Who Knew Douglas MacArthur Would Draw in Three Super Different Kids? {A YWAM Publishing Review}

I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.

If you are looking for fabulous biographies perfect for individual reading, family reading, unit studies, and more, YWAM Publishing is a name to remember.

Through the years, our family has been blessed to review a number of titles in their Heroes of History series and have thoroughly enjoyed each one. 

The latest - Heroes of History, Douglas MacArthur: What Greater Honor by Janet and Geoff Benge (which can be paired with a downloadable curriculum guide) followed suit with being as engaging and well-written as the other books in this series we have read. In fact, for one of my children, it trumped all the other titles!

Seriously, this is what my 10-year-old dictated to me when I asked him for his thoughts for this review:

I thought this book was amazing in every single way, and we should get more of these stories. 

You may be wondering why I liked it so much.

Well, it is well written and engagingly narrates the life of Douglas MacArthur, who was a leading general in the army during World War II and the Korean War.

I was amazed by the courage, determination, and character of Douglas MacArthur and the way the story was told magnified the excitement of Douglas MacArthur's life.

For example, I like the way the beginning of the story started later in Douglas' life as he and his family were evacuating the Philippines and, then, the story flashbacked to MacArthur's childhood and told the rest of his story.

Overall, the story ignited my imagination as I pictured MacArthur fighting bandits in Mexico, driving off Japanese enemies in the South Pacific, and standing up for the Philippines, post-war Japan, and Korea. 

The story was a motivating and inspirational story that you - yes, you!- should read it.

I have read other books in the YWAM series and liked them, but this one is my favorite so far, because it was about a courageous man during war times.

He truly loved the book and would often stretch our read together times by asking for more of the book.

As you can imagine, he was quite disappointed when the book ended.

His big brother also enjoyed the book.

In recent history, my eldest child, 15, has rarely joined us for read aloud time without complaint. However, the Douglas MacArthur book eased his contention. 

When I asked him for his words for this review, he said:

We decided to read MacArthur as a family read aloud. Lately, I have not liked read alouds and have tried to avoid them, but this story drew me in.

I enjoyed it.

 

Before reading the book, I knew a bit about General Douglas MacArthur from a video game and thought he sounded cool. When we read the book, I realized he had an interesting life and was an amazing person.

 

Some things that stood out to me about him were:

• how he overcame his medical condition to get into West Point.

• how he always stood on the front line with his soldiers.

• how he rebuilt the destroyed country of Japan and made it into an economic and cultural power.

• how he believed that if you go to war, you must win it as effectively and as quickly as possible, yet, in peace times, he treated everybody wit dignity and honor.

• that he possessed remarkable courage, diligence, and ambition.

I would recommend this book for any American. Even though Douglas MacArthur died in 1964, some of what he experienced and fought for affects us today, in particular, things related to China and Korea.

My daughter, 13, also noted how apropos the MacArthur book seems to current issues with China, Korea, Communism, and Socialism.

She shared:

Douglas MacArthur was a veteran in World War II and the Korean War, therefore, I had never been that interested in him, because topics I tend to avoid are the French Revolution and the World Wars. (Both tend to be extraordinarily gruesome.)

Still, when my mother introduced us to the YWAM book, Douglas MacArthur, I found out it was quite intriguing. 

I probably would not have agreed to listen to the book if I had not liked the other books in the YWAM series, such as Milton Hershey, Benjamin Franklin, etc. Because I found those books engaging even if the people and places in them had not seemed interesting to me before, I did not immediately disregard the Douglas MacArthur one. 

I did not regret my decision to listen to Douglas MacArthur. As the book told it, his life was not as boring and gruesome as I expected to be. In fact, it was quite intriguing.

One thing that stood out to me were that the president that told Douglas MacArthur not to go ahead and crush North Korea caused many issues and conflicts that could have been avoided in later history. (This was not actually explained in the book, but my common sense when looking at the history in the book and current events filled in the gaps.)

I would completely recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn about an outstanding man who fought for freedom and treated others with dignity and respect.

So, as you can see, the book was a hit here and made a rather profound impact on my children.

I admittedly was wowed by some of the details and connections the book brought to light, too, and even found myself sharing about it at several recent homeschooling events.

This book is definitely one we all recommend!

Oo, and if you are a homeschooler that likes to turn books into studies or a teacher in a co-op or classroom, great news! There is a downloadable Unite Study Curriculum Guide available to go with the book, too.

Because we were so getting into just reading the Douglas MacArthur book together here, I did not pause to go over the Key Quotes, Chapter Questions, Maps, Extension Ideas, and more that are contained in the comprehensive unit study, but I did look them all over, and I have some quotes printed out that I intend to use for either copywork, dictation, or impromptu speech exercises as well as some essay prompts to challenge my older child with.

Surely, if I were still teaching at co-ops, I could easily run a full course with the book and all the materials and suggestions within the unit study. It's fabulous stuff!

If you'd like to learn more about how others are using this book title and its corresponding unit study materials - or if you'd like to read about some of the other studies, do click on through to the Homeschool Crew Review to find links for 40+ Crew reviews for YWAM titles.

You might also want to connect with YWAM Publishing:

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Immerse Kids in Survival Skills & Adventure with a Classic Book & Excellent eGuide {A Progeny Press Review}

{Some links which follow may be affiliate ones.}

Disclaimer: I received a FREE copy of this product through the HOMESCHOOL REVIEW CREW in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor compensated in any other way.

If you are a book study guide lover or just want to cherry pick ideas from an excellent eGuide as your lower elementary through high school students read classic stories, I encourage you to check out Progeny Press, a popular Christian vendor of study guides for literature that makes it their mission:

"To teach our children to think clearly, to understand literature, and to rely on the scripture for truth and values, and enjoy themselves while they do it!"

We're recently been checking out their My Side of the Mountain Study Guide by Carol Clark - an eGuide meant for students in grades 5-8 which can be completed in 8-10 weeks - and I can honestly attest that it is a thorough, varied guide chock full of ideas for learning, review, and discovery.
 

The guide is written to be used in its entirety for independent unit-based engagement and study. However, it is also designed and organized in such a way that parents and/or students can easily scan it to pull an idea here and an activity there for more flexible enrichment or targeted study.

The Study Guide Comes in a Handy Digital Format

When you order your My Side of the Mountain Study Guide, or any eGuide from Progeny Press, you get instant access to a downloadable study guide and separate answer key.
The interactive PDF format of the eGuide works on our Windows laptop, and, I hear, works on Macs, too.

Once  opened with the FREE Adobe Readerprogram, the eGuide allows students (or parents who have students narrate to them) to enter answers directly on the computer and save their progress as they work. (I believe with an alternative app the fillable fields of the interactive guide can work on mobile devices and tablets, too.)

This interactive PDF format is convenient! It means that do not have to print any of the guide if you'd rather just have your kids work onscreen. Or, you can easily print just what you need or want - the whole guide at once, a single lesson or page as students need it, or multiple copies of pages for your family's use.
All the convenience and learning. None of the paper and ink waste. Love it!

What I love even more is that the answer key can also be easily printed or accessed onscreen which can help parents/teachers to check student work without having to read and answer questions on their own.

Plus, there is free technical support offered should you encounter any difficulties when using the digital guide and answer key. This, though, I doubt would be needed by anyone, since the eGuide and Answer Key are so easy to use. Seriously, everything worked A-okay here with this study and one we did previously.

The My Side of the Mountain Study Guide Is One Complete Study Guide!

When I said the My Side of the Mountain Study Guide is "a thorough, varied guide chock full of ideas for learning, review, and discovery" earlier I meant it 100%.

The eGuide offers:

• author information
• story synopsis and background
• pre-reading activities
• vocabulary study
• Bible study
• critical thinking
• comprehension questions
• post-reading activities
• writing prompts
• resource listings
• literary device activities

... and more. In doing so, it really gets students engaged and learning as they immerse themselves in reading classic literature and thinking about survival skills, adventure, and faith.

Included in the 63-page interactive eGuide are:

• Literary Techniques to include adjective use, alliteration, allusion, anthropomorphism, assonance, comic relief, coming of age (or bildungsroman, which was a new word for me), conflict, dramatic structure, facts vs. opinion, flashback, full-circle ending, irony, metaphors and extended metaphors, mood, onomatopoeia, oxymoron, paraphrasing, point of view, recapping, similes, suspension of disbelief, verb use, and more.

• Moral Lessons and Character Values about such things as acceptance, being alone, bullying, fear and worry, daily life, honoring parents, hospitality, lying, patience, provision, superstitions, and understanding God.

• Activities and Writing Assignments to include at and design, cooking, creative writing, a crossword puzzle, drama projects, essay choices, field trips, health & nutrition, journalism, journal writing, letter writing, legends, maple syrup, math connections, parody, plant research, poster projects, research writing, rock climbing, safety chats, science connections, wooden toys, and more.

• Suggestion for Further Reading, which include more materials by the same author and books that tie in with or are similar to My Side of the Mountain.

You can find samples of the eGuide at My Side of the Mountain Study Guide.

Why We Chose the My Side of the Mountain Study eGuide and What We Thought

A few years ago, I got it in my head that I wanted to use the well-loved classic, My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George, to start an outdoor book-and-adventure club with friends. However, life kept happening and the club never came to be. Still, I wanted to read the book with my younger two children before they age out of it. Thus, when an opportunity came up to review the My Side of the Mountain Study Guide by Progeny Press, I took it as a prompt to break the book out for some relaxed Mom-and-us style learning.

Key word there is relaxed! Because we were using this thorough resource during the bridge from spring into summer when we tend to wind down more formal studies, I opted to use the eGuide in a non-traditional way with my children.

Basically, we read my old, weathered copy of My Side of the Mountain together as we swung on an outdoor swing together, laid on a blanket in the sun, or snuggled before bedtime. Then, every few chapters, I would break out the study guide with the kids and use it for prompts for faith-and virtues-chats, oral quizzes about vocabulary, literary devices, etc.
I also browsed it for ideas for enrichment for practical life and survival skills among other things.

This led to nature walks and explorations...

 ...salads with wild edibles...

 ... some strawberry picking...

... foraging for clay and trying to make clay ovens...

... picking mulberries...

...building fires...

... picking black raspberries...

... making chocolate covered strawberry deliciousness...

... foraging for and whittling walking sticks...

... and more!

There has just been so much inspiration for hands-on, outdoor, fun and learning!

Or course, there has been indoor learning, too.

Sometimes, I read my children questions from the guide and had them answer orally while I took quick notes on their answers in the fillable fields so I would remember which questions we'd already covered.

One time, when we did this, I set a timer, gave the kids game chips as points for every correct answer and, let the child who had the most chips at the end of the game choose if we would have a snuggly read together or watch one of the movies we'd found in the resource section together before bed.

The winner chose the latter, so we found free access to one of the recommended movies on Youtube. Then, as we began watching it, my other child came in, and the movie engaged us all.

After watching, the movie we dovetailed into natural conversations that night and the next day during which the kids compared parts of the movie to My Side of the Mountain (especially the survival aspects and the ideas of running away and coming of age), chatted about survival skills, and discussed some cultural and faith points that  the movie and our eGuide-enriched study of My Side of the Mountain brought to the fore.

I was delighted with all this and grateful for the eGuide, since I had never heard of the movie before and do not think we would have happened upon it without the eGuide's suggestion.

I also do not think our entire experience with My Side of the Mountain book would have been as rich as it has been without the eGuide. I am grateful that the eGuide allowed us to embrace natural, relaxed learning, to find some great extension activities/resources, and to review some key literary devices, vocabulary, and more.

The My Side of the Mountain Study Guide certainly is a blessing that has all the typical vocabulary exercises, comprehension questions, writing prompts and literature device studies that you'd expect in a literary unit study which can be used traditionally or in a more relaxed way. It also focuses on connections between the classic book of one boy's adventure and coming of age and Scripture and offers a wide array of optional activities and further resources to engage students in wonderful exploration and learning.

I most certainly recommend the My Side of the Mountain Study Guide to others with middle school age learners whether they like independent literary studies or relaxed, hands-on family learning like us.

Learn More

Progeny Press gets a two thumbs up from me both for this My Side of the Mountain Study Guide and for an earlier Progeny Press review of their Give Me Liberty E-Guide due to how well it is written and designed and how family-friendly they are with wonderful extension ideas and permissions that allow you to use the eGuides with multiple children within your family.

Progeny Press earns similar ratings with other families, I hear, for its wide variety of E-Guides geared toward elementary schoolers, middle schoolers, and high schoolers.  You can read about some of the other titles offered among the 64 Progeny Press social media, blog, and video reviews that Review Crew families have shared.

You can find Progeny Press on:

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Learn about History with the U.S. Life Saving Service {A Review}

Disclaimer: I received a FREE copy of this product through the HOMESCHOOL REVIEW CREW in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor compensated in any other way.

Flexible and fun history that can be used for home, co-op, classroom, or museum program use?  That is what Rebecca Locklear delivers with her Exploring the U.S. Life-Saving Service 1878-1915: 17 Student Workshops with 120 Activities (which we've recently had an opportunity to review) and, I hear, The Mayflower at Cape Cod – Stories, activities, and research that connect 1620 with life today that other Homeschool Review Crew families have been enjoying. 

Engage in Learning about Courageous Life Savers from the Late 1800's and Early 1900's

My family receive a digital version of the 120-page Exploring the U.S. Life-Saving Service 1878-1915 book which is chock full of information and ideas to guide students in grades 4-12 in an investigation of the time period of 1878-1915 through the lens of the U.S. Life-Saving Service - a forerunner of the U.S. Coast Guard which installed eight-member rescue teams on remote coastlines of the USA.

With portions to read, critical thinking and problem solving activities, group work (which can be great if you participate in a co-op, scouting, etc.), and research areas, the curriculum is a well-rounded one. It also aims to capture and keep student attention and make learning memorable, accessible, and relevant through activities such as:

• art
• cooking
• drama
• games
• music
• science
• stories

and more.

Material in the book is written at level that students in grades 4 and 5 can enjoy and grasp, while older students, parents, and teachers can learn and enjoy, too. That makes it great for family studies.

It is also broken into four workshops - or units - with additional art and research ideas, which makes it adaptable for a short study (cherry picking a single workshop) or a longer one (moving through all four workshops and extending with research).

Any way that Exploring the U.S. Life-Saving Service 1878-1915 is used, it surely aims to make students enthusiastic about learning about the courageous and good-humored men who rowed out through violent storms to rescue folks aboard shipwrecks and makes for an interesting addition to history studies!

Our Experience

Although Exploring the U.S. Life-Saving Service 1878-1915 is written in such a way that entire families can enjoy it together, because my 14-year-old has a heavy, self-selected workload right now, I chose to dive into the Exploring the U.S. Life-Saving Service workshops with just my 13 and almost-10 year olds.

We started by reading material fro the introduction and watching a linked Youtube video and, then, carried on with other reading, watching, and activities, completing the "Life at the Station House" workshop and dipping into some others.

My almost-10-year-old had this to say about our experience so far:

I never actually knew about the Life Saving Service before. I think it is interesting. Did you know they shot lines out of canons to attach to masts to save people? Did you know that they each had a cooking day? And did you know they had to sit in a tower   number hours and ring a bell every 30 minutes to tell people they were awake? I learned all this and more.

My favorite part so far was making the bread with molasses using the muffin recipe from the book. We learned molasses was made back then by people stomping on sugar cane.

We also made a chowder (with our own made up recipe because the life saving men often created their own recipes with what they had available and chowder was a common dish.)

I recommend this to people who like history.

And my 13-year-old said:

The U.S. Life Saving Service study taught me about the live saving stations. I did not know much about them before. 

One of the worst things I think that they had to do besides saving people in storms was stand up for four hours on watch in frigid weather looking for ships in distress. 

I thought it was interesting that they all took turns cooking for each other. In some ways that sounds interesting, but in others not so much. I like the stories and play they told about it. It made it seem more like actual real life than just reading it, and it was funny. We also learned that these days you cannot kill a lobster in some countries by boiling it.

It is illegal in some place, because they say lobsters can feel pain. Of course, the live saving station men did not follow that rule. They boiled lobsters, hunted for food, fished sometimes when on drill, and more. 

A motto of the life saving servicemen was that the book says you have to go out to save people. It does not say you have to come back in. The men had to be brave, courageous people willing to face danger, death, and terrible weather to save others. In between, they also faced extraordinary boredom at times just doing drills, cooking, watching, waiting...

I liked this study and want to finish using it. I think it would be good for late elementary school through middle school

So, as you can see, so far so engaged here with my kids and this resource. That makes me happy!

Happier still is that the resource connects to local history for us!

We realized that we are blessed to live within driving distance of some of the remaining life saving stations.

So, the other day, we drove to one, hoping to be able to tour inside. 

Of course, though, due to current events, the place is closed this season. Still, we were still able to view the exterior and imagine the life the men led inside.

We also were able to enjoy some of the same beaches that the men may have done their work on. Granted, we did this in beautiful sunshine, not stormy gales, all the while recognizing how the men would have had to navigate the cold, wavy seas during inclement weather to rescue people and, at times, products.

We hope to return to the station we visited once it opens and also hope to foray in a different direction to another one. Having done Rebecca's study, such field trips will be especially meaningful.

We recommend the study as an interesting one that can easily adapt for home, classroom, and group use, engaging students through a wide variety of activities and are grateful for having had this opportunity to learn more about local and national history through the lens of the Life Saving Service.

The life, work, and legacy of the men in the Life Saving Service surely is interesting and worthwhile to learn about!

Learn More

Over 60 Homeschool Review Crew families reviewed either Exploring the U.S. Life-Saving Service 1878-1915: 17 Student Workshops with 120 Activities or The Mayflower at Cape Cod – Stories, activities, and research that connect 1620 with life today over the past few weeks. Click through to find social media and blog reviews.

Find writer Rebecca Locklear on Facebook. You can also sign up for Rebecca's email newsletter through her website where you will find more ideas and information from this talented writer and multiple-subject teacher of materials for preschoolers through 12th graders who is also a professional pianist, choral director, and outdoor enthusiast with a motto of Dum vivimus, vivamus, which in Latin means “Let us LIVE while we live", which shines through in her work.

We enjoy Rebecca's work!

Enjoy a Paddington Bear Unit Study

We are big picture book lovers in our home, so I was curious to check out one of the Picture Book Explorer Packs from Branch Out World: Paddington Bear when it came up for review.

Made for Homeschoolers by a Homeschooler

This literature-based unit study is aimed at children ages 5-10, but appropriate for a wider range, too.  It comes as a downlaodable pdf, so you can use it with all your children at once - printing copies of maps, mini-books, and more for each child to complete - or with one child now and another child later.   

Obviously, the study's creator Helen Royston gets that homeschool families appreciate the freedom of being able to ethically print as many copies of the study materials as necessary for family use.  That may be because Helen is a 25+ year homeschool veteran herself.

Like all Picture Book Explorer Packs, the Paddington Bear one has a link to the United Kingdom and provides fun and learning for families.

What Will You Find Yourself Doing During This Unit Study?

Used as designed, you read the picture book Paddington by Michael Bond (ISBN 978-0007236336) over five consecutive days and choose accompanying activities from the study to complete.  These activities are grouped, daily, by subject area:

• Day 1 – Exploring the Setting:  You can learn about England and Peru, do mapwork, create timelines, make a mini-book about the pushes and pulls of migration, and more.
• Day 2 – Exploring the Words:  You can read about the author of Paddington Bear Michael Bond, chat about themes, encourage narration, make a vocabulary pocket, spotlight subject-verb agreement, focus on characterization, and adapt stories for different audiences.
  
  
  
  
  
• Day 3 – Exploring the Pictures:  You can learn about the illustrator R.W. Alley, do a picture study of one of the book's illustrations, chat about and/or make a mini-book of architectural features, learn about principles of design and try your hand at overlapping and creating emphasis through the use of color, leading lines, contrast, and position - studying an illustration from the book and, then, creating your own artwork.
• Day 4 – Exploring Science: You can learn about spectacled bears and fill out a fact sheet if you like, learn about shaving cream, create edible and nob-edible foam, explore steam and do nature study in your garden.
  
  
  

• Day 5 – Exploring Math, Crafts and More: You can explore parallel and perpendicular lines (in connection with train tracks), play around with numbers spotted in the book, explore spatial awareness with packing (in reality or with a paper template), make shaving foam art, create a cultural craft, cook up recipes, and more.

Truly, if unit studies are your family's favored style of learning, this one is excellently written - providing information and ideas that you might not readily find elsewhere and helping your children make connections while also making memories.

There are over 30 activities described in the book and pages and pages of printables including timelines, mini-books, maps, flags, and notebooking pages.  There are also handy lists of needed supplies and book and film go-alongs. It is a well-written study.

It is also one that can be used flexibly!


How Did We Use This Study So Far?

My children and our lifestyle do not currently accommodate sitting down and reading the same picture book day after day for five days.  Nor are we able to spend time this summer diving into loads of Paddington-inspired activities.

What we have been able to do is cuddle on the couch with a picture book in hand and a unit study nearby on a laptop creen during a few particularly rainy days when other plans have been cancelled. 

As such, we have enjoyed reading together, then, using portions of the unit study pdf on-screen to help guide chatter about the book's author, the illustrator, certain pictures, art and design techniques, and more.

We have also pulled up the included maps and named South America and the United Kingdom, found London and Peru, etc.  (Because we are in a constant battle against paper piles here and simply do not want to print more things that will increase their depth, we chose to do many of the activities in this study through discussion and pointing onscreen rather than through printing, coloring, cutting, and writing.)

We have opted to forgo some of the messier or more time-consuming experiments and recipes included in the study for the time being, but have read through them and are looking forward to trying some out during colder, less busy seasons.

However, because we do like hands-on things, we have not delayed all the fun!

Indeed, we opted for some hands-on art and math -which has been enjoyable (and easier to clean up then science and cooking at this juncture in life!)

We have also borrowed a stack of other Paddington books from our local library to use for free reading and 1:1 reading times and have been happy to revisit the character that we spent time with previously when my oldest was younger.

Without question, as we have revisited Paddigton using our Branch Out World: Paddington Bear, we have made new connections. 

We have also been able to apply ideas from the study - such as those we practiced on layering and emphasis - in making cards for a sick friend.

This was a fun endeavor that made the study more valuable to us.

For, in our homeschool endeavors, even more valuable than a lesson learned in connection to a piece of literature, is a concept or skill we can incorporate into daily life.

Inspired by the conversations we had during unit study activities about themes in the book - such a being kind to others...

And, knowing a dear little baby we know is in the hospital with a very serious condition, and we'd be blessed to see his siblings, we decided to step away from just drawing fruits as suggested in the unit study, and, to apply art and design ideas to creating cards with well wishes instead...

I just love that things discussed and focused on with the study transferred to life so easily.

Helen Royston did a wonderful job researching and presenting information, activities, and ideas for this study.  I truly appreciate how this homeschool resource could provide a full week's worth of homeschool studies or can be used flexibly in the time life allows for it.

Of course, is you are a picture book and unit study lover with elementary-aged children Branch Out World: Paddington Bear  is ideal. 

Learn More

Some of the other Homeschool Review Crew families dove into all of the activities in this unit study 100% and have wonderful photos and thoughts to share.  Be sure to click through to find their reviews.

Read all of the reviews!

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