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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

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Start the Homeschool Year Off Right: 5 History Ideas for the First Week

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

Don’t follow me. Okay, wait follow me, just don’t do what I would do when I started the new homeschool year, which was BORING!

Look at starting the homeschool year off right by using some of these 5 history ideas for the first week or second, or . . .

Start the Homeschool Year Off Right. 5 History Ideas for the First Week @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Hands-on Homeschool History

One// Play a card game.

A few years ago, I reviewed a card game by Birdcage Press and we fell in love with it and added it to our history.

Also, this Ancient Egypt Top Trumps Card Game is another great option.

The best part about these card games is that it is for ages 6 to adult, so everybody can play together and start the year with a fun kick.

Two// Cook a meal or dish from a certain time period or event.

This is always a hit with the kids. Who doesn’t like to eat something delicious?

Then to add some science to our history we have been eyeballing this book, which is for middle grades but could easily be adapted for other grades.

Then, look at some of these dishes we have made:

Three// Grab my history coloring pages.

If you have kids that are younger, love to color, need a break or just want to do something different to start off history with, grab one or more of my fun 20 Ancient Civilization history coloring pages.

Four// Begin with a living book, which brings history alive.

Don’t start off your year with snoring boring textbooks (zzzzzzzzz). Grab one of these 20 Ancient Civilization History Living Books.

Five// Pop some popcorn and get your history on by watching a movie from Netflix.

Your kids will love you for this one because they’re not sure if you’re having school or learning. You’re doing both.

Look here at Homeschool History Teaching Ancient Civilizations Using Netflix.

If you want some more tips for teaching history, look here at

Avoid teaching history in a boring way, it’s not about dead people, but it’s about the events and details that bring history to life.

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.

Medieval History for Homeschool Middle School

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

When I got our box of the Medieval History Pack history curriculum from Beautiful Feet Books, I almost passed out from excitement.  Also, look at my page homeschool middle school for more fun tips.

Medieval History for Homeschool Middle School using Beautiful Feet Books or history living books @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

I was given free curriculum from Beautiful Feet Books 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. When I do accept a review, it’s because I’m giddy to tell you about it. Read my full disclosure here.

For just a moment as I opened up the box from Beautiful Feet Books, I had a flashback to my public school high school years when I learned about the Middle Ages from a history teacher who wasn’t a rule-follower.

My teacher planned a huge high school medieval feast to kick off our study and because I answered the most questions correctly about medieval history, I was crowned medieval queen. Complete with costumes and activities, I won’t ever forget the fun of learning about history in the older grades.

Memory making moments from my high school years stuck with me and hands-on history and living books became part of my must-haves for my homeschool.

Beautiful Feet Books has been part of my homeschooling journey for many years because it fits my criteria of how history should be covered in the middle and high school years.

When my first son, Mr. Senior 2013 was in Kindergarten, I used Early American History with him. Next as I folded into my day Mr. Awesome 2016 and Tiny, we used the Early American and World History and the Medieval History Sr. High levels.

You can read my article, When We Used Beautiful Feet Books as our History Spine to grab more tips about how I use Beautiful Feet Books.

Beautiful Feet Books Living Literature for Middle School Homeschool @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

However, because Tiny was young when I studied medieval history with my older two sons, I felt that Medieval History Pack was a better fit for us right now.

Living Literature Bringing Medieval History Alive

Look at some of the reasons why we love using the Medieval History Pack.

  • Living books should be a staple of any great course about history and we just can’t get our fill of them. Tiny started off reading The European World, Beowulf and then on to King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. We always have trouble following the teacher’s guide because once you get hooked on a living book, you can’t put it down. It’s important to mention here that though I have used a lot of living history books in our study, I value the fact that Beautiful Feet Books spends time culling over the very best ones so that I don’t have to. Again, with this level, we were not disappointed.
  • If you have kids that are middle or high school level, I know you can relate to the struggle in keeping history entertaining and educational because so many programs want to move away from interactive activities to exclusive book learning. Making us choose to either prepare a child for rigorous history in the upper grades or making it entertaining seems to be two choices homeschool curriculum providers throw at us. I reject that mentality which is why many times I come back to Beautiful Feet Books. They show us we can and should have both when we homeschool our older kids.
Beautiful Feet Teacher's Guide @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus
  • Also, the teacher’s guide gives me the freedom to incorporate living literature as a unit study because it is filled with teaching ideas, but it is not overly complicated. In other words, I don’t want to have to follow a schedule exactly, but just want a framework to work within.
  • However, if you run short on time the teacher’s guide has just enough guidance if you want it. For example, it has vocabulary words for the reading, ideas for hands-on activities, and of course geography and history helps.

How to Make Learning About Medieval Geography Stick

Medieval map work using living literature @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Another reason that we wanted to use Beautiful Feet Books was to incorporate geography in a hands-on way that sticks.

Don’t get me wrong. Computer programs and pre-labeled maps are super resources, but learning the nitty-gritty of geography happens when you can dive into it.

Middle Ages Map using Beautiful Feet Books @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Making a map of the medieval world as suggested in the teacher’s guide is what piqued our interest. Creating a hand-drawn map and taking time to label regions and cities helps Tiny to remember what Europe looked like back then.

We are off to a great start using his map and we can’t wait to add more to it as we will continue on with our study this year.

Does Teaching History Develop Essential Thinking Skills?

Beautiful Feet Books has never been about having to move fast with quick bites of history. I don’t want my sons rushed when it comes to understanding the ideals of the past because it affects the way people think today.

Too, let’s just face it. When it comes to medieval history, we not only want to dig deeper, but we want our kids to savor learning about knights, castles and jousting.

That takes time.

You’ll love these ideas for literature and hands-on ideas from Beautiful Feet Books.

Look at these other things I want you to know about.

  1. It is a 35 week program, which means it is a year long program. You just can’t rush the richness of the points learned in the literature.
  2. If you are looking for a day by day guide, this is not your program. If you want wiggle room to add your own spin to it but to have some ideas for each week, you’ll love the flexibility of the teacher’s guide. I added in our own science. Look at Medieval Chemistry and Homeschool History.
  3. With the book choices, it easily adaptable for high school. Look here at the suggested credits for high school.
  4. The teacher’s guide has answers and the definition of the vocabulary words in the back of the book. Did I mention it is in beautiful color?
  5. I did notice a few links that were not up to date, but I found them easily on the home page of the suggested link. Again, having the other links for extra reading is a huge benefit to helping Tiny understand this time period and I appreciate him being able to use his iPad along with reading the books.

I won’t hide my obvious bias and love toward Beautiful Feet Books because it has been around for a long time and there is a reason why. Simply, it works.

Learning about history should be action-packed and motivating. With a framework to work with for studying medieval history, you’ll love this curriculum.

You’ll want to see how I used one of the living books, The World of Columbus making 5 days of Free Printables for a unit study. Also, look at 8 Ways to Teach Homeschool History Other Than Chronologically and Should Homeschool History Be Covered in Chronological Order?

What do you think, will this curriculum work for you?

Hugs and love ya,

Signature T

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Medieval Chemistry and Homeschool History – Fun Hands-On Activity

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

Medieval chemistry and homeschool history is about hand on today. Medieval Chemistry had early beginnings although we don’t always think about the medieval period as that time. Also, look at my free 4 week Middle Ages Unit Study for more fun.

I shared Medieval Homeschool History – 4 Surefire Ways to Beat a Boring Study when we started using Beautiful Feet living history books.

Medieval Chemistry and Homeschool History. Alchemy was a 'science' back in Medieval times. Look at this fun hands-on activity over @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

We have been loving reading about the Middle Ages, but I wanted to add some science in with our history and reading.

Although the Middle Ages is not really known for its scientific discovery, the ‘science’ of alchemy was a popular idea.

The Forerunner of Chemistry in the Middle Ages

Trying to turn different base metals into gold I’m sure kept early alchemists busy discovering new things.

Today, I thought I would do some basic chemistry with Tiny so that he understands how early alchemist felt.

Alchemical_Laboratory

Alchemy was probably the forerunner to chemistry today.Though Tiny now knows that he can’t turn egg yolks into gold, he used to think about that.

However, he is always up for some fun chemistry.

Medieval Chemistry and Homeschool History

Look at this easy hands-on activity to do when learning about Medieval history. Color changing is about as close to gold changing as we get to today.

Grab these items.

  • 5 small jars
  • 1/2 head of red cabbage
  • sprite or I used diet 7up
  • cream of tartar
  • baking soda
  • vinegar
  • lemons or lemon juice
  • big microwavable bowl
  • colander
  • pitcher
Medieval Chemistry 1 @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus
Medieval Chemistry 2 @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

After Tiny grabbed everything, I used half of a head of red cabbage and put enough water to cover it somewhat.

Medieval Chemistry 3 @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus
Medieval Chemistry 4 @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Then, we put  the bowl in the microwave for about 10 minutes.

While the cabbage is in the microwave, Tiny put a 1/2 tablespoon of vinegar in one jar, 1/2 tablespoon of lemon juice in one jar and we repeated this for each item.

One ingredient in each jar.

Medieval Chemistry 5 @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus
Medieval Chemistry 6 @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

When the time was up for the red cabbage in the microwave, I used a colander to put on top of the pitcher and strained the juice. (Whoops, ignore my morning glass of cold iced coffee. I do love my coffee. )

Since the water is hot, it makes it easier to experiment if your kid can pour it into each jar using a small pitcher.

Because the cabbage juice is a ph balance indicator, each ingredient will turn different colors depending on it’s acidity or alkalinity.

Water has a ph balance of 7 and acids will have a lower number and alkaline items will have a higher number.

Medieval Chemistry 7 @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus
Medieval Chemistry 8 @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

For example the lemons have a low number and the baking soda turned blue-ish because it has high alkaline.

Look at this nifty scale for understanding about ph balance.

Medieval Chemistry and Homeschool History - Fun Hands-On Activity

You can experiment with more ingredients. Just remember this is chemistry so be sure you know what you’re doing because it can be dangerous combining ingredients.

I felt pretty comfortable with these things because I did them with my oldest kids.

However, there is nothing like your youngest child being able to do the things he had just watched his older siblings doing when he was little.

Besides, this fun activity helps Tiny to get into the spirit of discovery like they did in the Medieval times.

We used Beautiful Feet’s Medieval history because we love living literature!

Medieval Chemistry and Homeschool History - Fun Hands-On Activity

Can you add a bit of chemistry to your study of Medieval history?

Also, look at Medieval History for Homeschool Middle School.

Hugs and love ya,

Signature T

Look at how we used Beautiful Feet before in When We Used Beautiful Feet Books as our History Spine and also look at How to Use a History Spine to Build Your Study of History.

Medieval Homeschool History – 4 Surefire Ways to Beat a Boring Study

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

We’re studying Medieval homeschool history and knights and castles make for a fascinating study of the medieval times. Also, look at my free 4 week Middle Ages Unit Study for more fun.

However, many other topics and vocabulary words can make it hard and well, flat out boring to study this time period.

Getting lost in the medieval world where definitions of words and topics are not things that you or your children hear and speak everyday can make you feel like you’re sinking when you start studying about them.

Medieval Homeschool History - 4 Surefire Ways to Beat a Boring Study @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Medieval Homeschool History

Today, I am sharing 4 surefire ways to beat a boring study.

They have worked for me when we studied this topic before and how I will be incorporating them again when we study medieval homeschool history next.

We are excited to move on to medieval history and we will be using Beautiful Feet because you know I love their books and how they give a framework to guide you in the study.

However, I also love Beautiful Feet because they fit my criteria needed to complete a meaty and fun history unit study.

4 Surefire Ways to Beat a Boring Study

Take a look at these 4 things to include when studying medieval history.

1. LIVING BOOKS.

Living books are a must-have to cover history eras, which may be hard or boring to explain.

Too, when studying history where there may be fewer primary resources, fictional history can stir a child to think about the “what if”.

Teaching facts and making a story relevant to current life is the advantage of living books. Mix in fictional history and your child’s curiosity is sparked.

I love the living books used in Beautiful Feet’s medieval history study because reading about King Arthur, Robin Hood and Beowulf draw my boys into thinking what it would be like to live back in those times.

That is the beginning to expanding on subjects that are important, like inventing the first printing press, which may or may not interest your children.

2. HANDS-ON HISTORY.

My second must-have or must-do when studying time periods that are difficult to understand is to add hands-on projects. Hands-on history hooks a kid on a topic they’ll remember on into adulthood.

They not only make a subject come to life, but motivate a kid to keep digging into deeper topics. Take a look at 10 Ways to Hook Homeschooled Kids On History.

3. VOCABULARY WORDS DEFINED.

Vocabulary words are normally better understood and defined when they are read in a book because it helps your kids to understand their relevance.

That is still important when studying the ancients or medieval, but because of how archaic the language can be, I find that defining vocabulary words separately too is absolutely necessary to making the meaning clear.

I don’t believe in a long drawn out process that takes away from whatever it is your kids are learning at the moment. Narration is a perfect tool to incorporate at this point.

Writing them down helps to reinforce them too so that your kids don’t get lost in the out of date language.

4. MAPPING AND GEOGRAPHY.

Lastly, geography is important to visualizing the medieval world.

Then, a connection can be made to the modern world.

Geographical boundaries and names can change, but land forms can stand the test of time for a much longer period.

When a child sees where events take place at, then maps become not just a boring paper with names to memorize, but a picture from that time period.

It’s easier to understand how the environment affected the way people thought and felt at that time.

Living books, hands-on history, out of date words defined and geography are four surefire ways to beat a boring study about medieval history.

You’ll love the literature lists put together by Beautiful Feet. They are my go to place for guides and literature.

I can’t wait to get started with our unit study.

What do you like to include in your study of medieval history?

Hugs and love ya,

Signature T

Also, look at how we used Beautiful Feet before in When We Used Beautiful Feet Books as our History Spine and also look at How to Use a History Spine to Build Your Study of History.