Oh, how I love a good unit study! When my children were younger, all of our learning was done through unit studies. As they get older, I find we do fewer. I’m not sure if that’s because the subject gets too big for me, there are fewer options, or what, but we tend to have strayed from unit studies lately. So I was super excited when Home School in the Woods offered me the opportunity to try out and review one of their unit studies, Project Passport World History Study: Ancient Egypt.
Mummies, pyramids, and hieroglyphs have always fascinated my children, as I’m sure they do many of us, so choosing Ancient Egypt for this review seemed like a natural, but at the same time I was a little concerned that we were just going to be covering the same things they’ve already learned. I mean, we’ve read a few books, we’ve seen a few museum exhibits, and we’ve even made sarcophagi for our stuffies. What else is there? Turns out, A LOT.
The first thing I noticed about this is, it’s huge. This isn’t one of those little unit studies you get done in a week. No, there are enough activities and information in here to last you eight or more weeks. You will learn about everything from archaeology, religion, and famous pharaohs throughout their history to their everyday life, agriculture, and medicine.
The three of us worked on this unit together. My kids are in second and fourth grade, and this is geared towards third to eighth, so Little Man was technically a bit young by the recommendations. Because this is a subject that interests him, his age didn’t hinder him this time. I would not recommend going any lower, though. Like I said, there is a lot of information in here. It’s great if your child really wants to soak up everything about Ancient Egypt, but I know if the subject hadn’t been of interest to Little Man, he would not have been able to sit through this one. As it was, they both loved it. There are so many activities to choose from. Like, over fifty. Activities include a scrapbook timeline, 3D crafts, recipes, and a huge lapbook project. I think this is the biggest lapbook we’ve ever created. And side note: I always panic when it comes to lapbooking. I always require a Google search to tell me exactly how a lapbook goes together. It doesn’t matter how many times I do it, it will never be natural to me. I really appreciate that this study came with very clear instructions, including photos, for how the lapbook should work.
Both boys really enjoyed the hands-on elements of the study. Big Boy, my chef, probably enjoyed cooking traditional Egyptian foods the most. The recipes are pretty easy to recreate and delicious. There are enough recipes to create an entire Egyptian feast, but of course the boys’ favorite was Basbousa, a sweet cake with a honey syrup. Little Man’s absolute favorite part was dressing like an Egyptian. This part combines crafting with acting. The study walked us through how to make multiple pieces of an Egyptian costume, and in the end Little Man got to dress up and pretend to be a little pharaoh. They both really liked making cartouches from salt dough. I really liked that all of these things come with very detailed instructions and pictures, which makes planning SO much easier.
This study comes in downloadable or CD version, which means it requires you to print out things yourself. There was a lot of printing involved, because there are so many activities, but since you’re printing yourself you are able to pick and choose just what you need. I have realized that I definitely prefer digital units in which I can print myself rather than the print kind that I have to take to a copier. After breaking the library’s Xerox machine (true story), I’m very happy to print from digital files now. Your digital copy, whether downloaded or on CD, inclues all the master copies of projects, photos, audio “tours” in which a tour guide takes you through different aspects of life in Ancient Egypt, plus your Guide Book Text (information about the subject) and Travel Itinerary (the projects you can choose).
I love the way Project Passport is set up in a fun, travel style. For my kids, it helps engage them in the activity. My kids and I have had a lot of fun trying out this study. Because there are so many activities involved, we’re still working on it! The kids are loving soaking up all the information and activities. Little Man especially loves the audio tours. I definitely recommend this for older elementary, and I think there is definitely enough information to go really in-depth for middle school as well.
