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World War II Homeschool History: Minibooks Causes & Great Depression

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Our World War II unit study has been a fun start to our slow start to our year.

Free 5 Causes of War and The Great Depression minibooks for a World War II homeschool unit study and lapbook @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Because there are so many subtopics to consider under this time period, this unit study has been about painting broad strokes.

World War II

Like all unit studies, you can only cover so much material though it seems like you want to cover it all. Covering too many details can set us back in our unit study because the main points can get obscured.

So today, I have two more free minibooks, which are 5 Causes of World War II and The Great Depression.

There can be numerous causes to World War II, but highlighting about 5 of them for kids at the high school level is a great start for broad strokes.

Too, The Great Depression could be a unit study by itself, but by tying it in here to this time period, Tiny gets a larger picture of how life was back then.

Remember like most all of my minibooks, I give you choices because I like choices. So I have two minibooks, but they come in two choices. One minibook has facts in it and the other minibook is blank to allow your child to fill in his own research.

I offer these two choices because sometimes time is limited and you can decide to use one minibook filled in and one blank minibook, or both blank or both filled in.

Lapbooks are just small nuggets of quick facts and this one is no different.

We are almost ready to start adding the minibooks to the lapbook, but in the meantime we store them in a ziploc bag until we are sure we don’t want to create anymore.

More World War II Hands-on Activities

Because we do our unit study and lapbooks too as we plod along, I never have lapbooks in one giant download.

I also do it this way so that you can grab just the parts you need instead of downloading minibooks you may not need.

World War II Homeschool History: Minibooks Causes & Great Depression
World War II Homeschool History: Minibooks Causes & Great Depression
World War II Homeschool History: Minibooks Causes & Great Depression
World War II Homeschool History: Minibooks Causes & Great Depression
World War II Homeschool History: Minibooks Causes & Great Depression
World War II Homeschool History: Minibooks Causes & Great Depression
World War II lapbook and homeschool history unit study.

Hugs and love ya,

Signature T

Don’t forget to follow BOTH of my Pinterest accounts for more AWESOME pins.

Visit Tina Robertson’s profile on Pinterest.


Visit Tinas Dynamic Homeschool ‘s profile on Pinterest.

World War II Homeschool History: Life During the War & Pearl Harbor Minibook

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

I have World War II homeschool history life during the war and Pearl Harbor.

Making ration cakes wasn’t the only activity we have done to study about the affects of rationing during our World War II homeschool history unit study.

The other thing I did was to use something unique we have in our family to help Tiny understand what his great-grandparents went through during wartime.

Making ration cakes wasn’t the only activity we have done to study about the affects of rationing during our World War II homeschool history unit study. The other thing I did was to use something unique we have in our family to help Tiny understand what his great-grandparents went through during wartime. Grab these free minibooks: Life During the War & Pearl Harbor | Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus.
ration-book-tinas-dynamic-homeschool-plus

Besides, making history relevant is key to making it captivating. So I ask my mom to dig out the couple of World War II ration books from Tiny’s great-grandfather, which has been passed down to her.

After reading them and looking through the old books, Tiny was able to understand better what it meant to ration and to live during that lifetime.

Inspired by looking over a part of our family’s history though that time period, I created two minibooks for Tiny.

One minibook, which is Life During the War gives your child a place to write about life during wartime. The other minibook, which is about Pearl Harbor gives a few quick facts about it.

Both books are also done in cursive as I’m always looking for ways for Tiny to keep his cursive reading skills up and too this is a middle and high school level unit study.

More World War II Unit Study Hands-on Activities

The more the world goes digital and tries to tell me that we don’t need to read and write cursive, the more fixated I get on being sure my kids and your kids keep that skill alive. (okay, just had to say).

But back to what I saying, like most all of my minibooks, each book comes with two choices. Use the book premade with a few facts or use the blank book where your child adds his own.

Because we do our unit study and lapbooks too as we plod along, I never have lapbooks in one giant download.

I also do it this way so that you can grab just the parts you need instead of downloading minibooks you may not need.

World War II lapbook and homeschool history unit study.

Hugs and love ya,

Signature T

Don’t forget to follow BOTH of my Pinterest accounts for more AWESOME pins.

Visit Tina Robertson’s profile on Pinterest.


Visit Tinas Dynamic Homeschool ‘s profile on Pinterest.

World War II Hands-On History – Make Ration Cakes

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.


Continuing on with our War War II hands-on history unit study, we always manage to find a recipe or two that tastes pretty good and making ration cakes today was no exception.

Tiny liked the taste of these spice cakes and grew to appreciate war time cooking.

However, he did say the cakes were an acquired taste. This recipe is butter-free, milk-free, egg-free and white sugar-free and helped him to appreciate to make do with what you had on hand to cook with.

World War II Hands-On History. Make Ration Cakes @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

The recipe comes from the Great World War II Projects You Can Build Yourself book, which we are growing to love.

Hands-on History

Look at this pretty easy list of things you probably have in your house.

1. How to make World War II Ration Cakes @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup raisins
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground allspice
powdered sugar for dusting
Mixing bowl		3/4 cup honey
1 1/4 cup water
3 T. shortening like Crisco
1 1/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
12 paper cup liners/12 cup cupcake pan
Sauce pan

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees.

2. How to make World War II Ration Cakes @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

First combine the honey, water, shortening, spices, salt and raisins in the sauce pan.  Heat on stove and bring to a boil for 5 minutes. Then turn off and let the mixture cool.

3. How to make World War II Ration Cakes @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

In a mixing bowl, combine the rest of the ingredients, which are the flour, baking soda and baking powder. Mix it and you can sift the flour mixture for extra lightness, but Tiny didn’t. He just threw it all together.

4. How to make World War II Ration Cakes @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Then pour the cool liquid into the bowl and mix, but don’t overstir. Then pour the batter into cupcake liners and bake for 20 minutes or until the tops are golden brown.

5. How to make World War II Ration Cakes @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Next, Tiny sprinkles some powdered sugar on the top. The cakes were just perfect and helped us appreciate time period cooking.

Because we do our unit study and lapbooks too as we plod along, I never have lapbooks in one giant download.

I also do it this way so that you can grab just the parts you need instead of downloading minibooks you may not need.

More World War II Unit Study Hands-on Activities

World War II Hands-On History - Make Ration Cakes
World War II Hands-On History - Make Ration Cakes
World War II Hands-On History - Make Ration Cakes
World War II Hands-On History - Make Ration Cakes
World War II Hands-On History - Make Ration Cakes
World War II Hands-On History - Make Ration Cakes
World War II lapbook and homeschool history unit study.

How to Get the Free World War II Unit Lapbook

Now, how to grab the free lapbook. This is a subscriber freebie.

That means when you sign up to follow me, you get access to my subscribers library and this freebie.

However, not all my freebies are in the library (wink).

I like to keep up to date with what is valuable to you so I can give you more, some freebies you must sign up again on the form below even if you are already a follower.

And it’s the only way I have of freely delivering them to you. Just follow the steps below.

► 1) Sign up on my list.
► 2) Go to your inbox and confirm your email from the automatic reply I sent you. If you’re already a confirmed subscriber, you will not have to do this. You’ll receive the freebie instantly.
 ►3) Last step. look for my reply AFTER you’ve confirmed your email.

Don’t forget to follow BOTH of my Pinterest accounts for more AWESOME pins.

Visit Tina Robertson’s profile on Pinterest.


Visit Tinas Dynamic Homeschool ‘s profile on Pinterest.

World War II Homeschool History: Staged For War & Quick Facts Minibooks & Links

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

After we started our World War II homeschool history unit study with a hands-on activity from  Great World War II Projects You Can Build Yourself, I played a bit of time period music for us both to get the spirit of the 1940s.

Free minibooks for a World War II unit study and lapbook. Grab Staged for War and Quick Facts over @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

The tune is catchy and reminded us of Tiny’s ballroom dance classes, which he really enjoyed. So we started our day with a bounce from that music.

Before I share the free minibooks, Tiny chose and read in one day the book Story of the Second World War and we liked it because it gave a quick overview of facts.

World War II books for a homeschool unit study @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

What life was like in the 1930s to 1940s along with World War II are such extensive topics that it could overwhelm a student.

Reading a book like Story of the Second World War gives us facts in a nutshell. From there we can then take trails about what we want to learn in this unit study.

World War II

The other spine we are using and reading through is a high school textbook online which is Digital History.

So the first two minibooks in this lapbook I have for you are Staged for War and Quick Facts.

Remember too, like most all of my minibooks, I have a blank minibook, which allows your student to add in his own research.

In addition, most of the time I offer a minibook with a few facts added. I do this because our lapbooks have always been an enrichment to our homeschool unit studies and time can be limited for your student to research each subject.

For example, on this minibook, Tiny researched for one of the minibooks and the other one he used the premade one with a few facts.

Because this is a high school unit study, I also use the cursive font I have paid for to prepare these minibooks and for this unit study.

My goal with all of my unit studies is to continue to strengthen Tiny’s skills in both reading and writing cursive. So some of the minibooks are in cursive.

This unit study is easy enough to use with a middle school kid too, but still at a higher grade level.

Download below, print, research and have your students write in the minibooks and keep them in a ziploc bag until the end of the unit study and lapbook when we place them on the file folder. I will have a picture for you then.

Because we do our unit study and lapbooks too as we plod along, I never have lapbooks in one giant download.

I also do it this way so that you can grab just the parts you need instead of downloading minibooks you may not need.

More World War II Hands-on Activities

World War II Homeschool History: Staged For War & Quick Facts Minibooks & Links
World War II Homeschool History: Staged For War & Quick Facts Minibooks & Links
World War II Homeschool History: Staged For War & Quick Facts Minibooks & Links
World War II Homeschool History: Staged For War & Quick Facts Minibooks & Links
World War II Homeschool History: Staged For War & Quick Facts Minibooks & Links
World War II Homeschool History: Staged For War & Quick Facts Minibooks & Links
World War II lapbook and homeschool history unit study.

Hugs and love ya,

Signature T

Don’t forget to follow BOTH of my Pinterest accounts for more AWESOME pins.

Visit Tina Robertson’s profile on Pinterest.


Visit Tinas Dynamic Homeschool ‘s profile on Pinterest.

World War II Hands-On History – Make a Secret Message Deck

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Today, we kicked off our homeschool unit study about World War II with a fun hands-on activity, which is making a secret card message deck.

World War II Hands-On History - Make a Secret Message Deck. What a FUN way to kick off your homeschool unit study. Check it out

Let me back up first because I want to share with you my original post where I gathered World War II Free Resources For a Middle School Unit Study.

Using some of those resources and sharing more as we now kick off our World War II unit study, I like to introduce new unit studies with a hands-on activity when possible.

Spies, Lies and Secrets in World War II

I grabbed some of the books we had and one we love is Great World War II Projects You Can Build Yourself, which I used on this activity to pique Tiny’s interest.

And what better way to learn about World War II than to learn about secrets, spies and a secret message card deck. Not only did we learn a  bit about spies but it was a chance to sneak in some geography in a cool way.

We read about how a deck of cards could conceal maps to safety. Decks could be soaked in water to take away the top layer and messages would be inside.

So we decided to try this.

1 WWII Secret Cards Activity @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Looked at what we grabbed.

  • 2 decks of matching cards
  • pen or marker
  • scissors
  • rubber cement (you know the kind with a brush in it)
  • map. I used a map from our WonderMaps which is worth every penny because this cool program can be used over and over. All the maps are listed by theme. So I grabbed the World War II theme.
World War II Hands-On History - Make a Secret Message Deck
2 WWII Secret Cards Activity @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

So I printed the World War II map and then you fold the page in half lengthwise and into half again. Try to crease it well as you go along.

Secret Card Message Deck

Unfold it and smooth it out a bit and then fold it in half width wise, then again and one more time.

3 WWII Secret Cards Activity @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

When you open it up, you will have 32 sections. Take a pen and number each section in the top left of each section until you get to 32.

4 WWII Secret Cards Activity @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Hands-on History

Then cut the 32 sections out and now you have 32 tiny pieces ready to stick inside the center of the cards.

5 WWII Secret Cards Activity @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Next match all the cards from each deck until you have all matching pairs.

Then Tiny placed a small piece or section on the card and carefully glued the second matching card on top.

More World War II Unit Study Hands-on Activities

Be sure to not glue the small piece of paper, just glue around the edges.

Important tip: Be sure the cards are facing the same direction so when you turn it over, it looks like one card. In other words it has one back side and one face card side. Cool uh!

6 WWII Secret Cards Activity @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Tiny presented the cards to Dad to see if he could guess what was different about them. He never guessed there was a small message inside each card.

Too, since a deck has 52 cards in it, there is room to make more spy messages.

Can you tell which cards have been “doctored” above and have a message in them?

And what is better yet is that the pieces of the secret message can be put back together to form the map.

Secret Message Map @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

I think I have Tiny’s rapt attention on our unit study and he is ready to move on to the next part in our homeschool World War II unit study.
Because we do our unit study and lapbooks too as we plod along, I never have lapbooks in one giant download.

I also do it this way so that you can grab just the parts you need instead of downloading minibooks you may not need.

World War II Hands-On History - Make a Secret Message Deck
World War II Hands-On History - Make a Secret Message Deck
World War II Hands-On History - Make a Secret Message Deck
World War II Hands-On History - Make a Secret Message Deck
World War II Hands-On History - Make a Secret Message Deck
World War II Hands-On History - Make a Secret Message Deck
World War II lapbook and homeschool history unit study.

Hugs and love ya,

Signature T

Don’t forget to follow BOTH of my Pinterest accounts for more AWESOME pins.

Visit Tina Robertson’s profile on Pinterest.


Visit Tinas Dynamic Homeschool ‘s profile on Pinterest.