Review: 24-Hour History 5-Book Set

 

History can be super boring depending on the way it's taught.  Recently Timberdoodle sent us a great set of books to help strengthen our love and knowledge of history. The  24-Hour History 5-Book Set is part of Timberdoodle's Fourth-Grade Curriculum Set. Don't let the grade level fool you because these books are bright, colorful and full of information that would benefit any grade level student.  These books are long enough that you could read aloud to your students, but yet not too long to frustrate a student. My son is in 8th grade, but he greatly enjoyed reading these books. Typically I'll read something like this out loud as we start our day, but the covers grabbed his attention and he read these one weekend without me even realizing it!

This is a 5-book set and there are some great titles included. These books try to take a 24 hour period and present the material in a colorful and interesting way.   The Apollo 11 Moon Landing was the first one my son picked up to read. He's recently been interested in the subject of space traveling, so this book caught his attention right away.  He was fascinated that they were traveling 238,900 miles away. Such a hard concept to understand when you are thinking of space travel for that distance.  As I was looking through these books I was shocked to learn that the computers on board had less processing power than a modern cell phone!! Amazing to think of the type of working they were doing in space and relying on something like a cell phone to keep them safe.  

We had recently read a story about Pearl Harbor, so the second title that caught my son's eye was The Attack on Pearl Harbor book.  We learned that one of the bombs hit the area of the Arizona where the ammunition was stored. That blast killed 1,200 men.  Apparently the US and Japan had been having peace talks for a while.  The US was told they'd receive word from the Japanese embassy by 7 a.m. declaring peace. That message was not received until almost 3 p.m.-long after the attack to Pearl Harbor had happened.

The other three titles in the series are D-Day, The Assassination of John F. Kennedy and The Assassination of Martin Luther King JR. It's hard to say there were truly any favorites out of these five because they were all very interesting. Often times we are hit with so many details, dates etc. that it's hard to keep up with the information. By trying to take a 24 hour period and detail that it gives the student and honestly the mom too, such a more detailed understanding of events. At the end of each book there is also a summary or conclusion with more information as well as a timeline, glossary and additional information. We really enjoyed the "Find out More" section as it gave us other information that we could check into to further our studies.  

This is yet another hit from Timberdoodle in the history department. I truly believe that I have come to learn more and enjoy learning about history with these type books than I ever did when I was a student. Even though these books are suggested for the 4th Grade Curriculum I believe they could easily be read aloud to younger students and older students as well. These grade levels are just recommendations and as parents we have to learn to use books in the best way to benefit our children.  I can see my son picking these up again and again. That being said he and I both give the 24-Hour History 5-Book Set ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ If you have a student that is struggling to read, frustrated with their current books give these a shot and I truly think it will help change their mindset.  

Review: Laser Chess

 I was so excited to be able to try out Laser Chess from Timberdoodle's 7th Grade Kit recently.  I learned how to play chess when I was a child and taught my husband how to play on our move from NC to Ca many years ago.  As our children were growing up my husband taught both our boys how to play and they all enjoyed playing against each other. When I heard about this game I got so excited thinking our youngest son would love it! I mean what's better than chess and lasers? (LOL)

Laser Chess is a two-player game that combines the strategy of chess with the fun of the laser beams.  The players take turns moving or rotating one of their mirrored pieces on the board and then firing their laser beam in hopes of striking one of their opponents pieces.  The ultimate goal is to light up the other person's king and win the game.  26 playing pieces are included in the game with the game board, instructions and 5 different board setups.  Those 26 pieces include 2 Kings, 4 Switch pieces, 4 Defender pieces, 14 Deflector pieces and 2 Lasers. One part of the game that is super tricky is that if the laser hits one of your own pieces that token is eliminated from the game. You not only have to strategize to take out your opponent's pieces, but to not hit your own in the process.  

 

My husband and our youngest tried playing the game first. They both were struggling to understand how to play it. I read the instructions, went over them with them and left them to play and go to the book for any help they needed. They still struggled with how to play the game. I tried playing with our son as well and was a bit confused myself. We tried playing through the game with the instruction book to look through as we played. We understood the ultimate goal of the game as well as how to move or rotate the pieces. We seemed to continue to hit our own players with the laser beams and struggle with the best moves to make to try and win the game. The more I thought about it I wondered if our knowledge of chess was making this game harder for us. Our son, 13, kept wanting to know which pieces was like a rook or knight and got a little frustrated that they weren't similar.  Ultimately I realized that while this game is super cool and many kids would catch on easily and quickly it just didn't work that way for our family.  

Review: Wimmelbooks Set of 3

When my children were younger there wasn't much better to me than snuggling up with a book and reading to them. That was something I remembered from my childhood and hope to pass on to my grandchildren.  Recently I had the chance to spend some quality time with my grandsons and the 4 year old and I got to read these books.  He loves books and I, of course, want to indulge him in that love! I thought the Wimmelbooks Set of 3 would be interesting to him, but also help work on things like language development and using his imagination to make up his own stories.  As we read through these books they certainly didn't disappoint.  I've never met a child, let alone a boy, that didn't love all things on the farm, cars and construction related.  

These books are larger than a typical board type book and I think that's great for when kids like to sprawl out on the floor and look through them.  At the beginning of the book there is a list of the characters. As you look through the pages the child is looking to find the character and then tell you a story about them based on what's going on in the page. For example here are the characters At The Construction Site.  

James is the character that you want to help your child find throughout the story.

The child then tells a story about what James is doing in these pictures.

As we moved through the books the each follow the same pattern.  In Cars And Things That Go we have these characters.

We are now looking for Noah and telling stories about what he is doing. 

In the final book On The Farm we have the usual type characters you'd expect on a farm.

This time we are looking for Debbie and talking about what we think she's doing on the farm.  

I always thought of picture books as not really something I was interested in looking at with my children because there was no written story. When my youngest was about 4 I attended a seminar that was all about picture books. We had to take picture books and come up with our own story and it wasn't always easy. I learned then how open ended picture books are and that each of us can look at the same pictures and come up with a different story. This helps develop our imagination and creativity.  These books have been really great to look through while spending some quality time with my grandson.  These books are available in the 2020 Preschool Curriculum Kit and that's right in the age of my oldest grandson. As with any books you can take them and adjust them how you need to for them to fit your family.  To keep up with any new items check out Timberdoodle's Website, their Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or their Youtube.

Review: The Faithful Spy

Have you heard of Dietrich Bonhoeffer? I'm sad to say that I didn't remember hearing about him before my son and I read The Faithful Spy. I'm honestly not sure if that's because I never learned about him or just didn't remember, but he was a fascinating man! Issac and I read this book as a read aloud each morning as we started school. He got so into the book that the one chapter I had planned to read a day wasn't enough. I had to be the "mean" mom and stop at two chapters (LOL) The book was 175 pages with seven chapters. The chapters were good lengths, but the way the chapters are written they aren't overwhelming! This book is written in what I'd call a comic style with bold colors of aqua, red, black and white. I think the color choices went great with the storyline and seemed to give it a dramatic flair.

Bonhoeffer was a pastor who became very upset with the way Hitler was treating people and running the country. There were points where he thought there was nothing he could or should do other than just support because that's what people should do. After receiving his draft notice and Hitler speaking out about wanting to completely annihilate the Jewish people Bonhoeffer felt he had to leave Germany. He left for New York City, but didn't stay long. He prayed and wondered about what he should do. As a pastor it didn't seem right what Hitler was saying about the Jewish people, but as a "good" German wasn't he suppose to support his country? After 26 days in the United States Dietrich was aboard one of the last boats to make the trans-Atlantic journey before WWII started.  He knew he had to do something and sitting by and hoping for the best wasn't the answer anymore.

As we learned more about Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his "action in faith" we learned what an amazing faith he had and how far he was willing to go to do what was right.  Dietrich felt that the people of Germany needed to be freed from their oppression.  He worked behind the scenes with many people trying to save the country he loved.  He ultimately gave his life for what he though was right.

This was an amazing and very powerful book. Yet the way it was written and presented was right there at the level needed to draw my son and I both in and keep us engaged. I feel when you can write and capture the attention of people so different in age then you truly have a gift. Issac and I took several things that we read in this book and looked them up and researched them further. I would recommend this book to all families, but especially if you have a child with an interest in history.  John Hendrix did an amazing job with this book and we can't wait to read more of his works.

Review: Chinese Brush Painting

Art is one of the subjects that has been very hit or miss around our house. It seems like we put the effort into doing the core subjects, but forget how much art and music need to be explored as well. Timberdoodle has us covered when it comes to art. We recently were sent Chinese Brush Painting to review. I'll be honest that I hadn't really heard of this before, but was excited to try it out.  The set arrived in a very pretty and sturdy box.  It included the instruction book with 10 painting projects, a pad of paper, Chinese brushes, watercolor paints and more! This set is recommended for ages 9 and up. My son, almost 13, and I worked on these projects together.

We first sat down with the instruction booklet and went over all our materials.  There were two brushes included, one called a white cloud brush and the other a vine brush. The white cloud brush was for larger strokes and the vine brush for thinner.  Everything we needed was included in the kit other than water, a dish and a towel. I like when I can open the box and get started.  This technique is all about the layering of the colors and how the brush strokes are made.

We decided that we'd follow the book's recommendations by first doing the ladybug.  We struggled with the technique of layering the colors on the brush, but I think it's a skill that needs to be developed. The more we work on it the better it will be. It's definitely a skill to paint this way. The layering is what makes these paintings so beautiful and unique.  Everyone is going to layer colors slightly different and therefore that is what makes them unique.

** Issac's ladybug

** My lady bug 

**The example in the book

After the ladybug we decided to just pick items we wanted to paint and work on our techniques while we worked. The item I thought was the COOLEST out of the kit was the ink stone and stick. We were given a black stone in which we were to put a few drops of water. Then you take the stick and grind it around the stone and it gives you a black color. The stick is dried-up powder that has been compressed. I find these two items just fascinating!

We've really had a lot of fun with this kit. There has been trial and error in our technique, but like I mentioned before it's a skill that needs to be learned. I'm not quite sure we have the technique down yet, but we still had a great time trying.  I'm very thankful for Timberdoodle for providing such quality art products such as this Chinese Brush Painting set.  

Review: Hey Clay Bugs

Playing with clay has been something that I've done with all my children from a very early age. They've loved being creative, but are often upset that they can't really keep their creations longer than the day they played with it.  When I learned about Hey Clay and that it's a pliable clay that can dry I was really interested to check it out. This way your child can make their bugs and continue to have creative play with them long after the day they were made.  Even though this item is part of the Timberdoodle Fourth Grade Curriculum Kit I knew my 12 year old son would enjoy it.  

Hey Clay Bugs is a really cool kit that arrived with 18 containers of air-dry clay. This clay is different than anything we've used before. It's a little stiff when first opened, but after working with the clay for a few minutes it softens up a bit.  This clay also has more of a sponge type texture and even after it dries it feels like nothing we've ever used before! One thing that is very cool about this product is the interactive app that you can download from either Google Play or the Apple App Store. It walks you step-by-step through how to make each of the 6 bugs features on the box of the kit. Clay is provided to make a spider, caterpillar, praying mantis, snail, ladybug or dragonfly.  The app is set up for all users to be able to succeed by allowing the user as much time as needed as well as the ability to back up if needed.  There are many these days with allergies that stop them from being able to use certain materials.  Hey Clay is wheat & gluten free as well as nontoxic and nonstaining. This can be so very important for our children while they are expressing their creative side.

Issac and I each decided to pick one bug as well as Issac chose to do something totally off the wall and NOT follow the directions :) I chose to do the caterpillar and Issac chose the 6-eyed spider.  I found the clay super easy to work with as well as the instructions were easy to follow. My only issue that I had was often I didn't really know how much of the clay I should be using. I wish there was a little better suggestion on the size or maybe even a template included that showed the sizes we needed to be using. I was often a little worried if I used too much maybe I wouldn't have enough to do another bug. When I was done I set my caterpillar to the side and was happily surprised the next morning to see how sturdy it had become.  

Issac chose to do the 6-eyed spider and enjoyed the silliness of the creation.  He does struggle with fine-motor skills, so he had a little trouble getting his legs just right.  He struggled with the eyes as well as I did and didn't care for the idea of using a pencil. He felt the pencil was a tad to large. We just changed the plan a little and I suggested he put the eyes together and then put them on the spider.  Thankfully Hey Clay Bugs is easily adaptable.

Overall even though Issac is 12 he really enjoyed the Hey Clay Bugs. He enjoyed it so much that he even wrote his own review and posted it on his YouTube channel.  This item is listed as 3+ and its definitely one of those items that works for a variety of ages.   I liked that the texture was a little stiffer in the beginning because that can be good for those with fine motor issues. The variety of colors was great and there is plenty to do all the bugs pictures.  In this day and age of technology often times I think our kids are losing the creative aspect that was there before technology. Have this app combines the best of both worlds I feel. It gives the artist the ability to follow the directions and have a great product or adapt as their creativity suggests and still come up with a great product. 

If bugs aren't your thing check out Hey Clay Animals.  Both of these items can be found at Timberdoodle.com as well as tons of other great items.