Homeschool Review Crew

The Action Bible Anytime Devotions – Review

March 19, 2020 by Amy Leave a Comment

Disclaimer: I received a FREE copy of this product through the HOMESCHOOL REVIEW CREW in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way.

I love being able to share devotions and scripture with my kids in a variety of ways. There’s nothing more important! That’s why I was excited to review the Action Bible Anytime Devotions by David C Cook.

This book contains 90 devotions – that’s a lot! If you use one per day, you’re set for several months – and I like being able to establish a routine and settle in. The length of this book works well for that.

You don’t have to work your way straight through this book, though. It’s organized a bit differently than many devotionals: instead of random lessons, these are titled and organized. The titles are listed in the table of contents in the front of the book, and many of them are situational, so that you could choose a devotion based on what’s going on in your child’s life.

Each devotion is structured similarly. It starts out with a scripture verse, upon which the whole thing is based. Then comes the devotion itself. It’s short – just a few paragraphs – and is succinct and to the point.

Then comes the connection point. The next few points are made in bulleted paragraphs, and the first one connects the scripture and devotion to a child’s life. This is super important! It spells out clearly what all of the above means in a personal way. Kids need to know how the Bible is relevant to them, and this paragraph does this for all 90 devotions.

The next paragraph contains a sample prayer. For kids who might not have a history of praying, this is crucial. It’s an example of what one might want to say to God based on the lesson in the devotion. This part might not be necessary for kids who have strong mentors demonstrating prayer for them, but other kids might need this. It also restates the lesson and helps to put it into action, so if the reader didn’t understand the lesson before this, it provides another opportunity.

The next part is my favorite! It’s an action step. Now that you’ve learned the lesson, connected it to you, and prayed about it, how can you apply it? Some of these ask students to think or talk about something, but others are more concrete. Some ask students to memorize scripture, draw pictures, make cards, or help others. This part is really great – it’s all about faith in action!

There’s one last section. It’s not really a part of the devotion itself, but more like a bonus cut or extra helping. This part asks the reader to take the lesson further by looking up another related scripture passage and reading it. This is a great way for kids who have a solid background with scripture to go deeper.

The devotions are great for kids. I love the structure and how real and applicable each part is. The pictures, though? The pictures add an element of fun to the whole thing.

The Action Bible has illustrations that are very comic book-like, and this devotional has been created in a matching style. The illustrations have bold black lines and bright colors. They stand out and are very appealing to kids who love comic books, especially. I enjoy this element – I think it gives them a wider audience appeal, and it’s definitely different from the norm.

The Action Bible Anytime Devotions is a great devotional for middle grade kids – but don’t take my word for it. Check out other reviews from the Homeschool Review Crew here.

The Action Bible Anytime Devotions {David C Cook Reviews}

Carole P. Roman’s Assorted Series – Review

March 11, 2020 by Amy 2 Comments

If you’ve been reading here for any length of time, then you might have noticed that we love history. We love to dig into the culture of the times and find out what made it unique and the people tick. That means learning about the everyday bits of life like what people ate and wore. Face it, those are big-deal things to everyone, at least to some extent, and knowing that kind of information helps us to understand people.

That’s why I was super excited for the opportunity to review some books in Carole P. Roman’s assorted series, because not only do we love history, but we love books, too, and these books do a fantastic job of combining the two.

If You Were Me and Lived In … SCOTLAND is part of the Child’s Introduction to Cultures Around the World series. These books are written for elementary kids who might just be starting to learn about other places. What makes them great is that instead of sharing from a formal standpoint, the book tells what your life might be like if you were a kid living in Scotland today – and then Roman goes on to compare the things that might be important to kids. She talks about naming customs, food, family, entertainment, landmarks, and more in really fun, approachable ways. Potentially new words are spelled out phonetically, and those words are all listed again in the back of the book with short definitions.

I really like the illustrations in this book. With backgrounds that seem almost like photographs but simple, brightly-colored drawings layered on top, the pictures are approachable but informative. There’s a lot to look at, and I like that.

This is a great way to kick off a unit about Scotland with your kids or students. You can touch on a lot of information in a short amount of time and then easily go deeper or broader afterwards. I chose this particular book (even though my kids are much older) because it looked like a great introduction to Scotland, where my sister was traveling, and we used this to learn a great deal about what she was experiencing on her trip. We enjoyed laying the foundation of our study with this book and doing more research about what we encountered here.

(PS – Currently this book is FREE with Kindle Unlimited!)

Jumping backward in time, If You Were Me and Lived In … Elizabethan England is for much older kids. There are many more words on a page, and while the same kind of information is discussed, this book contains more information and more details than the Scotland book. That makes sense, as it’s clearly aimed at older kids, and I love the way that this one is done.

You can see that the words are smaller and the text more involved on this page. I really like these illustrations, as well, as they’re very detailed, again with a lot to study. This book includes short biographies of important people in the Elizabethan era in the back, in addition to the more extensive glossary. This book is a perfect addition to a study of Shakespeare!

We recently studied the Vikings, so I was excited for the opportunity to read If You Were Me and Lived in … Viking Europe with my kids. Like the other books above, this story is written as if you were there, moving into Viking times, and it contains lots of great but basic information about everyday life. It, too, would make a great foundation for a Viking unit, and unlike much of what we encountered during our initial study, everything in the book is very family-friendly.

In this series, the book starts out by showing you what your own life might look like before moving back in time to the Viking era. The illustrations for this series a completely different style from the two above – they’re done in a sort of wash, with lots of white spaces. I must admit, I don’t like this style; if a book is going to have pictures, I want to see lots of details that I can study and learn from, but this feels like a watercolor impressionistic painting (if there is such a thing). It’s just not my thing, and the white spaces bother me. There aren’t as many white spaces on some pages, and that’s just my opinion. What kind of illustrations do you like to see in books?

Like the Elizabethan England book, the information is much more in-depth here. It’s intended for older kids and would make a great addition to any Viking unit.

If You Were Me and Lived in … the Middle Ages could totally vie for my favorite Carole P. Roman book. I love this time period and studied it extensively in college. It was fun to see names like Hildegard of Bingen in the book and to know that kids can be learning about such important historical figures in such a fun way!

Unfortunately to me, the illustrations are the same style as in the Viking book described again – there’s too much white space and washed out color for me! I do love how much information is on each page, though – look at that text! This book is definitely for older kids but would be a great addition for any unit about the time period. In addition, there are several pages of important people from the time and a nice glossary in the back.

Want to see more Carole P. Roman books reviewed? Check out this post!

These are the kinds of books that I’m never able to keep to use formally for school with my kids. When they spot them, they read them! They love the combination of fun, historical information organized in picture book format that makes it super accessible to kids, and they wont’ wait for whatever organized lesson I have planned – their nose is between the pages as soon as they can get their hands on them.

We love Carole P. Roman books and the way that they encourage comfortable learning. With several series out, lots of awards won, and a wide variety of both historical time periods and geographic locations covered, there’s really something for anything you’re studying – but don’t take my word for it. Go here to find out what other people on the Homeschool Review Crew are saying.

Carole P. Roman's Histroy, Geography, Bedtime & Captain No Beard series {Carole P. Roman Reviews}

Ultimate PreK-12 Annual Membership by SchoolhouseTeachers.com – Review

January 8, 2020 by Amy Leave a Comment

We’re big fans of SchoolhouseTeachers.com around here – there are just so many great things that this website offers! We’re excited to continue with them for another year and to see the new things that they’re continually offering. Our favorite way to learn along with SchoolhouseTeachers.com is with a Ultimate PreK-12 Annual Membership.

My very favorite thing about SchoolhouseTeachers.com is the flexibility. With over 460 courses for students in pre-K through high school, there’s a huge amount of variety available. You can use the content available in a myriad of ways, too: there are full grade-level courses available, but you can also pick and choose which classes or resources work best for you. I love that my kids can hop in and use specific lessons within classes to learn pieces of information or skills that they want to learn. When we were studying Solomon’s Temple at church last year, my daughter popped into an architecture class and learned all sorts of great information about that structure. She learned a ton and ended up sharing it with all the other kids in her group – it was fantastic!

My Big Helper is now in high school and is interested in ASL, and SchoolhouseTeachers.com has a class for that! It’s a really rigorous class with printable lesson plans and videos to watch, which is perfect for ASL, which requires a visual element so that you can properly learn the signs. The instructor goes into depth about the culture of ASL, too, and it’s very well done.

I took several classes with ASL in college, and so I can help My Big Helper if she needs it – but the class is set up so that she can work very independently. We can easily print the lesson plans and printed work, and then she can get busy, with me only needed should extra help be necessary. Everything is included so that she can complete the class on her own, and while I love teaching my kids, it’s nice to watch them learn to manage on their own!

The lesson plans can help your students be independent. These plans take different forms for different classes, but many of them break down the work for the entire course by week and day, basically making a giant checklist for you or your student to employ. Whether you choose to stick with that kind of schedule or not is up to you, but it is handy to see everything all listed clearly.

The video library is another great feature. On this page, all videos referenced and/or available for viewing are linked up so that you can easily browse through them. Many of these videos are held by RightNow Media, and you can access everything in the library with your SchoolhouseTeachers.com account. There are really fantastic videos there, and you’re sure to find something for everyone in the family. There’s a variety of cartoons, Bible studies, and other kinds of Christian documentaries. There’s one called Alaskan Adventure that my Little Man and my dad are sure to love, and My Big Helper will love J. Warner Wallace’s studies. There are also programs by Tim Tebow, Francis Chan, Ann Voskamp, and many others. A few of the cartoons that I looked at had only the first few episodes available, instead of the whole series, but the studies seem to be complete. The video library also includes several Drive Thru History programs. It doesn’t get any better than that!

I often hear people debating and questioning the best way to teach kids to read. It’s not as easy as one might think – how do you actually go about it? If this is something that you’ve struggled with, SchoolhouseTeachers.com is there to help! The Literacy Center has books you can download and strategies to use based on your child’s reading developmental stage. If you’re trying to teach your student to read, this is definitely the place to go!

I love being able to use SchoolhouseTeachers.com as a resource. My Little Man loves to read the books and watch the online videos, and My Big Helper uses elective classes and foreign language options to learn on her own. I also find it helpful to consider these courses when doing my own planning to help me determine scope, sequence, and to find additional resources – which are often these classes themselves. We do things this way because it works for us and because I love planning – but if that’s not your thing, SchoolhouseTeachers.com makes it easy to use their full curriculum elements – or to find and use just the pieces that you want planned for you. I love that aspect of this resource!

With one price to pay and then full access to the hundreds of resources on this website, you couldn’t get a better deal. You don’t have to worry which child has access or if there are enough materials for everyone, because SchoolhouseTeachers.com has something for everyone – parents included! If you’re new to this site, check it out here – but don’t take my word for it; visit this post to read other reviews from the Homeschool Review Crew.

Mattie Richardson’s Horses in History Series – Review

November 12, 2019 by Amy Leave a Comment

We love history – I mean, we really love history. We love to read about it, bake historical recipes, dress up in period costumes, play around with the language, and much more. That’s why reading Mattie Richardson’s Horses in History Series (Appaloosy, Dusty’s Trail, Golden Sunrise, and Day and Night) by Author Mattie Richardson/Appaloosy Books was such a great fit for us.

Even before I really knew what the books were about, however, I was interested because of the author. Mattie Richardson wrote the first book in this series when she was only thirteen years old – and she published it at age sixteen! Since My Big Helper wants to be a writer and already has a notebook full of story ideas, reading books published by other teens seemed like a great fit.

The Horses in History series is definitely one that interested My Big Helper from the beginning. Written from the point of view of the horse, each story revolves around a major event in American history. The stories follow the horse throughout the event, and so the reader learns about major historical figures, events of the time, cultural information about people groups and time periods, and, of course, information about horses and riding.

Appaloosy tells the tale of the how the Nex Perce Indians helped to develop the Appaloosy breed of horse, as well as touching on the Nez Perce Indian War and Chief Joseph. I really appreciated the way that Richardson highlighted the conflict inherent in this war and told the story from more than one native perspective. You hear Chief Joseph’s famous words, but you also see what was happening to regular members of the nation, as well as learning about the disagreements within the group itself. These tough times in history are hard to portray accurately, but Richardson does so with kindness and understanding.
Dusty’s Trail was particularly special to me as I’ve loved the story of the Pony Express since studying it in middle school. While we’re typically told stories of bravery and wildness, Richardson tackles this in an unusual way: from the perspective of a scared horse and his ambivalent rider. I admit, it took some time for that rider to grow on me – his initial immaturity rankled, but that made me appreciate the growth all the more when it happened. Richardson did a great job of showcasing both the danger of the Pony Express and the reasons why boys chose to work for the company.
Day and Night is the story of two horses – brothers – who end up on opposite sides of the Civil War. Richardson does a great job of showing the complexities of this particular war, as well as tackling the lesser-known western theater for the setting.
Golden Sunrise is the story of the Alamo and includes historical figures like Davy Crockett and James Bowie. I love when authors weave real people into their stories!

Richardson’s books are easy to read but full of exciting action. They’re targeted for kids ages 8 to 12, but I think that any history lover will find them to be great reads.

What makes the books even better is the enrichment guide that Richardson has added to her stock. Written for Day and Night, this 98-page guide is full of all sorts of learning activities. Richardson divided the book into daily reading chunks and then provides activities for each section. These range from things like basic vocabulary and comprehension questions to the more complicated recipes, art activities, and map projects. She also includes creative writing projects so that you can be working on your own story while reading hers. There are even activities for more advanced readers, some of which involve doing more research and further reading. Essentially, Richardson’s Enrichment Guide turns Day and Night into a full unit study, allowing this book about the Civil War era to go deep into the issues surrounding the war.

Richardson’s Enrichment Guide involves a wide range of activities, and it would work well for families of all ages and sizes. It could also be a great co-op activity. I hope that she writes them for her other books, as well – it’s a great resource.

I really enjoyed reading Mattie Richardson’s books, and I love supporting independent businesses and young writers. There are lots of reasons to check out this Horses of History series, but don’t take my word for it! Click on the graphic below to read other reviews from the Homeschool Review Crew.

Book Set: Appaloosy, Dusty's Trail, Golden Sunrise & Day and Night {Mattie Richardson/Appaloosy Books Reviews}

Poetry & Short Stories with Memoria Press – Review

March 27, 2019 by Amy Leave a Comment

My Little Man was slated to study some classical literature this semester, so we were excited for the opportunity to review the Poetry and Short Stories: American Literature Set from Memoria Press.

This set comes with a student workbook, a book full of short stories and poetry, and a teacher’s guide.

At first glance, our favorite aspect of the product was the literature book itself. My son loves reading literature of all kinds, and he was excited to read the selections in this book. We knew many of these already and wanted to dig deeper into them. The selections are from the 19th and 20th centuries, and there are wonderful authors included: Emily Dickinson, Carl Sandburg, O. Henry, Whittier, Longfellow, Poe, Frost, and more. Most of the selections are very well known, and there’s a fair mix of short stories and poetry.

In the workbook, each selection of literature has a chapter, and each chapter is broken into four parts: Pre-Grammar and Preparation, Grammar and Presentation, Logic/Dialectic, and Rhetoric/Expression.

The Pre-Grammar and Preparation questions are very straightforward. They ask the student to make predictions and connections to personal experience, much as I would expect from pre-reading activities.

The Grammar and Presentation questions are similar. In this section, vocabulary words are defined and literary elements are explained and identified within the selection. The questions in this section aren’t easy, but they are clear with specific, correct answers. The literary elements selected are not the ones you see commonly listed, and the poetry selections routinely deal with rhyme scheme and meter. They include more obscure ones, beyond Shakespeare’s favorite of iambic pentameter, and so this provided a great way to teach these elements.

In the Logic/Dialectic section, things got a little harder. This section often requires the student to make personal connections with the literature selection and then to provide evidence from that selection to support their statement. Because these weren’t strictly opinion questions, but opinions about those tough literary elements and the skills provided from the Grammar section, My Little Man had to dig deep for these. It was hard, but we enjoyed working through the toughest spots together, and he has learned a lot about classic literature from this section.

The Rhetoric/Expression section was different. It contained some basic questions, like summarizing the entire selection, that are clear and straightforward. Those are valuable questions. The majority of this section, including leading questions from the Logic/Dialectic section, ask the student to identify and evaluate the Central One Idea. My Little Man was very frustrated by this term and the questions that built up to it. Although he can identify the main idea and the theme of a selection with relative ease, this new idea caused stress for all of us. He did not enjoy this final section, the Rhetoric/Expression section, at all.

On the flip size, he loved the quizzes. The literature book contains several selections by the same authors, and so they are grouped together with a quiz for that author’s work. When I asked him to take the quiz, My Little Man got really excited. He said, “A quiz? I love quizzes! Can I take it now?” He did very well on the quiz, and the questions tested both understanding and comprehension. It was fairly short but straightforward and was a good fit for the work done with that selection.

My Little Man is an advanced reader with wonderful comprehension and insight but on the young side, slightly, for this curriculum. He’s also not a fan of worksheets but asked to use this curriculum based on the literature selection it contained, so to make this work for him, we read one selection each week. He answered the questions in one section each four days of that week. We tend to be away from home one day each week, so that worked really well for us. If we were using this as his only literature curriculum, we would start this way and build up to doing a bit more each day, at least when the literature selections are short.

When previewing this curriculum, I was excited to see many British ballads included in the book that I loved in school and that I planned for My Little Man to study this year. When we received the book, I was disappointed that there weren’t any study sections to accompany that literature. I suppose it’s because those are British selections in a book of American poetry and short stories, but since they’re included, I would have liked to see at least some sort of matching exercise.

I think that this curriculum would be perfect for those wanting a rigorous, classical education. The questions require depth and study, as well as specific, academic knowledge of advanced literary elements. If that’s the kind of education your student desires, then Memoria Press has the curriculum for you.

Want to know more? Read other reviews from the Homeschool Review Crew by clicking on the graphic below!

Phonics, Poetry & Latin {Memoria Press Reviews}

A Year of STEM Activities with Tied 2 Teaching – Review

March 20, 2019 by Amy Leave a Comment

My kids love doing STEM projects. We even started our own tiny STEM club this year so that we’d be sure to incorporate STEM on a regular basis (because, face it, finding good plans and collecting the needed materials can be challenging). That’s why I was super excited to give Tied 2 Teaching‘s STEM Activities, Full Year of Challenges with Close Reading!

There are more than 65 challenges in this product – more than enough for a full year of STEM learning. They are organized by the creators in monthly clusters; it’s actually a bundle of monthly STEM challenges, and so they tend to line up with the holidays in each month. The February challenges are primarily about love, valentines, and groundhogs, for example.

Each challenge is structured the same way. The student is sent to the website Wonderopolis to read an article about related information. Then there’s a worksheet to check comprehension of the article, and then the STEM fun begins.

The forms walk the student through the engineering design process to make the best possible answer to the challenge. They come in a few different layouts, and I really appreciated this as it made it possible to differentiate where needed.

The challenges themselves take a few different forms. Some of them are building brick-based, so you need to have building blocks to complete the challenges; you know the ones I’m talking about.

Others are more about the appearance of the object that you create; you’re supposed to build something that fits certain appearance criteria, but it doesn’t actually have to do or solve anything.

My kids most loved the hardest ones, though: the ones where there more criteria involved. This definitely upped the ante. With these, the challenge was to build something that would solve a problem.

The first challenge we tried, because it was near Valentine’s Day, was the Candy Box challenge. The idea was that you built a box in which to carry a bag of candy. That was the only requirement, and the extreme open-endedness of it compared to the other STEM projects that we’ve done made it very difficult for My Little Man. He couldn’t settle on which materials to use or how to do it and spent a very long time not coming up with much of anything. He had fun, but I’m not sure how much he got out of the process.

I looked for one with more parameters for his next challenge, and we chose the Foil Boat Challenge. He loved this one and took it far beyond the directions! He immediately folded his foil into a barge-like boat with short sides and began to test it out.

He found that his boat could hold a lot of pennies before it sank! He took note of the spot where the water came over first, refolded to make that spot higher, and retested.

He retested to see if his adjustments made a difference, and then decided to try a different coin to see how the numbers would compare. Then he asked for my digital scale, and he figured out how much weight his foil boat could hold, and how the weight of the pennies compared to the weight of the other coins. He really loved this challenge!

Next, we tried the Alien Spacecraft Design Challenge. Both kids participated in this one, and they loved it! My Big Helper made a very detailed sketch of her plan, and she worked hard to pull it together just like that.

When it was time to test it, we used Gummi Bears (we didn’t have any Sour Patch Kids) but we loved our little Gummi Bear Aliens. Can you see him on the ladder in the craft above?

My Big Helper built seats for her alien bears in the center of the craft above. They were well secured and stayed inside the craft when it was dropped from different heights!

My Little Man reverse-engineered a parachute, sort of. He hot-glued the sticks together to create a landing pad, and then attached the cup as a seat for his bears, but put the plate on the bottom of the whole thing so that the plate could create air resistance. It worked really well! I loved how well he could explain the whole thing to me.

The next challenge that we tried was a really fun one for us. We all love ropes courses and zip lines, and there’s a challenge about that! My Big Helper chose this one, and I really liked the parameters: to build a container for a ping pong ball so that it can travel down a 4-foot-long zip line in under five seconds.

My Big Helper had fun building the zip line itself first, and then she spent some time testing how to make things slide along it quickly. She tested whether the weight should be in front of, directly under, or behind the connection to the line itself.

Her actual creation was very simple – a cup with the ping pong ball inside, connected to the zip line with a clamp, the line running through a hole at the top. After all of her testing, it worked very well and slid quickly down the line.

My kids really liked these STEM challenges. They look forward to doing a new one each week, and My Little Man has already declared Friday to be STEM Day. They were simple but fun with great potential for learning. We’ve enjoyed the introduction to Wonderopolis, too, and we’re now big fans.

I particularly love the variety in the challenges. My Little Man is at the upper end of the targeted grade level, and My Big Helper a few years above, but it’s easy to modify them up to fit them. Now that we see how they work, we’ll try more of the simpler design challenges, too – I’ll just add my own parameters to make them suit us.

The variety and simplicity makes that kind of differentiation easy to do, and I like that. It’s rare that I find a super-detailed lesson plan that really works for us, and those are hard to personalize. This is easy, but with the Wonderopolis reading and the design and reflection sheets, you’re not sacrificing structure or learning.

I’ve not seen other STEM challenges that come with related ELA work, and that is my favorite aspect of this product. Even when you choose a really ‘fun’ challenge theme, you’re still incorporating both ELA and STEM!

Another great aspect of these challenges is the wide range of themes. Because of this, it’s easy to match the STEM challenges with other parts of your curriculum or approaching holidays. There are also fun challenges relating to monuments, buildings, animals, robots, and more – really kid-friendly things. My kids were excited to see challenges related to some of their favorite things, and that made the challenges even more fun.

You can’t beat the price of this STEM bundle, either. If you plan to do STEM projects on a regular basis, definitely check out this bundle. With the challenges ready to go for you, this is a deal!

Don’t take my word for it, though – click on the graphic below to read more reviews from the Homeschool Review Crew!

STEM Activities, Full Year of Challenges with Close Reading {Tied 2 Teaching Reviews}

Drive Thru History® “Acts to Revelation” – Review

March 18, 2019 by Amy Leave a Comment

Drive Thru History® is our all-time favorite history curriculum, so we were super excited when Drive Thru History® “Acts to Revelation” showed up in our mailbox!

For the past year, we’ve been following the release of this new venture. It’s been hard to hear so many great things about it without the ability to watch it for ourselves! We started watching as soon as it arrived.

I really love the way that the Drive Thru History® series tell the whole story of history. In school as a kid, I got facts and dates and figures, but faith was rarely mentioned, even though whole movements and kingdoms and wars were fought and won and lost because of it. Drive Thru History® includes those stories, so you get a more complete picture of the cause and effect flow of history.

With that said, though, some of the series are fairly stand-alone, meaning that you don’t need to watch every episode that they’ve ever produced in order to understand them (though they’re really good, so you’ll want to). It’s important to note that “Acts to Revelation” is a bit different, though, because it picks up immediately where “The Gospels” end. If you know your Bible really well, I’m sure you can jump right in with this series, but the flow between the two is really great, and so you may want to watch that one first, no matter how much background information you have.

The biggest difference from their other series is that it’s very clear that this series was just created. It’s been filmed very recently and, unlike the other episodes that take place in the Middle East, the host Dave Stotts references some of the political instability in the episodes. That as really refreshing to me. It’s very clear that Israel, Turkey, and the other locations being filmed are beautiful, and I love being able to see what these important locations in Biblical history look like, but I’ve often wondered what it’s really like over there now. Not just how it looks, but what the Drive Thru History® crew’s take on current events are. I enjoyed the brief references they made.

They are brief – the Drive Thru History® crew doesn’t let current events detract from their show, and there’s a lot happening in this series. It’s hard to watch just a single episode, but we’ve really enjoyed watching them as a family after dinner.

One feature I particularly enjoyed was the timeline and people review. I love when Stotts will reference something important because it fits and explain that it will be talked about in more depth later – or that we should remember this important information because it connects with information already taught. He then goes back to review what you learned first, usually with neat visuals, and it really helps me fit all the pieces together. In one episode, he talks about how Herod the Great built Caesarea Maritima and then reviews Herod’s family tree so that you can connect the four generations of office-holding Herods. That was very helpful for me as I’m not good with names, and I found myself wanting to sketch his family tree and hang it on the wall for reference.

Another great feature of this DVD series is the accompanying study guide. I love that this is included right in the DVD case, where you don’t have to worry about losing it – it’s always right with your discs! The study guide consists of four parts: a scripture passage, a main verse, a summary of the episode, and a few comprehension/recall questions. We’ve mainly been using the questions, and My Little Man loves them! He tries to answer correctly before I’ve finished reading the question, and he usually does.

While these are all great things about Drive Thru History®, the absolute best is just how much you learn simply by watching them. Last week after a confirmation class My Big Helper remarked that she hadn’t realized just how much she had learned from Drive Thru History® until she encountered the same story or passage in that class – and she immediately remembered everything from the video and was able to answer the questions.

I encountered the same thing today: in Sunday School the passage we studied was one that was explained in a Drive Thru History® episode that I watched last week, and as the class discussed it, I was picturing the place where it happened, considering how the location and layout might have affected the event itself. Being able to picture the scene as it really looks is a valuable thing, and it has helped me to understand scripture in a whole new way. As a visual learner, this helps me to add context to scripture in a way that I couldn’t otherwise.

Drive Thru History® really builds that context carefully. The visuals and cinematography used in each episode are absolutely amazing, but it’s much more than that: the writers are very careful to follow scripture carefully, working in chronological order to tell a story, and building the facts of that story as the episodes progress through the series. By referencing items both forward and back, and by attaching known dates whenever possible, you’re given a frame of reference to help you connect the important people and events you’re learning about with the locations that you’re seeing on screen. Because scripture is always floating around on the screen when it’s being read, that visual element is also added to the mix. It’s a great way for audio and visual learners to gain new information.

Drive Thru History® “Acts to Revelation” is another fantastic series, and it’s one that we’ll watch over and over. It’s a great way to learn and a conduit for conversation. This is definitely a resource you’ll want to have in your own personal library.

Don’t take my word for it, though – click on the graphic below to read more reviews from the Homeschool Review Crew.

“For the Temple” Heirloom Audio Review

February 13, 2019 by Amy Leave a Comment

Heirloom Audio is known for their high-quality audio dramas, and My Little Man loves listening to the Extraordinary Adventures of G.A. Henty. That’s why we are super excited to be able to review their latest production For the Temple.

For the Temple is about the response of the Jews to the coming destruction of the Temple. It’s a really amazing story. I always knew that the Temple had fallen, of course, because it isn’t there anymore; but I never really thought about what it must have been like to see that beautiful, God-instructed building destroyed. What must the people who worshipped there thought? Felt? What did it sound like? What events surrounded this massive act? How exactly does one destroy a building made of enormous blocks of stone, anyway?

This audio drama answers most of those questions. It really walks you though the events leading up to the Temple’s destruction and what was going on in the hearts and minds of the people. That was my favorite aspect of the whole thing, except that …

Like My Little Man, I couldn’t help but love the sound quality. It’s not just the sound effects, though there are many of those; it’s the whole thing altogether. The best way I can describe it is that it’s like listening to a movie. There isn’t a picture, but there’s much more than just voices, and the quality is much higher than even the best-ever voice artist reading an audio book. The voices are done by major actors, and that experience is evident in the quality of this work.

We’ve experienced several Heirloom Audio productions now, and another great aspect are the lessons that they build into each one. I feel that there’s always one big one and lots of other potentials, but I especially appreciated this one. The main character comments throughout the drama about how he’s been taught to defend the Temple. He talks about the great lengths he’ll go to do this, and it’s obvious throughout the story that this is something that he takes very seriously. I think that this is great food for thought: how far are we going to defend our own faith? Our Bibles? Our sanctuaries? What kind of defense is needed today, in the United States? In other places around the world? You could take this one theme in myriads of directions.

With For the Temple we experienced something new to us in connection to Heirloom Audio, though – a study guide. This 51-page, full-color document is exceptionally detailed. I love the organization and structure to it, especially because as much as I love these dramas, they are detailed and complex. It can be easy to get a bit off-track or confused, and this study guide will guarantee that you’ve nailed every detail before moving on.

The study guide would make a great discussion guide. It could also be used for written or research assignments for older kids. It’s broken down into three parts by scene: Listening Well, Thinking Further, and Defining Words.

The Listening Well section are questions to test basic comprehension and recall. If an answer is unknown, repeating that short section of the audio should provide the answer. Thinking Further takes the information in the drama a step further, to apply it to real life. It asks your student to look up locations on maps or do other simple research to connect to the setting and events of the story. Finally, the Defining Words section is simply a list of vocabulary words.

There is one other part, though, that while rare, is my favorite. There are inset blocks scattered throughout the study guide with in-depth information about specific people and places from the drama. I love the detail and pictures included here. This really helps bring the whole thing to life.

The study guide provides a great way to go really deep with this drama. My family would enjoy using parts of it as discussion guides or as a way to find more information. It’s a bit too extensive for my kids to enjoy using every part of it, however, because they don’t like to interrupt reading or listening opportunities to do writing assignments. If that’s your thing, though, this is the study guide for you.

This latest production of Heirloom Audio is definitely worth a listen. It would be wonderful for families, co-ops, car trips, or even youth groups or history classes. If you’ve never listened to an audio drama, give this one a try!

Want to check out our other Heirloom Audio reviews? You can read my full review of Wulf the Saxon and St. Bartholomew’s Eve here.

Beloved: 365 Devotions for Young Women – Review

December 6, 2018 by Amy Leave a Comment

My daughter spends time with her Bible, a devotional, and journal each morning. I love seeing her so excited about digging into God’s Word and want to be sure she has quality materials to use – and that’s why I’m so excited to be reviewing Zondervan‘s Beloved: 365 Devotions for Young Women.

First of all, the cover is beautiful. I’ll apologize for my less-than-fabulous pictures now, but I had to take all the photos on the sly because this book will be a Christmas present for my Big Helper. It’s too beautiful to keep to myself! It’s a very sturdy, glossy cover. It’s cream with wine-colored accents and doodly flowers and branches. Some of the flowers are metallic, making them glint and flash light. The bit of sparkle adds an element of fun to the cover.

Beloved: 365 Devotions for Young Women is a hardback book that’s about the size of a trade paperback. It’s very thick, however, as there’s a single devotion per page. This size makes it handy to carry and to store. It would be a great size to take to a Bible study group, and I think that the devotions themselves are perfect for that … but I’ll get back to that.

I love the page layout. It’s simple, but it’s also both pretty and meaningful. I love that the wine color is carried through the book, and the design from the cover is brought inside to decorate each page. There’s something special about getting to spend a few minutes alone with something beautiful. It feels luxurious and pampering, somehow, and while these devotions would be just as meaningful if the page were a plain black and white, the color and design make it feel feminine and fun.

The day count, Day 11 above, instead of a date makes it feel as if you could start any day. Getting this book as a gift for your birthday? Start the next day. Did you get behind schedule and weren’t able to start on January 1st? No worries – you can start when you’re ready. There’s even a convenient ribbon bookmark inside so that you can move it along at your own pace.

Beneath the day count at the top is the scripture verse that the daily devotion is based upon. It’s printed out for your convenience, and it really is just that. Having it printed there for you means that you’re reading the same version as the devotion’s author. You’ll read the same language as she did, and while you can certainly look it up for yourself or go to other translations, it’s not required. If you have a limited amount of time, you’ll find everything you need on each single page.

The devotion itself follows the scripture. I love the casual but sincere way that they’re written. They’re definitely written with women in mind, and they feature issues and problems and concerns that most women have – but that most men won’t be able to relate to. They’re the kinds of things that women discuss over coffee at the shop or when they run into each other in the aisles of the grocery store – the kinds of things that we stress about that men don’t understand: issues of self-worth, confidence, perspective, hospitality, security in our roles as women and wives and friends.

Now, not to downplay the wonderful simplicity of the above parts, but my favorite feature is at the bottom of the page: a few blank lines. Space for you to reflect on what you’ve read and what it means to you and to jot down your thoughts before your day catches up with you. This feature is a rarity in devotionals, and I love that it’s in this one. You won’t need a separate notebook or journal, unless you really have a lot to write; this is all-inclusive.

In the title, Zondervan says this book is targeted for young women, and I think that’s spot on. I’d say for teens and up, as some of these devotions may be more relevant to people who are living on their own and making decisions more independently than some teens may be able to do. Other teens may find that these are issues that they’re beginning to think about as they consider living on their own for the first time. Either way, I think there are many thoughts relevant to women today, and I enjoyed reading through these devotions.

Beloved: 365 Devotions for Young Women {Zondervan Review}

Semester 1 Bundle from Guitar 360 Method – Review

November 14, 2018 by Amy Leave a Comment

I’ve thought for years that my DH would make a great guitar player, so I was super excited to have the opportunity to review the Semester 1 Bundle with the Absolute Beginner Course and Bonus Songs from Guitar 360 Method.

Guitar 360 Method provides an online guitar lessons course. Right now, Semester One is available. It consists of thirteen weeks of online guitar lessons, each with many videos to help the user develop individual skills for that week. Each week also includes an initial video to share the goals for that week, in addition to videos to help you practice particular skills. For example, Week One consists of a goal video, six teaching videos, and three practice videos. Owner Krisz Simonfalvi doesn’t mess around – this course is meaty!

Krisz Simonfalvi really knows his stuff, and that fact shines through loud and clear in each video. In some places, he asks you to trust him when he gives you facts, and shares that he’ll be explaining why in a later video; in other places he digs down deep into the music theory and teaches you what you need to know not just to play a cool song, but to be able to write, play, and change up music.

Having begun his musical journey with the guitar at age 6, Simonfalvi has been playing for a long time. He has experience as an artist, producer, and teacher, and it’s obvious that he both knows and loves his instrument. I think it’s important to know the perspective of your teacher, and Simonfalvi really wants to teach others to fall in love with the instrument he himself enjoys so much.

My husband has never played the guitar, so he needed to start with the most basic pieces. I was excited to see that Simonfalvi also offers a three-week Absolute Beginners Class with Bonus Songs for free on his website. How cool is that – that you could learn to play real music within a few weeks of picking up a guitar for the very first time?

All four of us gave the first lessons a try. When we got stuck, my DH helped us out, as he was the one studying the lessons the hardest.

Personally, I love the guitar as much as ever, but I’m also coming to understand just how very difficult it is to play. I was worried about having to memorize lots of chords, and while I’m sure that will need to happen eventually, Simonfalvi doesn’t start the course that way. Instead, he teaches you about the instrument and then some basic chords. Learning how to play full scales and lots of notes happens later in the class. I really like this about Guitar 360 Method – memorizing is hard for me, and starting a new thing with long lists of things to memorize makes the whole thing intimidating. Instead, you’ll start this one with finger positions and lots of strumming. You don’t have to memorize a bunch of theory or fingerings all at the beginning.

Which doesn’t mean to say that it’s easy. I’m having a really hard time figuring out how to hold the guitar so that my fingers can reach the chords. That might sound crazy, but I learned to drive sitting on a blanket and I sometimes need a stool to stir tall pots of noodles. My Little Man had the same problem when he tried to learn the first chord, and soon I emailed Simonfalvi for advice. I figured we can’t be the only people in the world with short fingers who want to play the guitar.

A few days later, I got a reply back, and I was quite impressed by the answer. Simonfalvi stated that, basically, we just needed to practice. That with time and stretching and lots of practice our fingers would learn what they were supposed to do. That’s a difficult answer to put into practice, especially since (to our frustration) the guitar players we know all seem to have long, graceful fingers, but Simonfalvi took it a step further. He also asked me to send pictures and/or video of us trying to make the chords so that he could make specific suggestions for us.

I admit, I was worried about how well learning to play an instrument via the internet when you couldn’t get real-time feedback would work, but I love that Simonfalvi is willing to go to such lengths to make our experience personalized and to help us figure out this problem.

The videos themselves are full of great information. Each one features Simonfalvi with his guitar, explaining the lesson and demonstrating on his own instrument. Text pops up to show the music written out, so you can see the fingerings and the string formation. When you’re learning chords or music theory, the video cuts away to the music written out so that you can see the notes and what’s happening. This part was especially helpful for us. My husband would pause the video when this screen popped up and would practice the chords, working with his fingers to get it right, before resuming play and moving on. I really like this visual aspect of the class.

Simonfalvi himself teaches with a smile and a patient voice. He speaks slowly and clearly and explains things well. You can tell that he’s really breaking down what he knows and can do so that you can do it, too, but he’s very patient throughout the process.

I’ve loved listening to my husband strumming away on the guitar as he works his way through these classes. He, too, is finding it more difficult than expected, but for a different reason – he recently broke a finger, and it’s less flexible than before. It’s limiting his range of motion, making him require more time to work through each video, but he’s getting there.

As I shared above, Semester 1 Bundle is really meaty, and so I could see someone needing more time than a single week to work through each week’s worth of lessons. That’s certainly been our experience, but there’s a wealth of musical knowledge and theory to be gained when you put in the time and practice to finish the course. I can’t wait for the day when we can be playing by the fire!

Do you want to learn to play the guitar, too? Guitar 360 Method is giving homeschool families a 20% discount if you purchase the Semester 1 Bundle with the coupon code HOMESCHOOL20! If you give it a try, I’d love to know what you think – let me know in the comments!

Do you play a musical instrument? Which one?