Review of Project Passport Renaissance & Reformation from Homeschool in the Woods

Hands-on History Fun is what Home School in the Woods delivers with Project Passport Renaissance & Reformation. We had a blast together traveling back in time to a era filled with beautiful art, interesting philosophies, breathtaking architecture, and a rediscovery of the truth of the Gospel in Scripture. 

I was completely amazed by the depth, creativity, and hands-on fun this project contained. It was a blast!

Now, let me take you through our experience with Project Passport Renaissance & Reformation. 

When I first downloaded Project Passport Renaissance & Reformation, I felt a little overwhelmed. There were so many files!

Stop #1 took us the longest time. We made our scrapbook, started the luggage folder, and put our Scrapbook of sights together to fill later. Once we finished those things, we felt like we were in the groove of things. We decided to start the newspaper project later.

​I printed a bunch of pdfs and we started coloring.

At this point the group working on our Passport Project expanded to include older members of the family who thought everything was so exciting. 

"Why didn't we do this when I was in school?" someone asked. I was thrilled! It's never too late to learn more about the Renaissance and Reformation. ​

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We got busy coloring :)

At Stop #2 we colored snapshots for our timeline pages  for our Scrapbook of Sights and listened to the audio "A Day in Florence." 

"A Day in Florence" was an excellent audio. I loved the Italian accents. I was very impressed by the "tour guide" on the audio because I just traveled to Italy last spring and listened to many Italian tour guides, including some in Florence. It was like going back to my delightful vacation. 

At this point, I listened to several of the other audios and was again impressed by the quality of the dialogue, sound effects, and authenticity. Excellent job, Home School in the Woods. They audios are short enough for any attention span, but long enough to impart wisdom. 
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There were several activities at Stop #2, but my personal favorite was the souvenir cards. You make a page for the Scrapbook of Sights that contains a pocket to put the souvenir cards in and you can try the craft/activity/recipe on the card. Today's card was "Make a Fresco" with information and directions to make a painting on wet cement. Don't worry, no need to call a cement truck. We just used Plaster of Paris. Fresco secco is a process where the painter paints on fresh cement that has dried, but the most popular in the Renaissance was buon fresco, painting on wet cement. 

Stop #3 was very simple for us. We talked about ordinary life and the social classes in the Middle Ages, leading us on a rabbit trail about the nobility and different classes of nobility like lords, dukes, earls, and princes. We put together the Social Classes page for our Scrapbook of Sights, adding lapbooks to our page. This was favorite because of the outfits.  

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We decided to put our timeline pages into page protectors to keep them nice.

Project Passport is filled with hands-on fun like this visual on Social Classes of the Renaissance.

Stop #4 was another look at ordinary life with 3 souvenir cards for our Scrapbook of Sights: baking Springerle Cookies (like gingerbread), making a "Pouncet-Box," and creating a Masquerade Mask. We also made a dining guide. This was a fascinating glance at food in the Renaissance with familiar things like rice pudding or mince pie to not so familiar things like salmagundi and mustard greens. 

Stop #5 was all about art. We learned about the use of light/dark and linear perspective in art. Stop #6 introduced us to Michelangelo and, at Stop #7, we learned about Renaissance music. At Stop #8, we learned about Literature, Drama, and Shakespeare. Stop #9 was a fascinating look at Science, Math, and Astronomy where we learned about Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, and others who made major advances in science. At this point, we made a detour and pulled out some astronomy books from a creation perspective. At Stop #10, we learned about Inventions like gunpowder, printing, diplomacy, and mercenaries. Stops #11-#12 were all about exploration in other parts of the world. ​

We put together the Scrapbook of Sights and then we filled it with postcards, "souvenirs", and timeline pages.

During our studies of Stops 5-12, we worked on our timeline pages, coloring and gluing photos on pages to add to our Scrapbook of Sights. This was also true for Stops #13-#17 where we learned about the Reformations. This was a nice coverage of Wycliffe, Peter Waldo, Jan Hus, Martin Luther, Ulrich Zwingli, Menno Simmons, and John Calvin. There was also an entire stop on the Thirty Years' War, a horrible outcome of the Reformation. 

All in all, 13 stops were learning and adding to our timeline. 

Right now, we are at Stop #19. We have made the "Mapping the Reformation: France" for our Scrapbook of Sights and look forward to the other projects. We have postcards and souvenir cards. We get to make a crown, a tiara, and a circlet, too. 

Our Scrapbook of Sights is coming along nicely and we are eager to finish the entire project. ​

Home School in the Woods is amazing! They offer so many hands-on learning opportunities to make history come alive. I have to confess: I want to purchase all their products for my home school. 

Last time I reviewed their American History Newspaper Collection and we had a blast with that! They have History through the Ages Timeline Materials, Olde World Style Map Sets, Lap-Paks, Activity Paks, Activity Studies, Posters, Games, Notebook Studies, Crafts, and Dioramas. Looking through their website gets me so excited!

Would  you like to learn more about Home School in the Woods? 

Check them out at Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, and Pinterest. 

In encourage you to try at least one hands-on project with your kids this year and see how fun history can be! 

Until next time, Happy Homeschooling!

Warmly, 
Meredith Curtis

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