Home School in the Woods Á La Carte projects ~ a Crew review

Home School in the Woods is a tried and true company in our home. We were thrilled to be able to take a look at two of their Á La Carte products for this review

The Á La Carte projects are small chunks of a study – a game, a timeline, a short lapbook, a project. These small chunks of learning are great for when you are looking for an extension of a study you are doing or wanting a hands-on project of some sort. They cover some really good information but are not long, extensive studies. The Á La Carte projects are often included in a larger, more in-depth study if you are looking for more.

Home School in the Woods is a company that creates digital, downloadable projects and studies dealing with history – from ancient history to present day. Each project is well researched and you can feel confident that the information given is accurate. The projects are all downloaded to your computer so you can print at home and get started right away. The instructions for each project are included in the files and are very understandable.

On to the projects!

Miss J has been studying World War II and we were just finishing up the unit study we were on when this timeline from Home School In The Woods arrived. It is fantastic!

A Timeline of World War II is a downloadable product, purchased directly from HSITW. Once you download it, you can print it directly from your home. We chose to print it on colored printer paper, using blue for the timeline and neon green for the pieces we were glueing on.

To get started, I followed the printing directions and then the cutting and taping directions to get the long timeline put together. We taped all the pieces of the timeline together and the it folds compactly for storage. It goes neatly into the notebooking notebook that each girl keeps. So Miss J has a wonderful timeline to add to her notebook now.

Each day, we would pull out the timeline and look at the dates. We started back in WWI and looked at people and events that impacted the start of the war. It really did start back at the end of WWI, as the policies put in place then impacted various countries and caused hardship and discontent. Miss J would give the date and then read the placement on the timeline. She then got the pages of the pieces to cut out and glue on, searching for the right piece. She cut it out and glued it on. Then we would do an online search to find a short article or video on that event, place, or person. We would watch it or read about it. After that, we moved on to the next spot on the timeline. We would do six or eight items per day. It was a manageable amount for a 9 year old.

This was a wonderful resource to learn a lot about WWII. In doing the timeline this way, combined with the research, Miss J had a very thorough grounding of the causes, actions, events, and people that influenced the war around the globe. I learned a ton, as well. There were a number of people I knew of but didn’t know their exact contributions to the war. I highly recommend studying history this way. It was a manageable chunk of history, yet it was very in-depth.

What Miss J thought about the timeline:

It is lots of fun. I got through it kind of fast. It was kind of fun to learn about the people (like Hitler and Anne Frank). And it is fun to learn about people I didn’t know and didn’t know were there (like Joseph Stalin who was a very bad man).

Now that we have finished the timeline, I am considering purchasing one I just noticed: WWII: On the Home Front Lap Book/Notebook Project. It is right up Miss J’s alley and continues on with the time period we have focused on for the past little bit.

We also chose The Art of Quilling project to try out. Quilling is using paper strips, curling them, and then gluing them into a pattern. I have always wanted to try quilling because I remember a beautiful quilled piece that hung on the wall of my home growing up. We read a bit about quilling from the file and I talked about remembering the hanging growing up. We took the time right then to call my mom and ask her about it. She talked with Miss J about it, remembering creating it, and finishing it the way she did. She told Miss J about the process and what she remembered. It was a neat family connection that brought this project to life.

After the phone call and getting a text with a picture of the piece, we printed the quilling pattern, and then got started. I had purchased a quilling tool at a local hobby store for just a few dollars along with pre-cut strips of paper. It took a few tries to figure out how to curl the strips and then to adjust them to various sizes for the pattern. We learned a lot as we went along such as

You have to have a liquid glue that comes out well.
Curling tighter is not necessarily better.
Curling, adjusting, and shaping is all something that has to be worked on and manipulated for each place on the pattern.
Age 9 was good for trying this out, with a simple pattern. If it were much more complicated or detailed, it might be a bit trying for Miss J. I would love it, though. We plan to try out more patterns if we can find some online.

We chose the quilling project because it fits with the time period and activities of some of our reading and history lessons. From the 1800s – 1970s, quilling was fairly popular in various places. Since we were working on WWII and had just finished a book about pioneer times, it fit well. And it was fun to try something that people would have done during those times, as well as something that grandma had tried.

What Miss J thought about quilling:

That was awesome! It was fun. It took a long time, forever! But it was fun. It took two days; my final project was pretty.

The Penny Rug Notebook/3D Project looks like another project that would be fun to tackle while sticking to the theme of WWII and thriftiness or using what you have.

Home School in the Woods has wonderful Á La Carte products and these Á La Carte projects are often part of a large study, if you are looking for more. We have used Project Passport: Ancient Greece, Project Passport: Ancient Egypt, a la carte Erie Canal, Make-A-State, and more. Other Homeschool Review Crew families were trying out various other Home School in the Woods Á La Carte projects. Definitely go see them. These are an easy way to find a project that fits right in with a subject you may be studying without committing to a full year curriculum or a long-term study project.

Blessings,
At Home.

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