Review: Pirates or Privateers: You Decide Micro Study from Homeschool Legacy

Ahoy there me Hearties! We have been on a fun adventure exploring the history of pirates and privateers with the Pirates or Privateers: You Decide Once-a-Week Micro Study from Homeschool Legacy.

Homeschool Legacy was started by a homeschooling mum who found unit studies were a good fit for her family. Her unit studies provide fun, hands-on learning experiences for the whole family. She has created these Once-A-Week Micro Unit Studies to easily slip into any homeschool schedule. They are geared at children in grades 1 through 8 and have been created for the whole family to enjoy together. They require minimal prep work and supplies and are designed to be used three times a week, taking approximately 30 minutes each sitting. These studies provide your children with an in depth study on your chosen topic.

The micro-studies that Homeschool Legacy offer are:

How did we go?

Upon receiving the digital download for this product, I printed it all out. There are many links throughout the study for printable worksheets and information. I went through and printed out a copy of each of the worksheets for the boys. This unit study contains 23 pages and is set up as a four-week study. The activities for each week can be completed in one day or over a few days, it really depends on how your children are coping with the unit study.

At the beginning of each week is a short list of supplies that you will need. Stationery supplies included a 3-ring binder, printer paper, hole punch, coloured pencils and a globe. Other supplies include movies, board games and written material which you can find online or in books. We had trouble finding the suggested movies for families to watch together in our library, but we are in a country town. We did borrowed a few books on pirates from the library though as our boys became really interested the life of pirates.

This micro-study covers:

Week 1 – Early Pirates
Week 2: The Era of Privateers
Week 3: Pirates of the Caribbean and The Age of Buccaneers
Week 4: The Gold Age of Piracy

After reading the recommended book, Treasure Island, we made a start on the unit study material. All of the lessons covered history with some covering geography, language, music and art as well. Depending on the activities for each lesson, sometimes we did them all in one day, others, like the composition/story writing, we did over a couple of days.

Our boys have really enjoyed their time completing this unit study. I found it very simple to follow and enjoyed how easy it was to incorporate into our homeschool. Even though it was only a short study, taking a few weeks, it was quite thorough and provides a good variety of activities for children to complete. I believe that older students should be able to complete this unit study and its activities independently, though it is more fun to do as a family.

Overall, we have really enjoyed using this Pirate or Privateers: You Decided Once-a-Week Micro-Study from Homeschool Legacy and have this unit study to fit our family very well.