Milton Hershey: A Homeschool Unit Study on the Candy King
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This chocolate-infused homeschool unit study was really fun to put together – and I hope your kids will love it too!
Study Milton Hershey, the most famous chocolatier, to take a fun break from your typical homeschool curriculum (or, if you regularly use unit studies, you’ll definitely want to schedule in this topic). Our family will do unit studies when we have something specific we want to learn about outside of our normal curriculum, or if there is a fun holiday we can study. And with World Chocolate Day coming up in July, we’ve got the perfect opportunity!
I created a fun printable you can use to supplement a Milton Hershey homeschool unit study. My kids are mid-upper elementary, but even younger kids will enjoy this unit study. Grab a copy below from my shop, then read on for additional resources and activities you can use to supplement the guide. Don’t forget to pick up some chocolate to enjoy while you study…it definitely sweetens up any lesson (s’mores, anyone?).
>>> Click here to grab the Milton Hershey Unit Study Guide <<<
Here are some great options for planning and supplementing your unit study on Milton Hershey, as you teach your kids about his life and how he persevered to build the amazing brand we know and love today.
Day 1: Who was Milton Hershey?
It’s hard to imagine life without chocolate…but just a little over 100 years ago, many people didn’t know chocolate like we do today! That all changed when Milton Hershey created his now-famous chocolate bar.
Spend some time on the first day of your unit study learning about Milton Hershey himself. What are some facts about him? What was his early life and career like?
The Milton Hershey Unit Study Guide has 2 biography sheets built in that you can reference, but I recommend also grabbing some books to read as a family.
We love using Epic! to check out ebooks and audiobooks – definitely check them out if you are not familiar with that resource (we use it all the time in our homeschool!).
Milton Hershey Books
There are even a few Hershey Milk Chocolate-themed math books you can grab to help with fractions, multiplication, and measurement during this study (chocolate definitely makes math more bearable, right?)
Milton Hershey Videos
Watch these videos to learn about Milton Hershey. Here’s one giving a brief overview of his life and accomplishments:
This one is a bit longer, but has some great information:
And finally, here are a couple of great websites you can visit for information about Milton Hershey:
In the early 1900s, Milton S. Hershey made one of the great American fortunes through dogged persistence and the courage to pursue a dream. Though he was modest and unassuming in appearance, Milton Hershey was a shrewd and determined businessman.
Unfortunately, no matter how hard Milton worked, he couldn’t figure out how to get his business to make a profit. He worked harder and harder, but soon he ran out of money and had to shut his business down. Milton wasn’t one to give up. He moved to Denver, Colorado and got a job with a candy maker where he learned that fresh milk made the best tasting candy. He then opened another candy shop in New York City. This shop failed, too.
Day 2: The Chocolate King
To start off the second day of the unit study, take a look inside the Hershey Chocolate Factory:
Next, enjoy this short clip showing how Hershey Kisses are made:
Milton Hershey had a rocky road to reach the point of all of his success. Learn about some of those obstacles on this website:
Hershey was born on September 13, 1857 at a farm situated near Derry Church, a small Pennsylvania community and he was the only surviving child of Henry Hershey and Veronica Snavely. Due to frequent family shiftings, his studies were heavily interrupted. Moreover, he failed and went bankrupt at the age of 30 and failed again in his first candy business in 1876 in Philadelphia. After six years of consistent hard work he failed once again in his second candy business venture in New York City.
Grab the printable worksheets from your Unit Study Guide to show what you’ve learned about the Chocolate King and everything he overcame!
Your kids can fill in page 8 with the facts they’ve learned, and complete a timeline on page 9 using information from the fact sheets or the books you’ve read. You might even choose to look up some information on another chocolatier (Forrest Mars) and complete the compare and contrast chart on page 14.
Don’t forget to enjoy some chocolate while you work!
Day 3: Hershey’s Sweet Legacy
Hershey’s legacy is more than simply chocolate – I honestly didn’t know this until I started working on putting this unit study together!
On this day, spend some time learning about Hershey Park, Hershey School, Hershey Town, and ZooAmerica. Explore this website to gather information about each of these.
Your kids can complete pages 10 and 11 of the Unit Study Guide after you learn about Hershey’s Legacies.
If your kids love Lego or Minecraft, you might encourage them to build their own Hershey Town or Park!
Think it might be fun to work at the Hershey Company someday? Here’s a look inside:
Day 4: All About Chocolate
If you’d like, spend an additional day learning all about chocolate. You’ll find info sheets on pages 5, 6, and 7 of the Unit Study Guide sharing how chocolate is made, and some fun facts about Hershey and chocolates.
Show this video to your kids to teach them about the history of chocolate:
And here’s a fun video from Sci Show Kids talking about how chocolate is made:
Finish up the day with the crossword puzzle on page 12 of the Unit Study Guide to see how much your kids remember about chocolate.
Day 5: Complete Fun Projects
For the final day, there are still a lot of fun activities you can do for your Hershey homeschool unit study!
I’ve included a recipe sheet in the Unit Study Guide. Print it off, and help your kids search for a recipe they want to try to make (make sure it uses Hershey’s chocolate!). Let them fill in the recipe sheet, then try your hand at baking the recipe.
Try these websites in your search for a great recipe to try:
Integrating Other Subject Areas
And if you need even more ideas, here are some ways you can integrate other subjects into your Hershey homeschool unit study:
- Math – Have your child take a survey of their friends and family’s favorite candy or brand. Make a graph out of their results!
- Art – Try your hand at drawing a Hershey Bar with this tutorial, or have your kids create their own candy bar wrapper in a program like Canva. You might also like to download these Hershey coloring pages for your younger learners.
- Science – Try this Chocolate Kiss Experiment! Here’s another experiment option (if your stomach isn’t too weak for it).
I hope this post gave you a lot of great ideas to get started on a Milton Hershey homeschool unit study! I definitely learned a lot more than I ever knew about Hershey and chocolate, and I’m sure your kids will love learning about it too. (And I am already planning a trip to Hershey, PA for our next big vacation – it looks like a blast!).
Don’t forget to grab your Milton Hershey Unit Study Guide from my shop to help you navigate through your unit study. Have fun learning!
