Indoor Garden Musings: Chronicles of…A State History Notebook from Hewitt Homeschooling (Schoolhouse Crew Review)

We received this for review purposes!

Product Links: Chronicles of . . . A State History Notebook (in binder)

Vendor Information Link: Hewitt Homeschooling

Age Appeal: Ideal for grades 3-8

Format: In a three-ring binder, 100 pages, printed on heavy stock paper

Price: $19.95

Have you been looking for a fun way for your family to learn more about your state or any other state?

Chronicles of…A State History Notebook from Hewitt Homeschooling is a notebook filled with space to fill out information about your state. Since it has been placed in a three-ring binder there are pockets on the inside to put maps, brochures, and extra items. The outside of the notebook has space to fill out the cover or to slide pictures of your own.

The inside of this book has:

An Introduction
Student’s Title Page
Facts, Symbols, Emblems
Geography, Population
Industries, Jobs
History, Government
Miscellaneous, Field Trips, Photographs

Some of the activities include mapping, tourism, state government, and writing a poem. Many fun filled hours of learning about the chosen state.

Our Experience:

We were excited when we had the opportunity to review Chronicles of . . . A State History Notebook. It was a notebook where we would fill out current and historical information about our state. We live in two states during the year, Wyoming and Iowa. We chose Wyoming, because we are currently in Wyoming.

During the review period we worked on filling out the notebook three to four times during the week. We had started out by working on it a certain number of minutes per day, but we had to change. It often took us more than our designated time to work on one page.

B, C, and I took turns writing the information we learned from the various state books we checked out of the library. We also used the computer and the World Almanac.

As we continue to work on this book I know we will learn more and more about the state we love. This notebook will be something we will enjoy looking at and studying for years to come.

I think we will have to work on one for Iowa next.

Mama’s Thoughts:

I thought the layout of this book was a lot of fun and I liked how it was divided into sections. The layout was neat, because each page had photo corners. I liked being able to go to the section I wanted and then having all of the information at my fingertips.
The only thing I did not like was that there were no page numbers. It would have been very helpful to have the page numbers, so we would not have to flip through so many pages to find the page we wanted. I understand though if people added more pages it would not work, so tabs to divide the sections would work out very well since there are no page numbers.
My favorite part of this book was the section for photographs and reports. They had fun selecting and print out pictures to glue into the section.
I was really glad that our state had just a few counties and most of them had straight edges and corners. It would have been very difficult to draw the 99 counties of Iowa.
I really liked how geography was included. It is great to learn more about a state’s geography. I liked the sections for the forest, wildlife, and water. B and C had a lot of fun drawing the different wildlife. I thought it was especially exciting to learn the different water resources in Wyoming. There were more rivers lakes and reservoirs that I thought there were. That is especially important in such a dry state.
I am grateful for the introduction for the parent/teacher. It gave me some good ideas on how to use this notebook.

B’s Thoughts (boy, age 10, officially in fifth grade):

I liked Chronicles of…A State History Notebook.

I thought it would be very helpful if there were page numbers, so then we could look it up in the table of contents. For example if you wanted, “My Favorite Place in the State,” you could just flip to the desired page.

My favorite part was the “Photograph Album,” because I got to put in my own photos.

We got to go on a field trip to Fort Caspar. It was a lot of fun and we wrote a report about it.

I really liked drawing the different wildlife of Wyoming. Drawing a moose was my favorite thing. I also drew an elk, bighorn sheep, and bear. This was my favorite part.

C’s Thoughts (girl, age 8, officially in third grade):

I liked Chronicles of…A State History Notebook. It was fun to do. My favorite thing was “Natural Resources- Wildlife.” My other favorite thing was the “Photograph Album.” It was fun drawing some of the counties for the map.

It is good for people of all ages. I recommend it.