the activities, you can pick and choose the ones that work best for your family.  We LOVE the timeline figures and the mapping activities and the other projects for the Scrapbook of Sights.  Another one of our favorite things about these studies are the Audio Tours. They do a great job with the voices and sound effects to make you feel as though you are a tourist visiting that place. The boys also enjoyed the game Fox and Geese.  They played  it several times one afternoon that was blazing hot while watching Disney's Robin Hood (suggested movie.)

It does take a bit of time to get everything printed out and ready to go, but it is time well spent because the finished projects are wonderful!

Members of The Crew reviewed a variety of projects from Home School in the Woods.  To see what my Crew Mates had to say, stop by the Crew Blog!