Learning about Maps (Home School in the Woods review)

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.

My kids love maps. The older set (now teenagers) really liked to study and make maps when they were younger. My younger crop have also developed that love, so when I given the list of options to review from Home School in the Woods this year, I was excited to see their Maps Combo-Pak (US & World Maps) available.

The digital download kit includes two main folders: US Maps and World Maps. From there, you enter the PDFs folder, and there are the maps along with many other super useful tools for adding these maps to any curriculum as a supplementary product. This includes a cover and spine printout for making a maps notebook with your child. In addition to individual maps of each state (3 for each state), there is a whole section of historical maps you can pull from and print out. This includes things like Colonial America, the US during the Civil War, Growth maps of the US at several points in history (1800-1959), a full country map, and more. The other thing that’s really cool here is the Notebooking pages folder. If you run a notebooking-style homeschool, this is an invaluable resource. The Notebooking pages are designed for elementary students, and include some drawings and a small map for each state along with spots for your student to write in information such as state flower, when they became a state, and more. There is also a teacher’s key for each of these pages.

The World Maps folder is very similar to the US Maps, but as you might expect – they have maps of various continents, oceans, and countries instead of the states. It would be such a huge undertaking to include every country in the world in a kit like this, so for obvious reasons they had to narrow down the offerings. It’s primarily the continents; parts of Asia get their own maps (Japan-Korea and Russia) and Europe get their own maps. Australia and New Zealand share a map. There are also loads of maps of Biblical times, such as Paul’s Missionary Journeys and the Twelve Tribes in Canaan.

Most of the maps, both in the World Maps and US Maps folders, have a “typical” map with the major cities, mountain ranges, and rivers labeled; a map showing those spots but leaving them unlabeled; and a map with even more information missing (in the World Maps, primarily the name of the country; in the US Maps, this means a map of just the outline of the state).

Because it’s summer, my kids haven’t done too much with these maps yet, but we have printed out a few of them – primarily our own state. Once we hit September, I expect we will utilize these maps a lot more, especially the Notebooking pages. Those are going to make a fantastic geography study for my elementary school students next year.

For more information on Home School in the Woods, including seeing more reviews (including of different products like the Printable Essential Timeline Library), click through to the Homeschool Review Crew.

Blessings,

 

Bible Blueprints (review)

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.

The Teach Sunday School logo

Last year, I reviewed Bible Breakdowns from Teach Sunday School. Those were a product that gave you a short summary of each book of the Bible. Today, I have a very similar product to show you called Bible Blueprints (also by Teach Sunday School).

The cover image of the Old Testament and New Testament Bible blueprints

the bible blueprint for 1 JohnThere is one set for the Old Testament and another for the New Testament. The big difference between Bible Breakdowns and Bible Blueprints is that every single one of the Bible Blueprints fits onto a single page. If you print your PDFs in color, you’ll see an easy-reference color code that helps you to differentiate each part of the breakdown. At the top of each page is the name of the book, the order it appears in its respective testament, how many chapters it has, and its literature type. That part of the blueprint takes up just a small amount at the top. Just below this, there is also a short summary of the book. The main guts of the information is below that, broken down into color-coded segments. There are between one and seven of these segments per book, and they help you to understand what will be in the book, in the order it will be there. You know, like a blueprint!

I think these blueprints would be a good addition to anyone’s Bible study time. They would be an especially valuable resource for someone teaching a Bible class. You could give one to each person and use them as a reference sheet for the course. They won’t take the place of a different curriculum (if Bible curriculum is something you use), but for someone who wants to study the Bible on its own, they are a valuable resource to help guide you through the process of understanding what is in each book. They will show you what is there before you read it, allowing you to focus more on the Bible itself. Knowing the gist of what you’re reading in the Bible can be very helpful, so you’re less likely to be confused by the text.

Make sure to head over to the Homeschool Review Crew and see how other Crew members used these in their homeschools (since I wrote just an informational review today).

Blessings,

Tracking Healthy Habits with American Coaching Academy

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.

I have a really cool product to talk about today. From American Coaching Academy, we received the Healthy Habits Trackers digital download. This 17-page PDF is a fantastic resource that helps kids (and parents!) stay motivated for 30 days at a time in goals of all sorts. There are pages for household chores and being kind, and also for different styles of exercise – strength training, cardiovascular health, and flexibility (among others).

 

American Coaching Academy

It’s easy to print out the pages you want or need; each focus has many activities on it and one sheet of paper gets you through the whole 30-day challenge. You can print as many as you need for your family. I started with the locomotor challenge for my younger kids and the Boot Camp challenge for my teens. The locomotor activity page includes six exercises, and my kids had so much fun with these! There were a couple of them that the took days off from, but for the most part, they did all the exercises every day. For example, after 6 days of tiptoes, their calves were a little tired and they needed a break. But crab walk, army crawl, and bear crawl were so fun and didn’t even feel like work for them!

The teens were a little more skeptical, but not too bad. They enjoy working out (and have missed it since we pulled them out of dance due to Covid masking requirements in our area), so having something specific to do quickly motivated them and they also got almost every exercise done each day.

Healthy Habits trackers aren’t just about exercise though! There are other pages for all sorts of things, including helping around the house (with activities like feeding the pet and setting the table); healthy body (brushing teeth twice and drinking five glasses of water); kindness (complimenting someone and giving a hug); nutrition (food tracker); yoga (six different poses to track); cardio (jumping jacks and running in place); flexibility (a variety of stretches); strength training (squats and pushups); and general health (one item from each of the other categories).

If you have trouble keeping your kids on track with the things they need to do to stay healthy, you should definitely check out American Coaching Academy and the Healthy Habits Trackers. It may provide just the motivation you need!

Don’t forget to head over to the Homeschool Review Crew for more information and additional reviews, too.

Blessings,