Customer Reviews

Great Colonial America Projects You Can Build Yourself! (Build It Yourself series)

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3 star:		(1)
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This is a really great resource! I wish it had been in print when I was a teacher. Most books on colonial America tend to be a bit dry. This one is visually appealing, lively and would be very useful if your child had to do a report or was just interested in this time period. It covers all the usual things like who the colonists were, what they ate, wore, did for fun and so forth, but it also covers unusual stuff like crime and punishment and fire fighting. In addition, there are directions for dozens of easy projects such as making your Liberty Bell puzzler, marigold dye, dipped candles and a tin lantern. None of the projects take a lot of time and use easy-to-find materials - both big pluses.

An index and glossary help add to the book's usefulness. Overall, a definite pick if you're studying American history.

I purchased this book expecting "great colonial projects" for my homeschooled kids, and it delivered. A friendly tone draws young readers in, while drawings and graphics make the text visually appealing.

However, this author has created a far more powerful resource than that. Ms. Bordessa includes bonus features: a timeline of the Colonial period (divided by both colony and year), background of voyages, maps, a glossary, and text boxes with interesting facts and charts. "Spotlight on Famous Colonists" provides a biographical reference. "Colonial Words to Know" are helpfully placed near the passages where they're used and are also highlighted in the text. Facts are in a frame of reference children can identify with. (For example, the colonists traveled 2,700 miles across the ocean at 2 m.p.h., about the speed of a skateboard!) In this way, the projects link to the larger colonial world.

Even adults who flip through the book will learning something new. I only wish this book had been available the first ten years I homeschooled my children! But what a treat for those mothers with young children who want to bring the colonial period to life for them.

Connie Lapallo
Author, Dark Enough to See the Stars in a Jamestown Sky

This book has DYNAMITE projects, if you can spend a couple of hundred dollars on parts and ingredients.

No regular child has ready access to 2 cups of marigold petals ... 2 yards of cheesecloth ... food processor and sharp knife ... an armload of willow branches ...

I think this book is geared toward older children, junior high or high school. The book itself is interesting, the text long and smart, but the intricacy of the projects and the materials needed for the crafts is so frustrating for kids. As a parent, I want my child to do the crafts. Not me do them while he watches, right?

We have been loving the Colonial America book. We've already worked our way through most of it, enjoying the following projects: making a stick-and-hoop game, crafting a scented pomander (out of orange, cloves, and cinnamon), making silhouette portraits, weaving (with yarn and an oatmeal container), learning "fan talk", cooking Johnny Cakes (cornmeal pancakes), making tin plates out of foil and toothpicks, making signs for cabinetmaking and bookbinding shops, making tin lanterns...and more are planned.

Along the way, I have become very pleased with the amount of knowledge my children (7 and 9) are retaining. The projects truly do include items found in most homes, and most are easy enough for the children to do alone. The book is packed with so much detail and information on daily colonial life, as well as famous figures, stories, and timelines--it is now our go-to reference book on that time period. I can't wait to go through Kris Bordessa's other hands-on books.

I recently ordered this book as a resource for my elementary art classroom. It is full of activities I can easily adapt in the classroom as well as tons of valuable information on the history and time period. Fun facts and wonderful graphics! Highly recommended!

I bought this book the other day to suppliment our homeschooling curriculum. I was SO impressed. It was so much more than I was expecting. I thought it would just be a few projects and crafts that you could do with your kids to give them some impressions of Colonial life. I had no idea it would be so well thought out, with so many great historical facts. I really got the feeling that I had learned SO much more about how the Colonists had lived, in an everyday-type of perspective, after reading this book. My son and I are getting ready to start a Colonial History Unit and I am so excited. We are going to start reading the book together and do the projects as we go. And because there are so many interesting things in this one book, I'm sure it will take us a bit longer than I had originally thought. I can't wait to get started!

Hungry

Great Colonial American Projects is the dream book for teachers to help their students understand what real life was like in Colonial America. The author not only provides an array of inexpensive models for kids to build to "recreate" objects colonists used in their daily lives, she has also manages to write about history and historical figures in a way that will connect with kids and have them asking questions. I love to read history, and I enjoyed the spirited and informative style with which Bordessa writes.