hands on history

I have a Switzerland unit study. Also, look at my page Best Homeschool Unit Studies.

Covering the history and geography of European countries has been light this year.

So I leaped at the chance to use CASE OF ADVENTURE travel series unit study, Destination Switzerland, The MEGA Travel Activity Pack and Cuckoo Clock Secrets in Switzerland. 

Also, Destination Switzerland unit study has many valuable parts to this unit study which makes it very convenient if you’re pressed for time or if you’re inexperienced in putting one together.

It is a hands-on geography and history study, has an easy (always my standard) huge lapbook, includes videos and background information for each chapter of the living book, Cuckoo Clock Secrets in Switzerland (it has a christian worldview) and is laid out.

Do you know how hard it can be to find all those features in one unit study? Our new Switzerland unit study was just too irresistible to pass up.

I was given this product for free and I was paid for my time. However, paid 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. Not every product will get a positive review. Too, because I carefully sort through numerous offers for reviews,  it means I’m giddy about the product when I do accept it. Read my full disclosure here.

Did I mention the book is about a homeschooling family that travels? We can so relate to that having lived overseas.

Even if you or your family have never traveled overseas you’ll love how Cuckoo Clock Secrets in Switzerland makes learning about Switzerland come alive.

Solving a mystery about an ancient coin while learning about geographical features and landmarks like the beautiful Matterhorn, cheese making, the culture of the Swiss people and of course cuckoo clocks not to mention yodeling, your kids will love this unit study.

Having used unit studies that required information based just on web links, which may be outdated, it was a breath of fresh air to have background information about the country of Switzerland that we could read about in Cuckoo Clock Secrets in Switzerland.

How to Learn About Switzerland In 12 Lessons

If you begin the unit study by printing the teacher’s guide which is suggested to do first, you can track which activities you want your children to do while reading the mystery novel.

The teacher’s guide, which I had coil bound has three parts.

Preparation, read-aloud and virtual travel and activities and craft are the different sections and from there you can choose which material you want to cover for the day.

Like most unit studies, it is not necessary to cover all of the material or print off all of the activities. A lot of the activities are geared toward younger kids like the fun Discovery Agent Clue cards.

One of the best parts we loved about the unit study was that you can learn about Switzerland in just 12 lessons.

Unit studies can drag on and details can becoming boring if you try to cover a huge amount of information.

Unit studies don’t have to last a month or bore your child if they’re not interested in certain sub-topics within the unit study.

Flexibility is the key to a well-written unit study. So if you want to learn at a slower pace, each lesson can easily be adapted into a two day study. Your unit study about Switzerland can last for a month if that is your pace.

Another way we have covered unit studies is to turn the 12 lessons into a unit study for the quarter. If your kids are especially young, all under 7 years of age, then covering the 12 lessons by doing one lesson per week keeps the unit study from overwhelming your young learners.

Geography Activity Packs

So what I’m saying is that there is enough activities to make Destination Switzerland unit study a quarter unit study or twelve weeks when you include the The MEGA Travel Activity Pack.

The MEGA Travel Activity Pack contains fun things like printable money, journals and airplane packs which really make the virtual traveling part fun.

Hands-on activities, not clicking numerous links are the heart of a well-planned out unit study and Destination Switzerland unit study has activities for both older and younger children to choose from.

Tiny really loved making Zopf, a Swiss style bread while we read about our adventure for the day.

Then, having created many unit studies, which include lapbooks and doing my series 10 Days of Diving Into Unit Studies by Creating a Unit Study Together with you, you know I love simple and uncomplicated lapbooks.

About Switzerland

Unless you’re working on your kids fine motor skills, having to cut every minibook and fill out every minibook can become monotonous though many homeschool moms continue to make their kids do that. Don’t forget that some of the prep work can be done when you help cut out the minibooks.

There are many lapbook minibooks to choose from along with information that your child can glue inside the books instead of a bunch of blank useless pages. Again, because I’m short on time, I prefer lapbooks that have back ground information that my child can glue in especially when we don’t have time to research every topic.

CASE OF ADVENTURE may be a good fit for you and your kids:

• If you don’t like to have to gather a lot of materials and you want background information at your fingertips.
• If you want to cover literature, history, geography and have hands-on ideas laid out for you.
• If you don’t want a complete unit study and prefer to add in some of your other subjects like math, grammar, a list of vocabulary words and spelling.
• If you’re like me and have multiple ages of children, you want the option of choosing hands-on activities for younger and older kids.
• If you don’t want to lesson plan and write out your lesson plan ideas each day.
• If you want the ability to cover the unit study in broad strokes, then do it in 12 lessons or if you want to expand it, then take two or more days, weeks or even a quarter to cover the unit study.
• If you like easy lapbooks like I do. My lapbooks are not lessons in how to color and cut. You can do that if you want to, but I want the emphasis on hands-on fun, not drudgery. Look at my post Beware of the 3 C’s of Lapbooking.
• If you want unit studies that use living books.
• If you want living books that follow a series. This is her first book and unit study. More are coming.
• If you don’t mind printing all of your material.
• If your children like to watch videos instead of doing research papers.
• If you’re inexperienced at unit studies and need one that is laid out.

About Switzerland

What I would like to see change.

There are some features that I feel could make this unit study more helpful.

Try to remember that I value organization because my time is limited. So some of these things I’m going to mention may not bother you, but I think they are worth mentioning.

It would be helpful if the Teacher’s Guide had hands-on activities, printables for hands-on activities and lapbook printable separated under each chapter.

Sections in the teacher’s guide for each chapter of the novel can be Read-Aloud, Hands-on Activities, Lapbook Printables and Media Content. This would help me not to have to take so much time sorting through them.

This would allow me to see the flexibility for each chapter. For example, one time we may not want to do a lapbook and may want to read and do just hands-on activities. The next time we cover Switzerland I may want to print out the lapbook.

It keeps all the content easily organized when you can see all the choices at a glance for each lesson.

Also, receiving two emails up front about how to print made it a bit confusing. Receiving setting up and printing instructions would be less confusing if they were only in the download. Then, it’s all in one place at my fingertips on my laptop instead of having to flip back to read my email while reading on my laptop.

Tightening up the places to go to read about how to do the unit study keeps it from being too heavy on instruction and more importantly gives you one place to read for set up and printing.

I know these are just organizational and cosmetic preferences. They don’t really affect the content which is really more important.

How to purchase it.

• Product Names: Destination Switzerland Unit Study, MEGA Travel Activity Pack, and Cuckoo Clock Secrets in Switzerland (Case of Adventure Travel Series Book 1) .
• Website: CASE OF ADVENTURE
• About the product: Cuckoo Clock Secrets in Switzerland is Book 1 of the CASE OF ADVENTURE Travel Series. “There was a cracking noise and the crumbling of mortar. Rome put his Swiss army knife to work and carefully ran it around the edge of the stone, scraping away the plaster. He
• signalled to Ren, who pulled harder. Suddenly the whole stone came away from the wall. Together, they slid it out and gazed at the gaping hole that was left behind.” Dive into adventure with Ren, Rome, Jake, Libby and Tiffany as they discover an ancient coin and a mystery connected with a cuckoo clock
• which takes them to the beautiful land of Switzerland. In their quest to solve the puzzle, they unearth some fascinating history and recover a lost fortune.
• Suitable for Ages: Younger (5 to 7 years old) Older (8 to 13 years old)
• Formats: Grab the book, Cuckoo Clock Secrets in Switzerland (Case of Adventure Travel Series Book 1), in Kindle or paperback and visit CASE OF ADVENTURE to purchase the Destination Switzerland Unit Study and the MEGA Travel Activity Pack.
• Worldview: The novel has a Christian worldview, but the unit study can be tweaked to add your view. The novel mentions Bible study and prayer. If you want a strictly secular view, it’s possible to purchase the lapbook which comes with the video content and not read the novel.That would be the best way to tweak it. Again, the novel is about a Christian family and there is a mention of a Christian life style in the novel, but the curriculum is not a Bible curriculum.

You’ll find helpful my post How to Grade a Homeschool Unit Study for an Older Child (& high school assessment) and Ultimate Homeschool Unit Study Planner – Which Lesson Planning Pages to Use.

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