Little Homeschool Blessings: Home School in the Woods: HISTORY Through the Ages Hands-on History Lap-Pak: U.S. Elections {Review}

Home School in the Woods has sent us a couple of review items in the past and we have always been pleased with the quality of information and the projects. (We especially enjoyed reviewing Project Passport World History Study: Ancient Egypt!). We have just been blessed to receive HISTORY Through the Ages Hands-on History Lap-Pak: U.S. Elections to review. We have never really studied elections and with the race on now, it is perfect timing for us to do a study.

The U.S. Elections Lap-Pak is a hands-on, history lap book designed for grades 3-8 (younger ages can work on this with a parent and older kids can work on it independently). It can be purchased as a download or as a CD. This lap book is designed to teach about the history of the U.S. government and the process of the United States presidential elections from the presidential campaign to inauguration.

Reading materials, audio of the text (over 60 minutes), masters, step-by-step directions, assembly instructions, photos, handouts for the projects, and additional suggested resources (books and links) are all provided. The U.S. Elections Lap-Pak includes 21 lap booking projects.

The study provides information about:

Different Forms of Government: rule of one, rule of few, rule of many, and anarchy
Governments that Inspired the Formation of the U.S. Government: Athens, Rome, and England
The Three Branches of Government: Legislative, Executive, and Judicial
Suffrage and Qualifications to Vote
Overviews of Voting for President, Vice President, Senators, and Representatives
Terms of Office and Term Limits
Political Parties
Caucuses and Primaries
National Conventions
Presidential Campaigns: stump speaking, platform, interest groups, media, propaganda, raising money, and statistics
Voting Day and Voter Turnout
Electoral College, Election Day, the Importance of Elections, and the Electoral Race
Inauguration Day
Important Vocabulary

When you receive your Lap-Pak, you will need to print off the necessary pages. Directions are provided for setting up the Lap-Pak into lap book form with file folders.

You can choose which size of book that you'd like to print off. One format is full-size page text or a booklet that is a typical page that folds in half.

To complete your lap book, you may want various colors of copy paper, coloring materials, scissors, adhesive (we used all of these: glue dots, two sided tape, packing tape, and glue sticks), file folders, a small rectangle of material, acetate or dura-lar, paper fasteners, and velcro dots.

An ideal way to use the Lap-Pak is for your children to work on the projects (lap book style information activity) while they listen to the audio. Working on the project in this way, keeps hands busy and minds actively involved in listening.

We chose to work on it differently. To start the project, we copied all of the pages necessary and began coloring cutting and assembling each of the pages. I decided that I would like to use a 3-ring binder to make an U.S. Elections book that we can keep in our library after the study for easy reference. So in addition to the other supplies listed above, we needed a three-hole punch, the binder, and card stock.

To give our book a cover, we attached the lap book cover to the front of the 3-ring binder.

Originally I though I wanted to make a mini-book, but when I printed the text out I forgot to make the pages 2 to 2 sided. Instead I decided on a full sized book. We put a cover and back page on with card stock.

It fits nicely in the front pocket of the 3 ring binder.

As we completed each of the projects, I attached them to a white piece of hole punched card stock and put them into the binder.

There are many types of projects: fold outs, slides, pockets, mini-books, pop-ups, wheels, lift flaps, and paper fastener swivels.

Once the book was completed, we began to read through the materials weekly. Our plan is to read through the information as close to the actual election process as we can.

Ceesa studies current events and it has been interesting to compare what she has just learned with what is happening.

There are several places where you have options for writing out the text or for using the text that is already provided. We chose to use the text that was already provided.

Generally, the girls and I read through a portion of the text together then we look at the project that goes along with it.

The girls like to look through it and try out the book we made. Since we chose to put the Lap-Pak in a binder, it is like a lift-the-flap book and so they really like looking through it.

We recommend checking out Home School in the Woods. The offer so many different ways to study history and in many different forms. You can see more about the different types of study materials in the video here.

I plan to look into more of their projects. We can't wait to see more of their Time Travelers series, the Project Passport World History series, and History Through the Ages.

Wishing you homeschool blessings,