Learning About History with a Fun, Hands-On Lapbook from Home School in the Woods {A Homeschool Review Crew Review}

Disclaimer: I received a FREE copy of this product through the HOMESCHOOL REVIEW CREW in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way.

We again had the opportunity to supplement our history lessons with a great resource from Home School in the Woods. We have been learning about colonial times in America, working out way up to the American Revolution, so when we had the chance to use the Benjamin Franklin K-2 Lap-Pak, I was quite excited. It sounded like a fun way to learn more about one of our founding fathers.

I'm always amazed at the perfect timing of these reviews for Home School in the Woods resources. When we were learning about Ancient Egypt, we were able to review the Ancient Egypt Timeline and the Tomb Dash File Folder game.  And then, several months later, when we were focused on Ancient Greece, we had a chance to put together the Ancient Greece Timeline. A year later, we were given the opportunity to review people and events that we had learned about, plus learned new information from the same time periods, with the Timeline Collection. Home School in the Woods has such awesome products, and I was so thrilled that we were able to try something a bit different this time, one of their Lap-Paks, which we used to make an awesome lapbook all about Benjamin Franklin.

What did we receive?

We received a digital download of this Lap-Pak. Once I downloaded it to my computer, I just needed to open the files and get started. There is an Images file, an MP3 file, and a collection of PDF files. Of course, in order to use the Lap-Pak, I needed to print out the files, so a printer and printer ink is needed. I am so glad that everything is able to be printed out with black ink. In order to add color, some of the files get printed out on colored paper or card stock. And of course, there are plenty of pictures that the children can color. In addition to normal school supplies, you may also want to purchase a 6"x9" manila envelope, double-sided sticky tape, Velcro, and ribbon. We actually got by by using glue in place of the sticky tape, yarn in place of the ribbon, and chose to print out the binder-sized story instead of the booklet, so we didn't need the manila envelope. A gallon-sized zippy bag is great for storing the different projects in until they are all complete and the lapbook is ready to be assembled. The one thing you won't be able to get by without is the file folder, if you plan to make an actual lapbook project.

The main portion of the download is the collection of PDF files. These are broken into three sections: Introduction, Lapbook Projects, and Reading Text.

In the Introduction you will find:

• Booklet Directions (for putting together the Ben Franklin story in booklet form)
• Ben Franklin Introduction and Directions
• Ben Franklin Lapbook Assembly
• Ben Franklin Project Directions

You could choose to print out the directions, though I prefer to keep the directions up on the computer screen to save ink. 

The Lapbook Projects file contains the bulk of the Lap-Pak. There are 12 projects:

• The Franklin Family
• Leather Apron Trades
• Ben Franklin, the Printer
• Printer's Type 
• Ben, the Good Citizen
• Poor Richard's Almanack
• Franklin's Inventions
• Benjamin Flies a Kite
• Documents
• Vocabulary 
• Pocket of Virtues
• A Timeline of Ben Franklin's Life

Also included in the Projects file is the Lapbook cover, which is a picture of Benjamin Franklin.

The Reading Text file contains the Benjamin Franklin story is three formats, allowing you to print it in the way that works best for you. 

• Individual files of each page so you can print them off one at a time
• Full booklet text file for those with the ability to print duplex
• Full-size text file for printing on normal sized paper and placing in a folder or binder

I chose to print it out on normal sized paper, because knowing me, I would have messed up the booklet printing, printing pages upside down or something and would have had to start again. Yes, been there done that. 

So, how did we use the Ben Franklin Lap-Pak?

I chose to use this resource with both Hannah and Harold, even though it states it is for children in K-2nd grade. Personally, I think it is very much appropriate for children up to 4th grade. Children in the lower end of the grade range will still need a parent to read most, if not all, of the text. Older children, like Harold and Hannah, are able to read the information for themselves. All children in this age range should be able to work on the projects independently, as long as they can cut, glue, and color. 

I started out by printing the story pages and the first project, The Franklin Family. The children colored the family picture while I read, and then we worked on filling in the blanks on the informational sheet.

The remainder of the projects were given to the children to work on independently throughout the review period.

I would usually print out one or two projects at a time and explain what needed to be done. They colored, cut, and/or glued to finish the individual projects, then we stored them in a zippy bag to keep everything together.

There was a lot of information for the children to read, and sometimes we read it together. There were some projects where I had a choice whether to have them write the information themselves or print out the pre-printed information. Families with younger children could definitely benefit from being able to use the pre-printed pages, but at 8 and 10 years old, I figured Harold and Hannah were definitely capable of writing the information themselves. As an added benefit, they got to work on their penmanship. Plus, the process of physically writing does help get that information into the brain. 

They were able to write the vocabulary words and are working on writing some of Benjamin Franklin's saying in the Poor Richard's Almanack booklet.

There was so much information to learn, both about Benjamin Franklin and colonial times. 

We learned about different trades:

We learned about Benjamin Franklin's job as a printer and a bit about how printing worked.

We learned about his inventions and his work in the community.

And of course, who hasn't heard of Ben's experiment with the key, the kite, and lightning?

We put together a Pocket of Virtues. There was a short explanation of each virtue and the children had to write the virtue and draw a picture to represent each one.

And, of course, Ben Franklin played important rolls in political endeavors, leading to the drafting of important documents in the founding of our country.

Then they read through the Timeline of Ben Franklin's Life and added in the pictures for certain events.

Once all the projects were complete, it was time to assemble the lapbook:

Hannah says the lapbook was fun and a fun way for people to learn about Benjamin Franklin. She loved that there were pop-ups (Benjamin Flies a Kite and Ben Franklin, the Printer).

I really appreciated this lapbook and how much information about Benjamin Franklin is provided. There is so much I didn't know, and I was learning right alongside the children. The instructions were clear and easy to follow. I love that written directions were provided as well as pictures of the projects and completed parts of the lapbook, showing us exactly how to put it together. 

If you are learning about colonial America or the time of the American Revolution, this would be a great supplement to enhance your child's knowledge of an important figure in our country's history. Of course, I've always been a fan of hands-on learning, and this lapbook didn't disappoint.

You can find Home School in the Woods on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest.

They even have a blog! As we are focusing on American History, maybe you would be interested in reading about Using Time Travelers to Teach American History. Not exactly sure what a "Time Traveler" is? You could check out their What is a Time Traveler post. There are seven different Time Travelers available for American history. Starting with New World Explorers and extending through World War II.

Being an election year, you may even want to check out the U.S. Elections Lap-Pak.

These Time Travelers are some of the products we could have chosen to review, as are Project Passport studies and other Lap-Paks and Activity Paks. You can read reviews for all of these different products by clicking on the link below.

Littles Learning Link Up: Penguin Unit- Lesson 3: Comparing Penguins of the World

Littles Learning Link Up is back on Tuesday!!

Each month you will find:

• Posts where I share what I have been up to with my elementary-age children and the preschoolers I work with at our homeschool co-op (including occasional highlight posts where I share how we used ideas that have been linked up here on Littles Learning Link Up).
• The occasional round up post.

Each week, I will host a link up, where you can share either what you have been up to recently, or old posts that may go with the theme.  Feel free to link up more than one post.

Each week I will continue to feature a couple of posts from those that have been linked up. 

I hope you will continue to share your wonderful posts, and I hope you will find something new to try with your child(ren).

It would be great for everyone to stop by and visit the other linked-up posts as well. Check them out, leave some comments, pin those that interest you. Let's make this a real party and socialize with each other.

Here's a peek at what we have been up to in our homeschool.

We are still working on geography with Let's Go Geography. Though in our history reading, we haven't gotten past China. Tabitha has gotten a few weeks ahead of us, because she does her reading independently. She has also started reading a book about George Washington from YWAM Publishing.The younger children and I will read through it slower, using the unit study that we received. 

I'm working on Reading Comprehension with Hannah, using the PRIDE Reading Program. We also received some Early Reader Box Car Children books that Harold read quite quickly. I plan on him rereading at least one to do some sort of project with it.

Moving on to our preschool lesson:

We have been continuing with our penguin lessons.

We sing the songs I came up with every week.

Did You Ever See a Penguin (tune of Did You Ever See a Lassie)

Did you ever see a penguin, a penguin, a penguin

did you ever see a penguin waddle around?

Waddle this way and that way, waddle this way and that way

Did you ever see a penguin waddle around?

See the Penguins (tune of Mary Had a Little Lamb)

See the penguins standing there, standing there standing there

See the penguins standing there,

In Antarctica

They would go tobogganing, tobogganing, tobogganing

The would go tobogganing

Down the snowy hill.

Of course I have motions and movements for these like our songs from last year.

We also sang our snowy, winter songs from last winter.

We read the book Penguin and Little Blue by Katherine Tillotson.

In this book, Penguin and Little Blue are together in an aquarium and they end up going on "tour" throughout the United States. However, what Penguin really wants is to go back home to Antarctica to be with his own kind. At the end of the book they end up taking a ship there and Little Blue stays with Penguin. 

This sort of led into a discussion of different penguins and how they live in different parts of the world. We learned that the blue penguin wouldn't have lived on Antartica, but over near Australia and New Zealand. I showed the children pictures of eight different penguins and we learned their names and where they lived, plus how tall they are. 

I made little copies of each penguin picture for the children to glue onto a map I printed out and glued into a file folder.

We put the penguins where they live. It does make me curious how many people think all penguins live in Australia. Did you know the majority live on the islands north of Antarctica, and then there are those that live on the southern tips of South America and Africa?

Before the lesson I taped black pieces of paper together to represent the different penguins' heights.

Then, the children took turns measuring the "penguins" with my tape measure.

After we were done measuring each one, I hung it up next to the emperor penguin we made the week before. We didn't make the other ones into penguins because I wanted to be able to reuse the paper.

Then we began a salt dough hand penguin project that I had seen on Messy Little Monster. I had the children help measure and pour the ingredients for the salt dough. Then I kneaded it/

We gave the children a piece big enough to flatten out for their handprint.

It wasn't until two weeks later that they got to paint their penguins as most of our class was gone the following week. 

They started out by painting the handprint white. The palm was the iceberg and the fingers were the penguins.

Then they painted the outer part blue for water, and we helped them paint the black outline and flippers, plus add feet and orange beaks. 

Aren't they cute. Sadly, we had forgotten to poke a hole in the top while they were still soft, so they couldn't hang them up as planned.

The week that we only had a couple of children, we made lapbooks I had purchased from Mrs. Jones Creation Station to learn more details about penguins, such as anatomy, life cycle, where they live, what their prey is, and what preys on them, some more different types of penguins, and what they are, can do, and look like

Our unit wrapped up and we started a unit on Under the Sea.

Here are a couple of things I would like to share with you:

Penguins, Penguins All Around Round Up

Arctic Fun Round Up

Now onto:

Littles Learning Link Up Features

On my last Littles Learning Link Up post, there were 6 wonderful posts linked up. I will be sharing a the most clicked on post, plus a randomly selected post.

Please, don't forget to stop by other posts that are linked up. See what catches your eye, stop by, pin the post to a relevant board, and perhaps leave a comment to let the author of the blog know you have been by for a visit. I know I appreciate others commenting and letting me know they have read my posts, so I am sure others do too.

This week's most clicked on post is:

Gale from Imaginative Homeschool shared A Heart-Full Kindergarten Valentines Day.

This week's randomly selected post is:

Megan from My Full Heart shared ABC Jesus Loves Me: Year 1, Week 3

Join the Party!

I would love to have you join in this week! What sort of activities do you do with your young children? Do you have some favorite activities you would like to share? I invite you to link up below. I will be pinning posts on one of my relevant boards, and I would love to feature some of the activities each week from what is linked up.

Please know I may share a picture from your post and link back to it, along with sharing how we used your idea in our school time. By linking up you are giving me permission to use a picture from your post. I will ALWAYS give credit and link back. Additionally, if you choose to try out any of the ideas with your child, please make sure you give credit where credit is due.

Linky will be open through Monday night, to give me time to check out all the posts and get the Features organized. Please take the time to visit some of the other wonderful posts linked up.

No button currently, and there won't be one until I can figure it out seeing as Photobucket has changed things. Feel free to still share the picture in place of the button. Just link it to my Littles Learning Link Up permalink please.

I am sharing over at

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter