As a change of pace in our homeschool we’ve added a unit study from Homeschool Legacy, a Once-a-Week Micro-Studies Cooking up History with the Founding Presidents. As a primarily classical educator, unit studies don’t typically fall into our norm. However, I have been intrigued and been interested in seeing how my kids would respond so I wanted to give this one a chance and knew it would be easy to add to what we have without much work.
Have you ever done a unit study? Do you like them? I know some people swear by them. I have to say – my kids liked it. It was definitely different than what we normally do, which is probably why it was a hit. And, they have a true interest in the Presidents. And…. my daughter loves anything that involves cooking.
What better time to study Presidents that during the forefront of a Presidential Election. I couldn’t be happier with the timing.
So what EXACTLY is Micr0Study?
Well, it’s a quick little unit study that you can use however you see fit in your homeschool. This we just added to our day. Since it’s once a week (thus the name “Once A Week 4 week Micro-Study,”) we were able to add it NO PROBLEM.
Frankly, I love learning about the Presidents so I thought it was great. And it’s quick, thus the “Micro” part of the title. It really was a fun addition!
What’s included in this study?
Homeschool Legacy has many types of unit studies available. This “micro-study” is one that is just that – micro, which is really a good thing for us. The study is a 4 week study of some of the well-known President’s of the United States. The study includes George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison.
Each lesson includes:
- The Presidents name and picture and vital information like birth and death date, Presidency dates and college, occupation, political party and religion
- A list of supplies needed for the week to do the cooking projects and crafts and what to read
- A history of the President
- Discussion of their wives
- “Cooking with” section
- “Did you know” section
There are links throughout that lead to videos, explanations of important things that happened in their life like Mount Vernon for George Washington, the Twelfth Amendment for John Adams, and War of 1812 for James Madison.
There are pictures of the President and his wife as well as links to a video to watch about each President.
There are coloring pages for some of the Presidents and a link to the recipe that is chosen for you the cook to go with the lesson as well as an explanation of why that particular recipe was chosen in the “Cooking with….” section.
What We Thought
We liked that the President study was brief but surprisingly thorough. We used it as a Friday study. I love anything that adds some life skills to our studies and cooking is something my oldest daughter has an interest in so this was a great mix for us. We learned about the Presidents together, talked about them, read extra stuff on them, watched the videos and then my daughter went to work on the recipe.
Since we had never used a unit study before, it was a little different than I expected but then I think it is a little more “micro” than some I’ve seen. But i liked that we could give it a try for something different on Friday. My daughter really liked getting to cook a recipe to serve to daddy in the evening.
My son’s favorite part was the “Did you Know” section, which had some interested tidbits about the Presidents, which he thought was really cool. Don’t want to spoil anything but he loved learning about John Adams’ pet at the White House.
There are several studies available from Homeschool Legacy. You can see what the rest of the Homeschool Review Crew thought of Cooking up History with the Founding Presidents and the other unit studies available from Homeschool Legacy like Thanksgiving with the Pilgrims and Christmas Comes to America , two good ones to consider this time of year. You can find out more about them by clicking the banner below.
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