LitWits takes the hassle out of literary unit studies- everything you need for a unit study based on your favorite literature can be found in on click. We have been using LitWts for review and love them! These are also going to be perfect for summer and holiday projects when we read aloud a book, and need something hands on to go along with it. Y’all- LitWits have met all my needs! Like so many homeschool mamas, I *love* literature based learning and literary units-this was my favorite thing to do in college while getting my education degree. This. Is. My. Jam.

But the thought of collecting all the Pinterest and blogger ideas, supplies, and foods, coming up with writing projects, combining them into a unit study myself, and trying to implement it all is just not happening right now. But now LitWits has done it for me!

And not only have they done it for me, but it is organized, beautiful, and more than just a black and white printable file with instructions.

It has everything, it beautiful full color.

What Are LitWits Kits?

LitWits Kits are literary workshops for kids! Each kit is a 30-40 page PDF full of projects, activities, ideas for discussion, and handouts. Each section is professionally organized so you aren’t scrambling back through the file looking for what you need. Everything is so well organized for you- At the end of the unit, you will find Learning Links, About the Author, Story Supplements, Beyond the Book, and entire Audiovisual Collection section featuring pictures that help bring the book to life, and Great Quotes from the book.

But these aren’t your typical PDFs-when you go to your account with your purchased kits, click on the one you want to access. The kit will have a big, beautiful header with section titles:

Of all the many LitWits Kits available, we chose: Anne of Green Gables, Island of the Blue Dolphins (I looooved this book as a child), The Secret Garden, and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz to start off with. We have already read all of these books together, except for Island of the Blue Dolphins. (I cannot wait to read this in one of our homeschool cores coming up!) It will be such fun to go back and review using the LitWit Kits. The activities in The Secret Garden kit will definitely appeal to my green-thumb kiddos, Island of the Blue Dolphins with studying the stars, rocks, and cave art is going to be a favorite of my boy, and how can you go wrong with The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and green glasses, tornadoes in a jar, and the wonderful topics in the handouts.

As a mama and teacher, I appreciate that the creators of LitWits know how children learn and understand their multifaceted learning needs, especially when it comes to hands on:

 … we always try to focus on two important categories: props that are unique to the setting, because they help kids understand “what that was like,” and props that are symbolic of themes, because they make big ideas visual and tangible.

In our Anne of Green Gables kit we enjoyed making our own slate pencils, using carpenter’s pencils and fun crafting supplies.

Collecting suggested props for the overall bookwas easy- a scrap of fabric, old books, an antique reader, flowers (though we didn’t have the right kind, we pretended), and poetry books.

Of the hands-on fun, we chose to do the scene charades instead of acting out the optional scenarios. This was cute!

LitWits has narrowed down for us the many study topics to choose from in the Takeaways section-

… But such abundance can also sound pretty overwhelming! We’ve narrowed the focus to three bite-sized (but rich) areas, and based most of our activities and prop choices around these three “takeaway topics.”

This takes so much pressure and frustration out of putting together a unit study- thank you LitWits!

I really like that the handouts cover so many topics in depth.

“People laugh at me because I use big words. But if you have big ideas, you have to use big words to express them, haven’t you?”

We learned about storylines, using context clues to deduct the meaning of an old fashioned word, and characterization. What’s even more great is all the answer keys for the handouts are included after their blanks page, so it is easy and concise to find answers when you need them. Also, this can help mama when she needs her creativity jogged for helping with different literary elements. There were activities that involved creative writing, and a simple character essay; there is a great focus on rich vocabulary as well. I love how simple LitWits made writing an essay- this can be expanded upon for older/advanced writers, or kept simple for those just learning.

When it comes to resources we will use in our homeschool, LitWits is definitely at the top of my list! We will continue using these for our favorite books.

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