Brinkman Adventures~ Old-Time Radio dramas with current story lines

My youngest is a history buff (I think I've mentioned that a time or two), and is very interested in World War II particularly, so when we were given the opportunity to review Season 6: Underground Rising from Brinkman Adventures I jumped at the chance.

The Homeschool Review Crew has reviewed earlier Seasons in the series, but this is my first experience with them, so I'll give you a little basic information. In the past each season included 5+ hours of stories told in old time radio drama style, but they are moving to a 2+ hour, six-episode season at this point. Each episode is close to 1/2 hour, so great for short car rides, or for a regular faith-building family-listening time (This would work well for lunch-time listen, or evening family time, if schedules allow).

The Brinkmans are a fictional family, but the stories that take place are based on real, present-day missionary experiences around the world.  This season is a little different because they do take a step back into the Dutch Resistance/Underground of World War II in the first two episodes (which was a great introduction to the series for my aforementioned history-loving boy). The other 4 episodes in Season 6 take place in the US, India, and Thailand/Mynmar/Burma. I'm not going to give you a rundown of each episode, as you can listen to samples on the website. However, here is a quick synopsis of the themes for each episode:

In addition to offering interesting stories, these radio dramas offer the opportunity to discuss key faith/character-related concepts, including themes of salvation, helping when it's risky, trusting God's plan, resisting evil, and more.

One of my favorite features is a "Real Story" page for each series (it is suggested that you visit the pages AFTER listening to the dramas). These pages offer background information about the real people upon which each episode is based, with photos, interviews, podcasts, videos and more. They give insight into specific story inspirations, as well as why certain scenes were included, and how the recordings were made. For instance, I thought the Dutch accents of the actors were quite good (my husband's aunt is Dutch, so I'm familiar with the sound), and the Real Story page for Season 6 introduces us to the people behind the voices... who aren't using a learned accent~ Beachglass Ministries traveled to the Netherlands to record!

I can see how some of the information included could spark a full-blown unit study for each episode, moving this more into a weekly drama-listening idea. In addition to the history related information, I saw science-related videos and graphics, recipes, supplementary reading suggestions, geography, social studies, etc... Great idea for summer learning that is just fun! Oh... what a neat idea for a summer camp, with a geography/missions-oriented focus! Hmmmm... I might have to think about this some more!

Map where Brinkman Adventures take place (looks like Seasons 1-5 included, 6 may not be up there yet)

I know that these are recommended as family listening. Personally, for our family, aged 10 or 11 is about right for handling the intensity of some of the scenes. I also realize that my family may not be the norm (We tend to err on the side of listening later rather than earlier), so I do hope you follow the link at the end of my review to hear what others had to say. I suspect there may be some variation in the age suggestions.

Youngest really enjoyed listening to these stories. His favorite episodes were the last two, Free Burma Rangers Parts 1 and 2. He found the military background coupled with the mission to tell others about Jesus very exciting to listen to. He has expressed a desire to hear more of them, which brings me to the graphic you see below. Brinkman Adventures is offering my readers a 10% discount through the end of the month. This is a great option to pick up for Christmas or Birthday presents.

10% Coupon Code expires 31, Oct, 2018

Not So Nutty Nitty Gritty 

• Company: Brinkman Adventures
• Product: Season 6: Underground Rising, Digital version
• Ages: Family
• Price: 
• $19.99 Digital Download
• $23.99 Physical CD

You can interact with the folks from Brinkman Adventures on Facebook

Please click the banner below to visit the TOS Homeschool Review Crew and see what others had to say. As always, I hope that this review was useful to you as you choose where best to spend your homeschool budget.

Blessings~

#hsreviews #AudioDrama #MissionaryStories #AudioMissionaryDrama #BrinkmanAdventures

Do you know how our bodies work? Apologia has answers for your Elementary Student!

I enjoyed using Apologia's Young Explorer Series in the past, with my two older children, so I was delighted to be asked to review Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy and Physiology, which includes the text, an mp3* audio narration of the text, and two levels of their notebooking journal, the regular and the junior version.

I'm guessing that most of my readers have heard of Apologia if they've been homeschooling for very long, but for those who are new to this homeschooling thing, let me give you a quick run-down on some of the reasons why I appreciate Apologia.

• The text is written directly to the student, and is somewhat more conversational than the textbooks I grew up with. 
• Science is approached from a Christian Worldview, clearly and logically articulated, and reinforced through questions and activities that include that worldview.  
• The activities and experiments suggested in the book are generally able to be completed with normal household materials that one is likely to have on hand. 

Now, when I first used Apologia's Exploring Creation series, well over a decade ago, it simply consisted of the text. There was no MP3 audio CD (Helpful for those who have reading disabilities, or who simply process more easily when listening to audio), nor were there premade journaling notebooks. We had a printable pdf with notebooking pages, mostly for narration purposes, but nothing like the resource that was sent to us with the text for this review.

The course includes 14 Lessons, with a recommended pace similar to their High School Modules of 2 weeks per lesson, so a full year course.  The Lessons are:

1. Introduction to Anatomy and Physiology
2. The Skelatal System
3. The Muscular System
4. The Digestive and Renal Systems
5. Heath and Nutrition
6. The Respiratory System
7. Life in the Blood
8. The Cardiovascular System
9. The Nervous and Endocrine Systems
10. The Nervous System Extended
11. Your Senses
12. The Integumentary System
13. The Lymphatic and Immune System
14. Growth and Development 

The two journals include all the pages you will need (and more) to maintain a record of what your child has learned in the course with pages to write their narrative answers to the "Tell someone what you've learned" questions.  There are a few variations, of course. For example, the Junior Journal includes coloring pages, more flap books for vocabulary activities and the copy work pages use guidelines, where the older journal does not, while the regular Journal includes more detailed and difficult crossword puzzles

Journal Page found in both books

I will admit that my 5th grader's handwriting is not fabulous yet (remember the recent cursive review?) so the opportunity to have him practice in the notebook is helpful, but in this instance, he might benefit more from the younger journal instead of the older one as he is still working on uniform letter size.

Sample Copywork pages from Regular and Junior Journals

This was also his first experience with a larger crossword puzzle (more words) with smaller boxes~ Ummmm... I said to use a pencil for a reason... ;) This was also one of those activities that took much longer than I expected, but he is improving. :)

Use a pencil, bud! ;) 

Both journals include full-color Minibooks to add to each lesson. These pages are found in the back of the journal. Although not my circumstance, because I only have one student, I appreciate that these are almost identical (with the exception of the writing lines, which again, have guidelines in the junior version) so that those with multi-age students are able to have some journaling activities that are the same.


I am including a photo of the back of the Muscle Minibook prior to gluing it into the journal, so that you can see how clear the directions are.

A little bit more about the MP3~ It is read by the author, Jeannie Fulbright, herself. Her voice and inflections are pleasant to listen to, and I will note that she does not entirely read the text word-for-word, but all of the material is covered.
* The MP3 audio CD must be played on an MP3 compatible player, typically on your computer. This becomes a bit of an issue as more computers are made without DVD drives, so offering it as a download might be a useful suggestion.

Here's a little bit of information on how/why the Exploring Creation Immersion approach to science works, in Jeannie Fulbright's words:


I will also mention that when you purchase the text, you gain access to a password-protected resource that includes MANY extra links for further research and study if something, in particular, catches your child's interest.  Here is a screenshot of the first part of the resources.

As you can see, Apologia offers a very thorough and very engaging course for your young scientist, and their curriculum is something that I can highly recommend, as it has been one of my personal choices to purchase and use since almost the very beginning of my homeschooling career.

Not So Nutty Nitty Gritty 

• Company: Apologia 
• Product: Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy and Physiology
• Ages: K-6th grade
• Price: 
• $49.00 Text
• $29 each for the journals and the MP3 CD Audio book

You can connect with Apologia on any of their many Social Media pages: 

Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Google+, and YouTube

Please click the banner below to visit the TOS Homeschool Review Crew and see what others had to say. As always, I hope that this review was useful to you as you choose where best to spend your homeschool budget.

Blessings~

#hsreviews  #homeschool,  #homeschooling,
#elementaryscience,  #youngexplorerseries,
#exploringcreation,  #apologiascience  #homeschoolscience

Creation Illustrated~ now available in both Print and Digital editions!

I was first introduced to Creation Illustrated a number of years ago and was impressed with the beautiful photography (reminiscent of National Geographic), and articles written from a Christian Worldview, so I was delighted to check out two of their new Nature Unit Studies which I was sent for review, along with the corresponding newly available Digital versions of their magazine.

The Unit Studies are a natural complement to the format of the magazine, which is set up in three different coordinating sections~ here is an example of the table of contents taken from one of the issues we were given access to (Offered free for your perusal as well), the Fall '17 Digital Edition, which is the issue corresponding to the Pine Trees Study, one of the two studies we were sent to review.

Creation Illustrated
           

There are currently eight Nature Unit Studies available:
Badgers, Black Bears, Dragonflies, Fragrance
Joshua Tree National Park, Manatees, Pine Trees, Snow
and the 9th study on Butterflies (which corresponds to the latest issues, Spring '18 Digital Edition), will be available soon.

PINE TREES UNIT STUDY

The Pine Trees Unit study is the one that we chose to look at more in depth, in part because we have already covered snow in our studies, (perhaps to a greater degree than some, because my daughter takes amazing macro snowflake photos... ;), so Pine Trees was the more natural choice for us. 

The Lessons included in the Full Unit Studies include a list of Reading Resources, Educational Video suggestions, Vocabulary and Spelling pages, a Bible Study, Geography, Science, Math, Writing and Penmanship, Art, a Puzzle (Wordsearch), and Teacher's Answer Keys. 

 I had my son do parts of this study independently, and the lessons vary in difficulty. He was able to complete the Vocabulary, Spelling, Geography and Puzzle pages with ease (he chose not to complete the pine tree drawing on the Art page), but the Bible Study, Science and Math pages required a little more time, and/or some hands on help from mom. This tells me that the age range of 5th-8th grade is pretty accurate. 

We were also sent the Snow Unit Study from the Winter '18 Digital Edition.

 

In looking it over, I can say that I really like the Art page in the snow study, and will probably pull that out next winter~ he can go through his sister's photographs and see how many of the 35 snow flake shapes she has captured with her lens (did you know there were that many different basic shapes???!!!).

I will note that each issue already includes a study guide that covers many of the articles in the issue, but they are different from those in the full unit study (that addresses one topic in depth from the issue). The Full Unit Study is appropriate for grades 5-8.

A few more general bits of information about each Creation Illustrated issues~
They include coloring, photo, and poetry contests for homeschoolers, as well as Genesis Cuisine recipes to try out. You can subscribe to the Print Editions (which come out Quarterly ~ currently 25% off) and subscriptions to the Digital Editions will be available soon. In the meantime, there are some print back-issues available and the digital back-issues are being made available as they are uploaded ~ you will find all of that including another Sample Digital Back Issue, a Sample Unit Study on Fragrance, a character-building lesson, and more at Creation Illustrated. 

Not So Nutty Nitty Gritty 

• Company: Creation Illustrated
• Product: Pine Trees Study and Snow Unit Study
• Ages: Unit Studies 
• Price: 
• Unit Studies ~ Regularly $9.95, at the time of this post, 30% off at $6.95
• Print Magazine Subscription $14.95/year (Quarterly) 
• Digital Subscriptions (soon) $9.95/year
• Limited Print Back Issues also available $4.99 each

You can visit Creation Illustrated in on their Social Media Pages on
Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter

Please click the banner below to visit the TOS Homeschool Review Crew and see what others had to say. As always, I hope that this review was useful to you as you choose where best to spend your homeschool budget.

Blessings~

"Trust Fund" ~ A Modern Day "Prodigal story" movie with companion book

My daughter and I are always on the lookout for GOOD films to watch together, so we were both excited to receive the movie Trust Fund by Mapelle Films for review. We also received a go-along book Love Was Near (intended to be read AFTER viewing the movie), for YA girls.

Of additional interest to us was the fact that the cinematographer/producer of this film was homeschooled, and the cinematography is AMAZING! I will add that there is no "cheese" to be found in this film~ it is first-rate!

Quick synopsis: Trust Fund is a modern day retelling of the Prodigal Son story from the Bible.

Essentials that remain the same:

• Wealthy Family
• Younger sibling takes inheritance
• Spends inheritance unwisely
• Returns home seeking forgiveness
• Older sibling "rivalry"

Differences:

• Sisters instead of Brothers
• Modern setting
• Love interest(s)

This was an enjoyable film (and, I will repeat, with gorgeous cinematography) that can easily be watched with multiple generations (12+) without any cringe-worthy moments (no foul language, gratuitous sexuality or violence which all tend to be pet peeves of mine when watching most modern films). I think it would be a work extremely well as a high school and/or college-aged "Girls night in" choice, but there is enough intrigue and the story line is such that it should be enjoyed by the males in the family as well (kind of chick-flick, but not totally ;) ).

We loved the Italian location/filming, but wish there were subtitles for when there were conversations in Italian, as it was hard to figure out exactly what was going on. ;)

You can get a feel for the quality of the film yourself by watching the trailer below...

TF OFFICAL TRAILER 2016 - Theatrical 2min from isaac alongi on Vimeo.

You can make this an educational experience as well as entertainment,  by downloading Mapelle Films' Downloadable Study Guide, which comes with four parts. Each section includes 

• Scripture ~ from the Prodigal Son Passage that is the basis for a particular scene in the film
• Right to the Point ~ draws a parallel between the Biblical story and the movie
• Deep Thoughts ~ trying to figure out some of the "why" behind some of the actions of the characters in the movie
• What Do You Think? ~ Questions that assess comprehension as well as offering opportunities for application. 

If you'd like to take that educational experience a little further with a female audience, you might want to consider checking out the companion book, Love  was Near. The book follows the movie story line, with three components for each  of the 28 chapters.

In each, Reese (the main character in the movie) first writes in the first person, giving background information and insight into the story, explaining her perspective and the background for some of the decisions she makes in the movie.

The second part is written in diary form, which offers even more insight into her character and thoughts,  and the third part is more book-club-ish with a number of leading questions to ponder.

Not So Nutty Nitty Gritty 

• Company: Mapelle Films
• Product: Trust Fund (Movie) Love Was Near (Book)
• Ages: 12+
• Price: 
• Trust Fund Movie $14.99
• Love was Near $12.99
• Movie Soundtrack $9.99

Connect with Mapelle Films and Trust Fund on Social Media, where you might hear more about their next film "How to Pick Your Second Husband~ FIRST" as well as connecting with them about Trust Fund:
Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram  

Please click the banner below to visit the TOS Homeschool Review Crew and see what others had to say. As always, I hope that this review was useful to you as you choose where best to spend your homeschool budget.

Blessings~

#hsreviews  #trustfundmovie #movienight  #moviereview
#familynight  #familyfun #family