We recently had the opportunity to review For The Temple by Heirloom Audio, which was exciting because we are always on the hunt for new audiobooks. Audiobooks are a huge part of our homeschool, we find outselves on the go lots and busy doing progects so having the ability to listen to the stories while we are doing something else is very helpful. For The Temple is a christian based history radio theature production, a story that really comes alive! With these stories on cd’s or downloadable mp3’s you can have them whereever you go! On top of the audiobooks they offer a study guide to go along with the story so you can really make it a full lesson!
The Story
This story takes you through a particular time in the life of a character, John. In the beginning, John and Mary, his promised bride, start off on John’s family farm, Mary being young and full of adventure convinces John to go sailing with her in the Sea Of Galilee. John doesn’t want to go because he knows there’s a storm coming but he follows Mary to make sure that she’s safe. The storm comes as John predicted and the two are washed farther away from shore, this is when their story gets a bit bumpy!
John decides to leave his home at the farm and Mary to join the war as a soldier in hope that he will rise in ranks to bring honour to his name. He works hard to become a great warrior, providing advice and knowledge to the army. Through the book, John continues in his military journey; fighting, escaping war and leading the forces against the Roman armies. He led a band of men, single men with no children, to cause trouble for the Romans, they may not have stopped the Roman armies but they caused a lot of mischiefs! John ends up leading a group of men to Jerusalem to protect the temple.
My son found that some parts of the story were a little bit intense, there’s a part where John and his friend escape the Roman army to a hideout. When they come out of hiding after the Romans had left there were fires around the city with burning bodies of the cities people. It’s a pretty gruesome image painted and he was a little wigged out, but I think that they handled it very well in the story as far as not making it too intense. Sometimes history can be a little harsh to hear and I think that this book does a great job at handling these horrible parts in a gentle way that isn’t too scary.
The Study Guide
The study guide provides a chapter by chapter review questions to make sure that your child is following the story. As well as discussion questions you can use to go even deeper into the topic! Which for a mom like me with younger children it really helps me explore the whole story and what it means with my kids. For example, a Listening Well question is something like, “To what city does Vespasian lay siege?” and a Thinking Furter question is something like, “Vespasian and Titus seem to have switched positions on the place of their gods in all of this. Why, do you suppose?” Do you see how one is asking the reader to dig deeper and the other is just seeing if you remember what you read.
The study guide also gives a list of Defining Words for each of the chapters. You could use these as a spelling list, to add to a child made dictionary if you have one of those started, or simply just look the words up with your children and discuss their meanings together. I really like the fact that this gives my children and I a chance to talk about words that they might begin to hear more often but don’t actually know what they mean.
At the very end of the study guide, you can find some very interesting bits. There’s a couple of short bible studies that you can go through that really bring the biblical history in line with the story you just heard. I find this particularly helpful and interesting when learning about history. In the first bible study for For The Temple they go through the biblical references to having no other saviours.
We have been using the study guide as verbal questions that I then just sit and discuss with my kids. This approach allows us to really get the conversation going and we are able to have a deep discussion together. We listened through the entire story first and then went back and listened to it chapter by chapter to go through the study guide.
What I Think You’ll Like
There are a couple of things that we really enjoyed. The fact that this can be listened to anywhere at any time was really appealing to us. We were able to use it in the car while we were driving and now my son is re-listening to the book while he falls asleep. I like that he is listening to and enjoying something filled with good values! I would highly recommend the Digital copy of the books if you’re looking for something that can be taken with you anywhere because I was able to download the digital copy and then add the tracks right into my iTunes.
Another thing that my son really like was the different voice actors. This added something special to the story, having different voices for the people really allowed him to connect to the story. They do a great job of making you feel like you are right there with them! The added sound effects help with making you feel like you are there as well, sounds like the water of the sea and the creaking of a boat make it all the more real while you’re listening to the story!
You can read other Homeschool Review Crew Members reviews by clicking the picture below or follow this link —> http://schoolhousereviewcrew.com/for-the-temple-heirloom-audio-reviews/
