Ancient Egypt Homeschool Unit Study – Hands-on and FUN!

I was given a free copy of Project Passport: Ancient Egypt and I was paid for my time. Compensated for my time does not mean paid off.  ALL opinions are my own and for sure I will always tell you what is on my mind. Your experience may vary. When I do accept a review it’s because I am excited to tell you about it. Read my full disclosure here.

History has been anything but boring for us because I have been determined to keep it hands-on. I have to admit though it is not always easy. When I find homeschool history programs like Project Passport: Ancient Egypt from Home School in the Woods that fits what I think history should look like, I am always delighted to share about it.

Hands-on Homeschool Ancient Egypt History

Though we are history lovers in our home, I know that teaching Ancient Egypt history can be quite boring if you don’t find the right resource.

Using Project Passport: Ancient Egypt from Home School in the Woods over the past few weeks has been by far the best curriculum we have used for studying about Ancient Egypt.

Look at some of these things that makes us swoon over this curriculum.

• Hands-on activities like mapping Upper and Lower Egypt, creating post cards and preparing a newspaper and recipes.
• It means a lot to me to have high quality clip art and not babyish looking quality printables for middle school kids.  The printables are high quality and are all labeled so that you can match them to the correct projects.
• There are a variety of activities to choose from to suit any learning style.  Tiny is my strongest auditory learner of all of my boys and he really was engaged by the beautiful sounding Mp3s like Touring Down the Nile, Interview with an Embalmer and Building a Pyramid.  I haven’t really used the curriculum the way they suggested by picking and choosing.  We tried to cram it all in because each project sounded as fun as the next one. We just had to taste a bit of everything. Along with creating minibooks, we created a passport, created a luggage folder (so cute), a travel itinerary, prepared the scrapbook of sights and snapshots of moments in history (timeline).
• It’s all laid out Stop by Stop. Even the text you need to read for each lesson is included. This makes it easy to pick up and go when you are short on time.
• The teacher’s keys are very helpful and Tiny was able to check his work on his own. I love that part.
• I REALLY appreciate a scope and sequence being provided so that I can plan or see what will be covered. I have to create objectives and lesson plan and the teacher in me finds this part extremely helpful.

Look at some of these things that you will want to know before you use Project Passport: Ancient Egypt.

• Details are important to history when you want to analyze them.  Topics are covered with an eye for details and not broad strokes.  If you want details, then it’s a great fit.
• It requires a good amount of time for start up because you will want to take time reading through all the directions for both laying out the projects and how to print them.  The payoff is rewarding but don’t look at speeding through the set up process.  This is a savor the time curriculum.
• Like high quality printables should be, you will want to use high quality materials like cardstock and color printables.  You can print gray scale too and have the option to color. I think it’s always an advantage to have both options of coloring or gray scale printing though.  Because this curriculum is sold by CD or downloads, your printer will be busy.
• Though I thrive in organization, having four sub-folders to navigate between might seem overwhelming.  It took me a few minutes to figure out that the Itineraries folder in the PDFs sub-folder was the place that I needed to visit at each Stop.  It has the instructions for the activities for each stop.  There are a total 25 Stops.
• It is important to remember that the printables cannot be shrunk, which a lot of printers do. If you do this, like the instructions specifically mentions, it throws off all the printables. An important detail that is easy to forget when you start printing at each Stop. Avoid precious ink and high quality paper by minding the details on each page.

Like a comprehensive unit study should be, you will want to let go of whatever else you are studying about so that your children can enjoy the creative writing, arts and geography weaved throughout each Stop.

Tiny is just about out of the dress up stage but he fondly remembers our hands-on activities with Ancient Egypt  (fun with cartouche and Lego pyramid) as we have used Home School in the Woods products through the years.

With this unit study, my focus was on reading the content and listening to the MP3s to prepare him for high school.

Of course, doing as many of the other hands-on activities that we could cram in is also my objective.

Because I couldn’t wait to share with you about how this unit study sparks a love for learning about Ancient Egypt and because of my love for pictures too, look at my first post Ancient Egypt and look at my second one Ancient Egypt Unit Study Part 2.

I have used many laid out unit studies.  Too, you know I have created my own lapbook printables because it has been hard to find history curriculum that has all the things I demand, which are detailed content, pristine clip art, high quality printables, an overflowing amount of hands-on activities and that can be used with multiple ages.

Project Passport: Ancient Egypt receives my highest praise and I can’t wait to grab the other projects in this series.

Thank You Home School in the Woods for the obvious time, care and detail that went into this curriculum. I am proud to be a reviewer of such an amazing product.

 Ancient History Series

Company Name: Home School in the Woods Publishing
Website: Home School in the Woods
Product Name: Project Passport: Ancient Egypt
Grades: 3rd to 8th, but I found that it could be tweaked up or down because of the numerous activities. Check out their scope and sequence to see the events
Type of Format: Cd or Download
Religious perspective but can be tweaked for a more secular version if you choose.

• Amazing Hands-on History Activities for 14 Ancient Empires (free notebook cover too)
• Fun Hands-On History: Ancient Egyptian Collar Craft
• Ancient Egypt Civilization (Hands-on History): Narmer Crown

Hugs and love ya,