Review of Lewis & Clark: From Sea to Shining Sea, a Once-a-Week Unit Study

I’m excited to do a review today of an awesome product called Lewis & Clark: From Sea to Shining Sea. It’s a Once-a-Week Unit Study from Homeschool Legacy.

Are you familiar with unit studies? I have done tons of them in my homeschool career. What I usually do is pick a topic and then head to the library to check out a bunch of books, CDs, and/or DVDs on the subject. We then try to add as many disciplines as we can that fit into that topic: science, history, geography, writing, math, art, music, Bible, read-alouds of fiction and biographies, etc. We’ve done lapbooks with them, too. They are a great way to do school with the whole family–all ages!

So, here is one of the things that is great about Once-a-Week Unit Studies. They have all the research done for you!

You’ll find:

* All of the lessons are typed out for you to read. Just get some library materials and craft materials and recipe ingredients to add to it!

* Library book list (arranged by age, in alphabetical order, and with the Dewey decimal numbers). Our favorite was Lewis and Clark and Me: A Dog’s Tale!

* Photographs and drawings

* Suggestions for how to schedule your time (what to do each day of the week–it’s called Once-a-Week because the majority of the work is done on just one day. Read-alouds could/should be done each day of the week.)

* It’s very flexible. Use it for however it works best for your family.

* It’s Biblically oriented

* Field trip ideas

* Art projects

* Recipes

* The unit studies could be used at co-ops

If you have a child in Boy Scouts or American Heritage Girls, you’ll really love these unit studies. They have lots of badge projects included! It can be used for 4H projects, too.

At this time they only sell only physical copies, but plan on introducing digital versions in the very near future.

The first thing to do when getting your Unit Study is to read the section, Getting the Most Out of Your Once-a-Week Unit Study, located in the back. It will help get you off to a great start.

Here are some specifics for the Lewis & Clark unit study:

* It’s 80 pages long.

* It has enough material for 7 weeks.

* All books and DVD ideas are included.

* The cost is $21.95

* It’s really fun and interesting!

* Recipes are included (like Crawfish Etoufee) and some great projects (like making a journal and a mold of an animal track).

* Each week has a different focus:

Week 1: New France (animal tracks, beavers)
Week 2: Thomas Jefferson, Napoleon Bonaparte, and the Louisiana Purchase (zydeco music, architecture, Lousiana/Cajuns)
Week 3: Fixing for a Start (map, plants, Newfoundland dog)
Week 4: Sacagawea Joins the Corps! (American Indians, birds)
Week 5: Trials and Tribulations (buffalo, bears)
Week 6: Ocean in View! Oh the Joy! (otters, Pacific Ocean)
Week 7: Homeward Bound (wolves, Old Faithful, horses)