Techie Homeschool Mom (A Homeschool Crew Review)

There's a saying that says "All Roads Lead to Rome".. While the statement refers to the Roman Roads, it does remind me that when studying history, Rome plays a huge part in much of the story.  Whether studying the life of Christ, Egyptian History or even Greek mythology and legends, the influence of Roman is apparent even when you're not looking for it.  Hence, it's important to study and understand the history of Rome and it's culture.

For the last few weeks, the kids have discovering more about the history of ancient Rome with Ancient Rome Online Unit Study, an online unit study from Techie Homeschool Mom   .


The Techie Homeschool Mom is an website that features various thematic unit studies for various grade levels.  From learning about holiday traditions all over the world, famous Americans, Astronomy, or artists, these unit studies take advantage of online resources to create lessons that are easy and educational.

Each unit study is created by Beth Napoli, a mother of 5 who considers herself a "geeky homeschooling mom".  Originally, Beth created these unit studies as a way to take advantage of resources available online to educate her own daughters. However, after the encouragement from others to share these units with others, Beth created the Techie Homeschool Mom site for others to have access to them as well.

We opted to review the Ancient Rome unit study because it looked as if it could easily fit in as a supplement with our current history lessons.  We are currently studying the rise of the Roman Empire, so this worked out perfectly for us and I have been able to fit this unit study in seamlessly with our existing lessons.

Techie Homeschool Mom unit studies are super easy to use.  Once logged into the website, the dashboard shows all the topics that are covered in the study.  For the Ancient Rome study, there are 50 topics that fall into 8 categories..  These categories include : Introduction to Ancient Rome, Roman Mythology, Daily Life in Rome, Roman Architecture and Engineering, Roman Government, The Roman Language, Entertainment in Ancient Rome, and Roman Military and War.  As each lesson is completed, it is grayed out, allowing for the student to quickly pick up where the lessons were left of once they log in again. 

Each lesson includes a combination of reading, videos, or activities that teach the subject.  For example, the "Touring Ancient Rome" lesson includes a video that featured a computer generated tour of Rome showing what the city would have looked at during Ancient times.   It also featured a website where the kids could read about the residential homes of the time.  There was also a second website that showed the kids computer generated images of what the homes would have looked like during that time.   After viewing the materials, the student completes the lesson by clicking "Complete and Continue", which grays out the lesson on the dashboard.  No other outside resources are required to complete the lessons - all the information is contained on the lesson page.

In addition to the lessons, students are encouraged to select an optional book for additional reading.  This is not required for the lessons but is part of the "Book Club" included in the lessons.  This book can be fiction or nonfiction and either is about Rome or features ancient Rome as the setting.  For our selection, the kids opted for The Book of Greek Myths by Ingri and Edgar D'Aulaire.   The kids opted to listen to the book as an audiobook during lunch breaks.   At the end of each section of the unit study, the students are encouraged to answer a question (found on the lesson page) about their book of choice.  Students are also encouraged to participate in an app version of the popular "Heads Up" game - although we didn't do this as the app wasn't downloadable to our devices and this is also an optional portion of the unit study. 

Included in some of the lessons are fun activities such as making a sundial, baking a Roman honey cake and creating a Roman Road.   These have all been tons of fun to work though, but I think the honey cake was the most popular with the kids.  We had never had a honey cake before and it only used three ingredients.  We all agreed it reminded us of a Dutch Baby, a breakfast food that we make on a regular basis but the kids were more excited that they (mostly Ashleigh) made it all on their own.

 We also attempted to make a model of the Pantheon.  Unfortunately, our dome didn't work out (Mom's fault). But it was fun even so and the kids did learn quite a bit about the Pantheon. 

We will continue using the Unit Study until we finish it, which we estimate will take us another two weeks at the rate we are going.  Other students could complete the unit study in probably two weeks or so, but we have been working through it at a slower pace since we are using it as a supplement to our other lessons.  Each section should take around 2-3 hours to complete on average but one of the luxuries of this course is that it is a self paced course, so it can be done at whatever pace the student (or the teacher) feels comfortable with.

For more information about the various courses offered by Techie Homeschool Mom, be sure to visit her website.  You can also find her at the following social media sites:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/techiehomeschoolmom/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TechieHSmom

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/TechieHSmom/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGI-La5pBP4oFnd9DCRCdVg

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/techiehomeschoolmom/

Members of the Review Crew were given the opportunity to review their choice of seven different unit studies, each aimed for different grade levels.  Be sure to click the banner below for the opportunity to read their reviews.

Creation Illustrated (A Homeschool Crew Review)

I tend to like unit studies.  The idea of having everything all in one, incorporating various subjects like science, language arts, social studies, and math all into one convenient package really appeals to me.

So when we were given the opportunity to review two unit studies from Creation Illustrated, my interest was indeed peaked.  Members of the crew were given the opportunity to review two unit studies :  Snow Unit Study and a study on Pine Trees.

We have a pine tree that sits outside our home.  Since the day we have moved into this home, that pine tree has been an important aspect to our everyday family life.  Its limbs have provided perches for hummingbirds as we observed them closer, it's sturdy roots and trunk have assisted in science experiments and it's long pine needles have been a part of nature and art studies.  Even the pine cones that fall from this tree have had it's lasting influence on the name of this blog, as Garrett use to collect so many of those pine cones that they became manipulatives in our early learning.

Because this tree has been so influential in our lives,  we decided to jump into learning about pine trees.

The Creation Unit study for Pine Trees is intended for grades 5-8.  However, there is a discrepancy in regards to this targeted grade range: while the website states grades 3-8, the unit study itself stated 5th-8th. After looking at the material, I'm more inclined to believe 5-8.  While the kids are slightly below this grade level, we were still able to work through the unit study together, they just required a bit of extra help.

Finding unit studies that tackle science from a Creation science aspect is rare. Both of these studies are written from the viewpoint of Creation science and use Biblical teachings as a platform.  Creation Illustrated's mission statement is to "share the wonders of God's creation by revealing fresh insights of His infinite wisdom, gentle touch, undeniable justice, redeeming love, and flawless design..."

I started by simply printing two copies of the first 13 pages of the unit study.  The full download consists of a 16 page PDF, however, three pages are the answer key to the various activities included. The first page of the study material has clickable links for outside links, such as articles and videos, where the actual material to be learned can be found.

 Once printed, I could simply staple them together and punch holes in them to include in the kid's daily packet of paperwork.

The 13 page study consists of 10 pages of activities that include a Bible study, vocabulary and word study,  a geography activity to locate where particular species of pine trees grow, a science study on how to identify pine trees by their needles, bark and pine cones, and even some math activities involving the Fibonacci sequence.

Ashleigh working on identifying various species of pine trees

This study also introduced us to Creation Illustrated Magazine, a quarterly periodical for all ages.  This was a periodical that I had not previously been familiar with. Part of the reading involved with the unit study had us reading an article entitled The Enduring Pine Tree, where we learned about the two oldest living trees on the planet - a pair of Great Basin bristlecone pine trees located in here in California.  Originally believed to be the oldest living thing on earth, the first tree, Methuselah is believed to be roughly 4,849 years old.  Later, scientists discovered that a nearby tree was actually older than Methuselah and is estimated to be 5,067 years old.

We read this article along with many others together out loud, enjoying the amazing photographs that accompanied each article. As this particular magazine was the Fall 2017 digital issue, we were able to read the article about the total solar eclipse that we had the opportunity to see last year.  We were in a paved parking lot of a convention center when we observed the eclipse, so we weren't able to observe the reaction of wildlife to the event.  So reading this article was really interesting to us.  It turned out to be a really enjoyable magazine for our family to read.  We were also given access to a free copy of the Winter 2018 digital issue of Creation Illustrated as well, as the article "Intricacy of Snow” is used with the Snow unit study.

Ashleigh recently had to memorize all the books of the Bible for Awana so the Bible study activity allowed her the opportunity to use her tablet to look up the required verses.  Ash did a great job looking them up and reading them out loud for Garrett to listen to and then we were all able to work together to complete the activity.

Researching Bible Verses on the tablet for the Pine Tree Bible Study

Working together on a word find activity.

But probably the best sign that a unit study works is when the kids take what they learn and apply it to what they observe outside the classroom.  For my kids, this meant heading outdoors for a nature walk and checking out the various pine and fir trees around the base.  The kids began taking the time to notice the amount and style of needles on the trees as well as if the cones produced seeds or airborne spores.  It's been lots of fun watching them discover a tree they hadn't noticed before and run up and start evaluating it.

While we have not yet begun working on the Snow unit study,  I have looked over it and it appears it will be equally as interesting for the kids. The Snow study follows the same format as the Pine Tree study, consisting of 13 pages of activities, links to videos and articles, Bible studies, math problems, and geography.  It's just really hard to for the kids to imagine snow when we live in an arid desert.

We really enjoyed the way this unit study was designed and learned a lot from it. I'll be purchasing the Joshua Tree National Park unit study in the very near future to learn more about this local park before we go this summer.    Also, we've already started planning a side trip when we go camping in Inyo National Forest this summer.  The kids said we ABSOLUTELY have to go see Methuselah and it's older cousin - if we can guess which trees they are lol.

For more information about Creation Illustrated Unit Studies and to purchase them at a 30% discount, visit their store at https://dv157.infusionsoft.com/app/storeFront/showCategoryPage?categoryId=6

Annual print subscriptions to the ad-free Creation Illustrated magazine can also be purchased at a 25% discount at http://www.creationillustrated.com/subscriptions.   Digital Subscriptions are currently in the works and will be added to the website soon.

You can also visit Creation Illustrated at the following social media sites:

Facebook:  https://ww.facebook.com/CreationIllustrated/
Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/creation_illustrated/
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/creationnature/pins/
Twitter:  https://twitter.com/CreationMag