We recently had the opportunity to review For The Temple MP3 audio download and Study Guide from Heirloom Audio. We were not disappointed!
We have had the privilege to review several G.A. Henty audiobooks from Heirloom Audio Productions. They call them audio theater, the kids and I call them audio dramas. They are not just books that are being read to us and you feel like you are being put to sleep. Each story is acted out in a way that if you close your eyes, you can imagine you are in the middle of the action of every single story. You can feel the army watching you, feel the waves splashing in your face and the mist as the story goes along.
In the story, For The Temple by G.A. Henty, readers are taken to the final days of the Temple of Jerusalem in 70 C.E. John and his sister are shipwrecked. Does he serve in the army or not? There are bands of robbers and dramatic political fights. With all this going on around him, John of Gamala does his best to save God's Temple. He becomes an enemy of the Romans by causing as much trouble as he can. And even though this is a battle he cannot win, he still keeps his faith and integrity in tact. ... And people think there is no excitement in the Bible!!
For The Temple audio theater is available in both 2 disk CD format or easy to download files. We received the downloadable files. I was easily able to download the files to my desktop and drop them into my iTunes files. I was able to listen to the files from both my laptop and also from my phone when we were out and about. The audio theater is roughly 2.5 hours long.
We also received a PDF downloadable study guide to use along with our listening. Each chapter of the story matches up with several study questions, vocabulary and historical facts. As you can see, it was quite easy to match up chapters of the audio story with the study guide.
What I really liked about using the Study was not only were there general listen and respond with events questions, but they also included some great Thinking questions. These Thinking Further questions could really draw out everyone in the family. Some refer to the historical time period and why you think an event happened or was orchestrated, while others take you straight to your Bible to match up what was occurring at that time and also prophecies that had helped foretell events that were being experiences.
I would definitely gauge the Thinking Further questions for more advanced students in most cases. Those really confused the girls a bit. But they did open up discussion with them about really thinking and concentrating on what God wants to us do and why he may have done or allowed certain events to happen. The Listening Well questions were pretty straight forward and just helped reinforce what they had just heard. I did all of those questions orally. But you could easily print the Study Guide and have students work through each chapter independently and write the answers in full sentences for extra work with language arts skills.
Brief extra historical events and people of history are also highlighted in the Study Guide. Again, something that can easily be adjusted to your child's skill/age level. We did look up extra videos on several of these as we went through the study guide. If you are wanting your student to work on a research report, you could easily assign out a short research report on these various topics.
We are not quite up to this time period in our family Bible reading. But we have been covering and talking a lot about the Roman Empire and how the rules and laws affected the early Christians. Listening to the political uprisings in For The Temple really helped to give the kids more of a mental picture of the battle side of what happened in this time period.
The faith strengthening message went a long way with them. Even in the face of political turmoil and religious adversity, John remained strong. So many Christians are facing various persecutions in the time period that we are living in. There is so much political turmoil that we read about daily. Christians and other religions are attacked for believing in a higher power or God. By studying this time period, and with the help of For The Temple, we could discuss how God stays with his people and if we are faithful then no matter what Satan tries to do to us, he will be unsuccessful.
Heirloom Audio Productions knocked it out of the park yet again. We absolutely love all of the audio theater presentations that we have had the opportunity to listen to and study. If you are looking for a powerful historic boost to your homeschooling day, I really encourage you to check in Heirloom Audio Productions, For The Temple. You will not be disappointed.
Several members of the Homeschool Review Crew were given the opportunity to review For The Temple from Heirloom Audio Productions. Click on the link below to read what they thought of this new product and how they used it in their home.
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