Hopkins Homeschool

I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.

We love adding books into our learning whenever we can. When given a chance to pick a book from YWAM Publishing and their Heroes of History, I let Ray Ray pick one. He decided he wanted to learn a little more about Ronald Reagan. For the last few weeks, he has been reading Ronald Reagan: Destiny at His Side.

What It Is

For this review, we got a copy of Ronald Reagan: Destiny at His Side and the digital unit study guide. The book is paperback and just over 220 pages in length. The study guide is packed full of ways to use this book as part of your school curriculum. The beauty of these books, you can use them for school or just for fun reading.

This book starts with an exciting first chapter on the attempted assassination of President Reagan but then brings us back to his beginnings as a child named Dutch. As we read the book, we follow the life of Dutch as he works his way to becoming president. For my history buff son, this was fun and interesting to learn about Ronald Reagan’s life.

Going through the unit study guide, you can find ways to use the Heroes of History series as a complete history curriculum. Books like Meriwether Lewis: Off the Edge of the Map and Abraham Lincoln: A New Birth of Freedom allow you to move through the history of our country through the eyes of those who lived it.

How We Used It

As I mentioned, Ray Ray is my history buff son. He loves to learn on his own about events that have happened, so a standard history curriculum is rather dull for him. I allowed him to pick the book of the person he would like to learn more about and used the unity study guide to use this for his history. With the unit study guide, we took a simple book and were able to add in history, geography, and writing, among other things.

There is no right or wrong way on how to schedule this unit study. I opted to have Ray Ray read a chapter every other day. On the opposite days, he would work on the chapter questions. I had him keep a notebook where he could take notes and write out the answers to the questions. As we went along, I would also grab an idea from the student explorations, either writing or a hands-on project, to have Ray Ray complete.

What We Thought

Ray Ray is in love with this type of history learning. I love that I can pick and chose the different things from the unit study guide to enhance his knowledge of Ronald Reagan. Honestly, even if we were not using this for history, I can see Ray Ray just grabbing one of these books and reading it for the fun of it.

I love that the books are easy to read yet full of information. They are well laid out and work for family read-aloud or independent learning. The unit study guide is full of beautiful ideas that check your understanding of the book and bring it to life.

If you are looking for a change in your history curriculum or a way to add to it, I recommend the Heroes of History series. But you don’t have to take my word for it. Check out the other reviews right here.

I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.

History can be boring. But, it doesn’t have to be! We have been using Famous Figures of Ancient Times from Figures in Motion to add some hands-on fun with Little Miss’s history lessons.

What Is It

Famous Figures of Ancient Times is a paperback book containing 21 famous people from ancient times. There is a short description of each person along with a reading list that can go along with the book.

Each of the figures comes in two ways and all the paper is a heavy cardstock. The first version of the character is just a line drawing for your kids to color themselves. The second is a full-color version that just needs to be cut and put together.

The putting together is very easy, as all parts are labeled on the back. You simply match and attach. It is really that easy!

Famous Figures of Ancient Times can be a stand-alone history curriculum or it can be used as a resource to add fun to your current curriculum.

How We Used It

Our current history curriculum has reading that I read aloud to the kids. During this time, Little Miss would get the character that we were learning about that day (if there was one), or would catch up on some that we had already learned about.

After making her figures, Little Miss would be able to go around and create scenes with them to show dad and big brother what she had learned. This was a fun way to see if she was listening while I was reading.

While we used this as an added resource to our current curriculum, you could easily use this as a stand-alone history curriculum. With the information on each figure, you have a great base. There is also a great book list to add more learning for each time period.

What We Thought

The quality of this book was great! The figures are very sturdy and hold up to use after making them. It was fun to see those we were reading about come to life for my daughter. 

I really like that there are two options for each figure, so my daughter can decide if she wants to be creative or just give herself something to do while listening. Seeing that the list of figures included all the major ones from our history curriculum.

Little Miss used to be bored during history, but now she wants to do it first so she can make more figures. This is a great addition to our homeschool history lessons!

Figures in Motion have other time periods also. If you want to see those and see how other homeschool families used Figures in Motion in their homeschool, check it out over here.