Munchkin and Bean: Home School in the Woods Ancient Greece Review

We received HISTORY Through the Ages Project Passport World History Study: Ancient Greece from Home School in the Woods to review. Ancient Greece is their newest title, but in the past we have used their Middle Ages history study. There is also Ancient Egypt, and Renaissance and Reformation. Ancient Rome will be out next year.

Each of the Project Passport History Studies are in-depth and provide lots of materials. They are available as a download, or on a CD. We received the download, which comes as separate files and you have to piece it together yourself. The download is inexpensive. It may look intimidating, but there is a helpful guide included. I generally print lessons as we need them, rather than all at once, since we have to pay for printing. But I highly suggest printing it all at once and getting it properly sorted before beginning to use it.

Each of these World History studies contains 25 "stops." Each stop is a lesson. Some families complete a stop per day or a stop per week. We average about 2-3 stops per week, about 30 minutes for each lesson. Older students may require more or less time, because they may be doing more research. We use these history lessons to introduce this time period, location, historical figures, and landmarks. We had the added bonus of fantastic pictures to go along with our study that their grandmother took last year of Greece and all the famous statues, locations, and landmarks. We also picked up books from the library to read on the days we did not complete stops on.

You start out by creating a luggage folder, which is kind of like a lap book. There is also a passport, travelogue, and timeline pages. My kids are just beginning to write independently, so I encourage them to write what they can, and I help with spelling. We also have a journal that they are using to write their own story in, based on the lessons and what they have learned about Ancient Greece. Most are about the myths we have read, but some involve historical people. We love how hands-on Project Passport is. There are so many different types of lessons, and it's easy enough to customize the lessons to fit the needs of children of different grades.

There are also maps, postcards, newspapers, family trees, and cook books (my daughter's favorite lessons are always the ones that involve cooking). There are so many different components to Project Passport. They go over clothing, jobs, government, people, fables, poetry, constellations, heroes, weapons, and so much more. If you are looking for a history unit study, look no future. There is so much packed into this unit study. You really get a fantastic idea of what it was like in Ancient Greece. We haven't finished our unit yet, but we are already planning on finishing with a play based on their favorite Greek hero, Cadmus, and a Greek feast.

We enjoy using Project Passport because there is so much to use and it's perfect for all types of learners. There are many hands-on activities, arts and crafts, writing prompts, and it's fun! I had one teacher in school who stood out because he made history fun to learn, so that's what I look for in a history curriculum. We do add some of our own stuff, which is used to research things that Project Passport teaches about. And the best part is when we are at the library and my children are excitedly teaching the other kids about Ancient Greece, or telling the librarians about all the fun stuff they learned.

I highly suggest checking out Home School in the Woods. They have much more to offer, including: Timeline Materials, Map Sets, Time Travelers Activity-based U.S. History Studies, Activity-Paks, Lap-Paks, and Activity Studies.