Holiday Unit Studies
Holiday Unit Studies
Homeschool Review Crew
As part of the Homeschool Review Crew we recently received a digital copy of White House Holidays Unit Studies from Silverdale Press LLC. It focuses on the presidents or first ladies and how holidays came about. We spent our time on Labor Day and Veterans Day from the holiday unit studies.
We received all of the holidays in our download as well as the answer keys for them. Because we chose to work through them more thoroughly we are taking one week per lesson and have made it through two holidays thus far.
About the Curriculum
The holiday unit studies covers six different holidays and how they came about through the White House. This includes how the President or First Lady of the time went about creating the holiday and why.
The six holidays covered and how many lessons go with it include: Labor Day- three lessons, Veterans Day- three lessons, Thanksgiving- five lessons, Christmas- four lessons with six activities per lesson, Martin Luther King Day- five lessons, and Valentine’s Day- five lessons.
Each lesson should take a week if being used as designed or can take only one day if you’re working at a fast pace. The beginning of each lesson starts out with helpful information for the teacher called an Introduction and Overview.
The use of the terms Introduction and Overview really made me wonder about the authors of the curriculum. Joshua and Jill Hummer homeschool their four children. Jill previously taught college level history and political science class and also authored a book, various articles, and journals. Her husband, Joshua, provides a rich background for their homeschool as he himself was homeschooled.
How We Used
We used the more in-depth approach to the holiday unit studies. This means that we had fun and did all the activities! Plus I added in extra read alouds and basket books for the kids to read independently associated with our holiday. I personally love to read and am so pleased to announce that all of my kids share my passion. It’s a great way to add to any study or lesson that you’re learning. We luckily have two large libraries we frequent who will request items from other libraries for us so it’s fairly rare we can’t find a book we need.
I decided to use the K-6 portion of the curriculum for all of my kids instead of trying to do the K-6 with the majority while doing the 7-12 with two students separately. The two holiday unit studies that we spent our time on include Veterans Day and Labor Day. I feel these two holidays really don’t get much exposure other than people being excited for a day off.
I would say if you work straight through a lesson it would take you around 3-4 hours for the K-6 while the 7-12 are supposed to take a full day. We of course took one lesson for a whole week and easily worked at least one hour per day(five days a week) on the holiday unit studies we did.
Our Tweaks to the Curriculum
The lesson plans are very detailed and easy to follow. I often found myself skipping a part and coming back to it later though as I’ve always been a rule breaker. It’s hard for me to do things in the correct order when we get interested in something and want to take off learning more!
A for instance with us learning more would be of the Labor Day study where we went off on a bit of a tangent reading about Eleanor Roosevelt. She was such a remarkable lady and is definitely worth studying up on! Highly recommend reading about her life. This also happened in the Veterans Day study when we had to study more about WWI as well. My boys love wars and fighting so it makes sense that they had to learn more about that war and what set it apart from others.
I love that these studies made my kids want to learn. They showed excitement to do their lessons and really enjoyed the crafts. I, personally, don’t do well with crafts so having them laid out was a great help.
Learn More
Learn more about the other holidays in the holiday unit studies and also about the other product some reviewers received from Silverdale Press LLC. The second product offered, Persuasive Writing & Classical Rhetoric: Practicing the Habits of Great Writers, works for ages 14-18. The Main Blog Post contains all the linked up reviews for both possible titles. You may also find Silverdale Press LLC on facebook, twitter, and pinterest.
We plan to continue using the rest of the holiday unit studies though we might start doing them in the weeks leading up to the holiday they represent. I think that would provide a bit more fun. My kids are excited for the upcoming crafts as well.
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