Homeschool Review: White House Holidays Unit Studies #hsreviews #UnitStudies #LaborDay @silverdalepress

I've always been enamored with the White House.  Actually, let me just be honest here and tell you that I had always planned for it to be MY house one day.  I really thought that I would be the first woman President when I grew up and I even had a Political Science major with an American Studies minor in college.  I was preparing myself for my future.  During my Master's work, the Presidency was my emphasis of study.  I have read countless biographies and autobiographies of Presidents and their First Ladies and I've enjoyed learning all about the house in which they live.  Fast forward [just a] few years and you can imagine how excited I was to get my hands on the White House Holiday Unit Studies by Silverdale Press LLC.  I couldn't wait to "dig deep" into how the holidays are celebrated at the White House and I wanted to share the rich history behind the how and why with my daughter.  I love celebrating and I thought it would be neat for us to learn about how some of the major holidays that we most enjoy have "roots" in the Presidency.  What a fun way to bring government and history to life!

Way back in the day (when there were still four children learning together), we did some of our best school via unit studies and I loved it.  I really liked being able to combine several different grades of learning while sharing activities as much as we could.  I've always enjoyed having us work on projects around the kitchen table and discuss topics in the living room, but now that there is only one scholar left at Long Leaf Academy, it is not always so easy to find high school appropriate unit studies.  What I like about the White House Holiday Unit Studies is that they are written by a homeschooling momma who gets that whole "group learning" thing and knows that we want easy.  Jill Hummer has walked in our shoes and she understands what we want and need.  She even walks the extra mile by making her studies interesting for high schoolers and she pushes them into excellence with extra discussion.  Jill combines the fun of holidays with the history and traditions of the many American Presidents they are tied to using historical narratives, primary source documents, and easy-to-find supplies (which is mostly stuff that you already have on-hand).  How's that for perfection?

There are currently six holiday unit studies available:  Christmas, Labor Day, Martin Luther King, Jr., Thanksgiving, Valentine's Day, and Veterans Day -- and a George Washington study is in the works.  Each of these unit studies are suitable for use with students ages 5 - 18 because Jill has written separate lesson plans for K-6th grades (elementary) and 7th - 12th grades (middle school/high school).  I'm down to my very last homeschooler and my daughter is completing her Junior year of high school, so for review purposes, our focus has been on the high school lesson plan, BUT . . . if your family is like mine used to be, you can easily utilize each of the studies in a group learning environment.   The different sets of lessons (K - 6 vs. 7 - 12) in each Unit Study cover similar information, share the same titles, and contain some of the same pictures, but the high school lessons offer a much more in-depth study than do the elementary plans.  For example, in the Veterans Day Unit Study the elementary lesson plan is 4 1/2 pages long, while the high school lesson plan is 8 pages long.  Each Unit Study is comprised of 3 -  5 lessons and each lesson in a study is followed by suggested worksheets or activities and many of the activities can be used with children of all ages.

 All studies are available via download as a PDF file and each study has a separate Answer Key document.  You can utilize them right off of your computer or iPad if you choose, or you can print the file, 3-hole punch, and add the sheets to a binder if you prefer a hands-on copy like me.  I printed each of the Veterans Day (49-pages) and Labor Day (53-pages) studies in their entirety.   I did NOT print any of the Answer Key files, choosing instead to check answers right off of my computer.

Because my daughter and I visited New York City this year, we chose to begin with the Labor Day Unit Study.  Having toured the Immigration Museum at Ellis Island and walked the streets with crazy-high buildings towering over us, it was easy to understand how unfair labor conditions and forced child labor was a problem at the height of the Industrial Revolution.  Pictures of  NYC tenement buildings and crowded streets included in the study helped us to identify and fully grasp the concerns that Eleanor Roosevelt felt needed to be addressed.

Divided into 3 lessons, the Labor Day Unit Study suggests a minimum learning time of 6 1/2 hours of study with additional activities that can expand the study as interest dictates.  Learning Outcomes are stated for each lesson.  My girl read through each lesson independently and then answered the accompanying questions (pictured below) which opened up much discussion for us as we did a then and now comparison.  My mother-in-law worked in a sewing factory for many, many years and she was able to shed light on the conditions found there and offer examples of changes made over the years to improve the work environment.  The unit study provided a great backbone for living history.

One of my favorite parts of the study was the inclusion of primary source documents.  I think it is very important for all of us to see real-life pictures and articles and be able to read the words of presidential speeches.  Included YouTube links offer a multitude of learning experiences and give fodder for extended study.  We visited Chicago a few years ago and Lesson 3 of the Labor Day study took us right back to the heart of the city as we learned that President Cleveland sent federal troops in to restore peace when disgruntled workers began to riot.  Through our study, Labor Day became much more than a last-fling of summer cookout and helped us both to understand the baisc principles of the Fair Labor Standards Act and WHY it is important to us today. 

After working through the pages of the Labor Day Unit Study, we chose to begin looking at the Veterans Day Unit Study as a way to honor the many veterans in our family.  Did you know that Veterans Day was originally called Armistice Day and that it will be 100 years old this year?

The three lessons that make up the Veterans Day Unit Study include readings, crossword puzzles, study questions, pictures, maps, and practical ways to be involved in your community on Veterans Day.  This study was especially fun for my girl as she was served as the County Veterans Service Officer at Girl's State.  She enjoyed sharing with the girls in her county the many ways that they could actively observe Veterans Day in November.  One of the suggested activities was to attend a Veterans Day parade or event in your community and we did just that when we held posters and cheered on the soldiers at the farewell parade of our local National Guard unit when they were deployed overseas.

My daughter enjoyed studying President Wilson's Fourteen Points Speech and completing the Armistice Day crossword puzzle:

I plan for us to repeat a portion of this unit study in November (there are so many great ways for us to be involved and I want us to do more) and I'm looking forward to including the rest of the White House Holiday Unit Studies in our regular school schedule.  I always intend to celebrate holidays with my family and the very fact that I can make them fun and educational at the same time encourages me to do just that
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I was given the opportunity to review the  White House Holiday Unit Studies from Silverdale Press LLC as a member of the Homeschool Review Crew.   Make sure that you visit the  Crew Review to see what other members of the Crew thought of these unit studies and the Persuasive Writing & Classical Rhetoric: Practicing the Habits of Great Writers ages 14-18 course, too.  You can click on the picture below to jump right over there.  

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