Hands-On Ancient Greece Learning with History Pockets

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We spend a lot of time on the subject of history in our homeschool. I find it’s impossible to do much learning without it. And, for us, that’s great because we love the subject. One of our favorite ways to incorporate it into our school days is through hands-on projects. My kids are both tactile, kinesthetic learners so project-based curriculum works well for us.

I recently got the opportunity to review Evan-Moor’s Ancient Greece History Pockets in exchange for my honest review. And, because my 11-year old son has an unquenchable love for learning about ancient Greece, I jumped at the chance!

So, let’s find out what I, and maybe more importantly, my 11-year-old son thinks of Evan Moor’s Ancient Greece History Pockets.

 

 

Ancient Greece History Pockets

I’m not going to list a general product description because you can find all of that information by reading the listing for Ancient Greece History Pockets. I’m more interested in sharing with you how this worked with my kiddo and how it might work for you too.

We started out by making the first pocket and my son got excited right away to color the picture for the front. He also put the first bookmark together.

The bookmark may seem like the littlest part of these pockets, but it’s really one of the biggest for us. I am a huge fan of natural learning and a bookmark with fun facts and trivia on it is perfect for that. I  love when a simple thing like a bookmark gives my child the space to learn while they sit outside reading a book or when they’re in their bed at night before lights out.

 

 

Our homeschool incorporates a lot of child-led and hands-on learning and we have done a lot of casual learning about Ancient Greece. Mostly with projects and read-alouds that focus mainly on mythology and stories from the Odyssey. But, nothing that I felt was giving us a comprehensive overview.

Ancient Greece History Pockets pulls all of the important topics together for us. And my son is thoroughly enjoying it. Below I’ve highlighted 3 of the pockets we’ve worked on so far and some of the projects and activities for each.

Religion and Mythology Pocket

This pocket is actually number 5 in the book, but because my son loves the Greek myths so much we skipped to this one next. In the photos below he’s assembling a book of Olympian Gods. The pages in the book allow space for drawings that would represent each of the Greek Gods and Goddesses. He really liked this activity because it gave him a chance to test his knowledge of the myths and their characters.

 

 

Another activity from this pocket is writing a myth of your own. And, it is really well done. It not only provides a template to write your own myth, but it goes into detail about story elements, like character, setting, problem etc. It prompted some great discussions about the story elements in Greek myths.

I think the next history pocket product we’ll try is the Greek and Roman Myths Literature Pockets. It focuses specifically on the mythology stories, which I already know my son loves. So, now, that I know how well this curriculum works for us and what kinds of activities will be included, I’m excited to go even more specific into the topic of mythology for him.

 

Art & Architecture Pocket

In the art and architecture pocket, my daughter wanted to get in on the fun, so I printed her a copy of the Greek pottery page too.

The fact that I could allow my daughter to be a part of what my son was doing is huge. It is actually one of the things I loved most about using this resource. Many of the projects are simple enough that younger kids can join in while homeschooling. That doesn’t mean she’s understanding the full scope of the topics presented, as it’s for grades 4-6, but she is able to do the fun artwork and some of the projects along with us.

Evan-Moor has an Ancient Civilizations History Pockets for grades 1-3 that would be perfect for my daughter who just turned 7. So, I’m thinking of ordering that for her after seeing her get excited about the Ancient Greece pockets.

 

 

The architecture activities in the Art and Architecture Pocket are fabulous. We got our library books out and lingered over this one learning quite a few new things. The project below is a pop-up Parthenon!

 

 

Language and Literature Pocket

Ever since my son’s first time reading a Percy Jackson book he has been interested in the Greek language. And, this year we are learning Greek and Latin Roots, so this pocket tied in perfectly with that subject.

It includes a print out of the Greek alphabet, with phonetic spellings (thank you very much Evan-Moor;).

The activity for this pocket was simple and fun. My son had to write his name, phonetically, using the Greek alphabet. My daughter asked him to make her one too, so he may be repeating this activity soon:)

 

 

 

What to love about Ancient Greece History Pockets

Low-Prep

Just print and go. Also, each activity requires a very simple materials list of things most people already have at home.

Quick to Complete

My son needs a lot of breaks during school time and we don’t generally spend hours sitting at a desk to do our work. We roam around the house, go outside, eat a second breakfast…

So, my son and I loved that he could see progress on each pocket quickly. He was able to do an activity and enjoy the success of completion in one sitting.

Simple to Use 

Each pocket is clearly laid out with simple steps to complete each activity making it easy for kids to do their work independently. It also means that it’s easy for me to help him quickly when he does have a question. Leaving me the time I need to help his younger sister with her work when we’re all doing school together.

 

Final Notes

These history pockets are specifically designed with school teachers in mind and so are not consumable. Everything’s printed front to back, so you can’t cut out the craft pages without cutting into the next one. You will have to copy and print each page.

For teachers, that’s perfect as they can buy one book and make copies for an entire class. This is probably also a big plus for most homeschoolers looking to buy a resource once and use it for all of their children.

For me, I would have liked the option of a consumable book. Having just two children that are almost 5 years apart, I don’t generally feel the need to keep a resource at this price point around for years waiting for my daughter to be ready for it. But, it could also have something to do with our full-time RVing lifestyle and the fact that space is at a premium.

Either way, we love this resource and will be buying more History Pockets in the future. I put a lot of our curriculum together myself. And the number of hands-on projects and information included in these pockets would have taken me so much time to compile on my own. I am happily enjoying this high-quality resource as a way to simplify our homeschool.

 

Have you used History Pockets before? Which ones? Let me know in the comments.

Heidi