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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}

Book Club, Art Edition: “The Frame-Up”

April 15, 2019 by Amy Leave a Comment

As soon as I began reading The Frame-Up, I knew it had to be on this year’s book club reading list. The premise of living artwork was too fun not to explore further! There’s one important rule at the Beaverbrook Art Gallery—don’t let anyone know the paintings are alive. Mona Dunn, forever frozen at thirteen when her portrait was painted by William Orpen, has just broken that rule.

Luckily twelve-year-old Sargent Singer, an aspiring artist himself, is more interested in learning about the vast and intriguing world behind the frame than he is in sharing her secret. And when Mona and Sargent suspect shady dealings are happening behind the scenes at the gallery, they set out to uncover the culprit. They must find a way to save the gallery—and each other—before they are lost forever.

Wendy McLeod MacKnight, the author of this fantastic middle-grade book, wrote in many rabbit trails perfect for exploration of the arts, family issues, crime, geography, and much more. I love when books lend themselves well to fun unit studies, and there are so many ways that you could use The Frame-Up to learn that you could explore these topics for quite some time!

MacKnight generously agreed to Skype with my book clubbers, and so we arranged a time in advance for everyone to meet for this. I think that being able to talk with authors is very important. Why? Read ’10 Reasons Why Kids Should Meet Authors’ to find out more.

Our time with MacKnight was all of this and more. She was encouraging, inspiring, and creative. You could tell that she is enthusiastic about her craft, and being able to see behind the scenes into her authorly life provided a glimpse into what it might be like to work in that kind of profession. (At least one of those book clubbers is determined to be an author someday. What better way to research this career than by speaking to those who currently work in the field?)

MacKnight told us about her writing journey, her inspiration, and generally conversed and shared with the kids. She even read the first chapter in her WIP to us!

One of the wonderful elements of The Frame-Up is the art camp that the main character Sargent attends at the Beaverbrook Art Gallery. The art gallery is the setting for most of the book, and the highlight of each camp is an overnight experience held at the gallery. The events of those overnights were too fun not to recreate, so the girls held their own book club slumber party to celebrate.

My Big Helper really got into the spirit of this. Although decorations aren’t mentioned in the book – it was an art gallery, after all – we decided to decorate with rainbow-colored streamers, candy, and fruit. We covered tables with black tablecloths to make the vibrant colors stand out, and she draped streamers over the mantle, in the doorways, and radiating out from the kitchen chandelier. The house was definitely full of color!

The girls started their first art project soon after arriving. I planned for this to be a group project, but they had so many ideas about what to do that we ended up breaking out more paper and paint so that everybody could make her own.

They created mixed medial collages about what art is and how it makes them feel. It was fun to listen to them discuss how to put the color on the paper (should there be overlaps? All the way to the edges? Defined edges of color or blurred together? Should the colors go only once around or should they repeat?) They were quite intent on their work as they painted, cut, and glued.

After that we met on the back deck for our book discussion and some game time. I created a trivia game, and the kids played the game to win advantages in the next game. I love doing that! The questions in the trivia game were about the contents of the book and related art, and they sparked some really neat discussions among the girls as they played about art, their education, and what they do and don’t know about art. Unfortunately, most said that they don’t study art, and only a few had ever been to an art gallery or museum. (They were really creative with our next game, however, so I hope that encourages them to ask for an art-related field trip!)

The idea for the next game is a simple one: choose a piece of art, consider the elements that make it unique, and recreate it. When the teams were ready for a photo to be taken, they described their goal and I took a picture of them and the piece of art they chose. Later I merged them together, as seen below, so we could compare the two pieces.

The girls had limited resources and spaces to work with, but they were super creative as they examined art in the books I shared and tried to make living versions of them.

Aren’t these great?

The beard stumped this team for a bit, but they figured out a way to get it in there!

This team was so precise with the paintings they chose!

This one was super creative with the materials they had!

This team happened to have a dress similar to Mona’s description from the book and insisted on recreating this one!

By the time everyone finished, it was time to eat! The girls built their own pizzas, …

and because it was a beautiful, warm sunny day, we grilled them and ate outside.

They tasted delicious! I love grilled pizza.

Our evening progressed through more games, a mini-birthday party, and a late-night movie. The girls chose to watch Night at the Museum, following the theme of inanimate objects coming to life – and because it was in the book, of course.

The next morning, following pancakes, sausage, and fruit, we broke out our art supplies for one last project.

They made a kind of self-portrait based on a prompt I created, and they came out really well!

We’re still talking about The Frame-Up at our house, and we’re still diving into more art studies than normal, too. We’re really enjoying the lessons that originated with this book and the rabbit trails to further learning that we’ve taken, and being able to have some of those adventures with our book club friends makes it even better.

What are you reading right now?

Save yourself time and energy with these print-and-go resources to accompany The Frame-Up!

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.

Book Club, Hiking Edition: “The Honest Truth”

March 11, 2019 by Amy Leave a Comment

Just like in Dan Gemeinhart’s debut book The Honest Truth, the weather wasn’t cooperative for this month’s book club. With loads of rain, the rivers ran high, and we had to change plans often, which diminished the size of our group – but not the adventurous spirit with which we enjoyed this book.

Mark from The Honest Truth is a tough kid. Having lived with cancer for years, he knows about determination – and that’s what keeps him going when his dream starts to lose it’s shine.

Mark promised his grandfather that he would climb Mount Rainer, and when it looks as if he may be running out of time, he concocts a plan to see that mountain for himself – only to find that the trip is much more difficult than expected. Back at home, with everyone worried, his best friend struggles to find the correct way to handle his disappearance; she’s the only person in the world who knows where he is.

It sounds like a hard book to read, and at times it is, I supposed, but I loved the spirit with which Mark keeps going. He gets knocked down, but he keeps getting back up; at first, because he’s holding tight to his dream, and later, because he realizes that maybe he needs a shift in perspective. Once he makes that shift, nothing is going to stop him.

Are you ready to head out for an adventure? Pin this image and invite your friends!

I really wanted our kids to talk about this book and to experience a tiny bit of what Mark might have felt on his long journey, so I planned for us to venture off to travel a few miles on the Mountains to Sea Trail. Unfortunately, the weather prevented it – but as soon as possible, we still headed out to hike.

DSCN2026 — Hiking with “The Honest Truth”

While we certainly weren’t experiencing the springtime blizzard that Mark does during this story, it was an unseasonably chilly 43 as we headed out onto the trail. Still, we couldn’t wait to get outside for an adventure.

It wasn’t long before it had warmed up a bit. The sky turned blue overhead, and we found this wide spot on the river, a place where people commonly ford it. It reminded me of the place where Mark fell in, especially as the high water levels were making for some white water rushing over every rock.

I’m sure Mark would have been thrilled to find this bridge across the river, but, alas … this pair was a little less enthused. They didn’t enjoy the sway of the bridge as they crossed it.

All along our hike, we looked for blessings along the trail, just like Mark was eventually able to identify. One such blessing was the evidence of beavers that we found in several places. We weren’t able to figure out where they were hoping to take this tree to when they finished cutting it down, but it was wonderful to see their work in progress.

The river itself and the greenery of the new growth springing up everywhere was beautiful. The color contrasts were strong, and many of the trees and plants were starting to bud out. Spring will soon be here!

The Honest Truth is the perfect book to read before going on a long hike. It challenges you to reconsider your perspective and really notice the detail in the world around you. We enjoyed looking for buds, blooms, animal tracks, and other glorious evidence of nature and the Creator in the world around us while we hiked. It makes for a fantastic book club selection.

Of course, there are many other angles you could take with this story. I’ve shared some of them in the products found below. You’ll find a wide variety of learning activities that will help you bring The Honest Truth to life with your students.

What are you reading now?

Other creative resources relating to The Honest Truth – check them out!

With open-ended discussion questions in multiple formats and lots of creative writing prompts, this product is a great way to examine The Honest Truth in fun ways.

This unit study is full of ideas for digging into The Honest Truth with projects relating to the literature itself, as well as poetry, geography, and writing.

Do you enjoy Mark’s reflective look at life? Consider downloading these FREE printable posters! They make wonderful writing prompts and discussion starters.

Book Club, Girls’ Edition: “Absolutely Truly” & a Wounded Warrior Project

February 25, 2019 by Amy 2 Comments

This month the girls’ book club read a story I absolutely loved: Absolutely Truly by Heather Vogel Frederick. It’s a sweet story about a girl whose family has been through some really hard things, and the sailing isn’t all smooth yet. The main character, a girl named Truly, remains positive and respectful despite the hard stuff. I really love seeing a middle grade book about someone who doesn’t rebel but works through his/her problems. You can read more about Truly here.

As always, we started out the day by summarizing the story and talking about the choices that Truly makes and the things that happen to her family. There’s lots of meat in this book! We kept moving, though, because we had a big day planned.

Truly’s dad recently lost an arm while serving in the military. He’s struggling with all of the changes in his life, which impacts the entire family – and in real life, the Wounded Warrior Project serves to help families just like Truly’s. We decided to help them by holding our own bake sale, Absolutely Truly style. The girls split into groups to get everything accomplished before it was time to get selling, and then they rotated through the stations so that they could all try each one.

Some of the girls broke out markers and poster board of sizes to advertise the sale. They even thought ahead to make one that we could post on the community bulletin board of our local Sheetz!

This group worked to bake the whoopie pies we planned to sell. One mixed them up, and when more girls were free, they came to help, mixing icing and getting the cookie pieces baked. The girls decided that traditional chocolate whoopie pies might sell better than the pumpkin ones from the book, especially since they’re not usually seen around here, so we went with my great-grandmother’s recipe.

Designing a digital graphic to advertise the bake sale

I love the user-friendly interface of PicMonkey, and I use it often. My kids like to play around with making graphics for school and for fun projects, too, and so this pair made a graphic that I could share on Facebook to spread the word about their bake sale. They did a great job!

The girls bagged their whoopie pies in sandwich bags and ate their lunches. We all had to try a whoopie pie, too – quality control is important, right? Then we headed off to our local Tractor Supply store, where the staff is always super supportive of kids trying to help others.

Selling whoopie pies for the Wounded Warrior Project

They set up their table outside the door and under the roof, which was great as the forecast was a little sketchy and it was pretty cold. Their digital advertising worked really well, though – one older man was there waiting for whoopie pies when we got there! He wasn’t sure what a whoopie pie was, but he wanted to help our Wounded Warriors – and we were excited to provide the opportunity.

The girls giggled and asked everyone who passed by if they wanted to support Wounded Warriors with whoopie pies, and people were really generous. They sold every single whoopie pie within an hour and had to turn people away. It was a wonderful afternoon!

Ready to hold your own Wounded Warrior fundraiser? Pin this image to share with your friends and get them on board!

By the end of the sale, the girls had raised more than $130 to send to the Wounded Warrior Project. Not bad for a day’s work in middle school, right?

We had a blast with Absolutely Truly, and I wanted to be able to share the fun with you! I’ve created a book club project back to accompany this book. In it, you’ll find ideas for holding your own Wounded Warrior Fundraiser, as well as club shirt ideas, birding ideas, recipes, and much more. If that’s not your thing, there are other ways to bring it to life with your students here.

Book club projects to accompany 'Absolutely Truly' — Book club projects to accompany ‘Absolutely Truly’

Save time and energy with these discussion questions and creative prompts

These printable posters featuring quotes from 'Absolutely Truly' are absolutely FREE! — These printable posters featuring quotes from ‘Absolutely Truly’ are absolutely FREE!

What are your kids reading right now?

“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.

Kids Create: Making a Historical Documentary

January 30, 2019 by Amy 2 Comments

As a kid, I always wanted to be a teacher; as an adult, that hasn’t changed. I was worried about that when we decided to homeschool, but I find myself still teaching – just in a wider variety of roles than ever!

Sometimes, what needs to be taught is pushing my boundaries of knowledge, however. Earlier in the year, when one of my history club kids wanted to make a documentary, I went looking for resources, since that’s not anything that I’ve done in this decade. It took a bit of doing, but I found a way.

Our library is fantastic, and you can reserve a librarian – how cool is that? You simply book a time, and they help you with what you need. I love that! Fortunately, our librarian has a great tech guy, and he agreed to teach us how to use iMovie and to help the group complete a documentary. (That may not seem like much to you Mac users, but since none of us have Macs, it was a big deal!)

When one heard about the documentary workshop, more jumped on board – and then they decided that if they were going to need video to edit, they might as well make something real out of it. They chose to examine the controversy surrounding Dolley Madison’s birthplace, part of our local lore that is really popular here.

We began our research by collecting information locally, online and from local historians. Then we headed to Chapel Hill, where we spent a good part of the day culling through books and online journals, looking for information. We found more than we expected!

Following all that hard research, we went out for lunch on Franklin Street, the main thoroughfare in Chapel Hill. Restaurants line the side opposite the University of North Carolina, where we conducted our research, and so we ate with the big college kids. Big stuff!

Back home, we continued working. The kids wrote a script and traveled to the important places mentioned in their research, filming and taking pictures that they could use as the visual elements to their documentary. They chose not to be onscreen themselves, so they needed a lot of visuals.

That amazing librarian spent several hours over the course of two weeks teaching them the finer points of iMovie. He made himself available to answer questions when they got stuck, and after about 20 hours, they completed their documentary!

They’ve chosen to enter it into a statewide competition coming up this spring. In the meantime, however, if you’d like to know more about the controversy surrounding Dolley Madison’s birth, check out their documentary below.

Maybe it will give your kids some ideas…

because while I never expected my middle school kids to be out making movies, they did a great job – and they can’t wait to do more.

Kids can do big things.

What big things are your kids up to lately?

Book Club, Durham Edition: “The Ambrose Deception”

December 10, 2018 by Amy Leave a Comment

I love when books lend themselves to big life activities, and that’s exactly what Emily Ecton’s The Ambrose Deception does that in a very big way! The book is kind of a cross between Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library and The Book Scavenger, both books that we’ve done in book club, and so I was very excited to bring The Ambrose Deception to life.

The book is about some kids having life issues who get asked to apply for what they’re told is a scholarship opportunity. It turns out to be something much more nefarious, but in the process they explore and have adventures all over their own home city of Chicago. I decided that we should do the same in nearby Durham, North Carolina.

NOW AVAILABLE: The Ambrose Deception: Raleigh, NC Edition!

To make this work, we needed parents willing to drive around the city, cell phones capable of doing research and taking pictures, and a few hours of time. In advance, I planned out clues and prepared everything our teams would need out on the road.

Because Bondi, Melissa, and Wilf, the kids in the book, ended up meeting at coffee shops to make plans over doughnuts, we chose to start our clue hunt the same way. We began at Monuts, a fair trade shop on Ninth Street that serves coffee, pastries, doughnuts, and breakfast/lunch items. Everyone ordered what they wanted independently, and we started out talking about the book and having fun over our preferred choice of caffeine or chocolate.

Next, I split the kids into their teams. We discussed the rules of the game, most which came straight from the book, and a few which were specific to us – like being respectful of others and their property and to be safe while adventuring.

I did create one special rule just for us. In the spirit of Enoch Ambrose, each photo turned in as evidence of having solved a clue needed to show both teamwork and adventure. I added in this challenge in lieu of the twist that Enoch wrote into his will with the three caveats: one takes you back, one takes you forward, one is a trick. This worked super well, and so if someone wasn’t taking part in the picture fun, I challenged them to try again and take another picture.

I love how this group got into the spirit of this challenge! They’re in front of the Gamble House, and so they decided to act as if they were gambling. The picture doesn’t show how excited they were about this, but I heard all about it for hours afterwards!

When each team had submitted the correct answers for each clue, I sent them a clue to the final destination. This group got their first, and they were really excited about it! They celebrated with sodas and cupcakes.

They headed outside to take fun pictures with their certificates.

This made for a really fun book club. The clues sent them all over the center of Durham (though only to safe areas, of course). They researched to solve clues and visited historical sites, famous restaurants, sports venues, statues, fountains, and gardens. Putting this hunt together was really fun, …

but if you don’t want to design your own, I’ve added mine to my Teachers Pay Teachers store, so you can replicate the fun with your own group! You’ll find everything you need here.

If participating in a scavenger hunt sounds like fun, please consider Pinning this graphic to share the idea with your friends.

*This product does require that you are physically in Durham, NC. If you aren’t, don’t fret! There’s a fully digital version on the way that you can complete from anywhere. Stay tuned!

NOW AVAILABLE: The Ambrose Deception: Raleigh, NC Edition!

If you decide to Host Your Own “The Ambrose Deception” Scavenger Hunt in Durham, NC, I’d love to hear how it goes! Comment below and let me know what you think!

In the meantime, what are you reading right now?