World History: Renaissance and Reformation {TOS Crew Review}

I’ve mentioned before that I love history.  It’s a passion for me.  I want to instill that love of history into my children as well.  Because of this I was pleased that we were going to review Project Passport World History Study: Renaissance and Reformation (1100 AD-1660 AD) from Home school in the Woods.

 

 

We were given a choice of three time eras but I really wanted to focus on the Renaissance and Reformation this time.  The other two time frames were Ancient Egypt and The Middle Ages.  We were tempted by Ancient Egypt but the world history we’d been studying lately led us right into the Renaissance and Reformation and I felt it would be the easiest and best transition.

The world history studies from Home school in the Woods that we were sent to review came in download form.  They are also available in CD form to purchase on the website.  We received the download.  This world history course is geared for grades 3-8 though as I did you can use it for younger grades with some tweaking.  All of my children used it together so we had preK through 4th grade learning their world history together!  Always fun to do a study together as a family.

Some of the events that we’re studying about in our world history with the Renaissance and Reformation are Everyday Life, Art and Music, Inventions, Exploration, Martin Luther, and the Counter Reformation.  There are 25 stops along the way and you’ll meet fun people like Martin Luther!

This world history course is very unique and unlike any I’ve used prior.  It’s such fun!  It’s no wonder that my kids adore this program!  They get to go on an exploration of a different culture and time.  Basically they are travelling through the world history using their PASSPORTS to make stops and have a little tour around.  

Now because they are doing stops and having fun there is some prep work for mom or whoever is teaching.  You have to print off and then set up their stop for the day.   You can prep as many or as few stops as you would like at a time.  I’m one of those that likes to print off everything at once, separate it, and then go back each week and finalize what is needed.  

The directions of what you as the parent need to do and what happens at each stop are very clear and easy to follow.  It’s all set up for you on the paper you just have to implement and do it!  I’m a very non crafty type person but even I found this easy to do.  Seriously.  I’m not crafty at all.  I’m an awesome baker but a horrible gluer!  

The good news about all the craftsy stuff is that your kids can do it and you can help them.  You will want a basket for this study that has all the necessary supplies like glue, scissors, scrap paper, construction paper, colored pencils, crayons, etc.  Also make sure you plan accordingly, there will be a lot of printing for this course unless you have it all printed from the CD somewhere other than your home.  I had the download and have printed it all at home.  Like I said I printed out everything at the beginning, then I put it in a binder.  As I needed it going along I could pull them from the binder, copy what was needed, and then we were ready to go!  I’m horrible at finding the right spot when needed so this really helped me to be able to mark where we were.

 

 

 

 

Let’s talk time really quickly.  We have been spending about two weeks on each of our stops.  I find that it goes faster and smoother for us if I add some supplemental books for my younger ages.  I’d go to the library at the end of the week prior to a new tour stop and find 4-5 books that were related to the topic so that my younger children would have something we could read to help them understand.  

My youngest at two would listen to the supplemental books being read and do the coloring, that’s about it.  I didn’t expect her to understand or even really listen to what we were doing but she is all about doing what the big kids do.  

The next age using this in our family goes to my 4 and 5 year olds(well she turned 5 while we were doing this).  They again listened to the supplemental books and did the crafts with us but they also did some of the activities with us too.  They could comprehend and tell me about what we were studying but not do all of the activities or really understand the older aged reading in the course.

Going on up in the kids we hit my two 7 year olds.  These two are boys and they are 1st grade level.  They’re some smart little and really picked up on  quite a bit of the study.  They along with my 8 and 10-year-old girls who struggle(they’re both doing 2nd grade work) were able to do everything except where there was a lot of writing involved.  I was already doing the reading out loud or having one of my older kiddos read it so they didn’t have to do a great deal of reading.  When there was writing involved I just had them verbalize to me what was going on and what they would have been writing.

The last two children who were using this world history curriculum from Home School in the Woods on the Renaissance and Reformation are my kiddos in 4th grade.  They are ages 8 and 10 and it really fit them well.  They were able to do all of the stops and work on their own with minimal help from me.  There were of course some words and concepts that we spent time discussing because they were unfamiliar with them but all in all they did really well working through this.  

I can say after using this with so many age groups that it is geared towards the older middle school type grades but it also can be modified and used with other ages.  If you’re not interested in modifying you will not want to use it with anyone out of the recommended age range.  

If you’d like to learn more about Home School in the Woods or their online world history courses please visit their social medias of facebook, twitter, pinterest, and google +.  Also make sure to go over to the Main TOS Crew Blog Page as you’ll find the reviews from other TOS Crew members who were able to review their choice of the three time periods as well.