Homeschool Mosaic Review: The Classical Historian Medieval History Memory Game

Family Game Night. Does that conjure up memories of endless Monopoly games or charades? A child who can’t get enough of Chutes and Ladders? We have a lot of great games that we enjoy bringing out to play as a family. My husband recently taught our daughter how to play mancala, and now she’s beating him at it! 🙂 She positively loves just about any type of game, and especially matching games. So when Homeschool Mosaic Reviews was offered the chance to check out a memory game from The Classical Historian, I was pretty excited. I wasn’t sure if the material would be too far over her head, but since it was a game, I was willing to take a chance. And I’m so glad I did!

Fresh out of the box: The Classical Historian Medieval History Memory game cards and instruction sheet

The Classical Historian is a family-run company that sells history curriculum for middle and high schoolers and games for all ages. I got the chance to review one of their memory games, Medieval History (available here for $14.95). Other games include Ancient History and American History Memory, and a Go Fish game in the same three time periods, for the same price. The Go Fish games looked fun also, but with a nonreader and an emerging reader in my home, the memory game was the way to go.

Medieval History Memory contains 64 game play cards and two sets of four category cards (Europe, the Americas, the Far East and Arabia). Game set-up and play is like any other Memory game on the market. Set up the 64 cards in a grid formation, face down, and players take turns flipping over two cards at a time, looking for matches. The player with the most matches at the end of the game is the winner.

Game play is ready to begin!

The cards are nice and sturdy cardboard (so is the storage box), and the pictures on them are high quality. I like the variety in them, both in terms of subject and in medium (some are photographs, some are illustration). The Medieval History set covers several people, places, events and concepts from Europe, the Americas, the Far East and Arabia, although the highest concentration of cards fall in the Europe category.

The cards contain a great variety of subjects in Medieval History: people, places, concepts. In addition to classic Memory, game players can also play a Categories game and match cards to regions.

We played Medieval History Memory as a family and had a great time. My husband and I were able to tell a little bit about each card as it was drawn, and I love that the game provides an informal and fun way for the kids to learn about important people and places in history. My daughter drew the card for William Shakespeare, and as soon as I read his name, she got excited. She knew who he was because we were currently reading a Magic Tree House book about Shakespeare. “He is the man who did the play with Jack and Annie!” she said. I can see us playing this game again and again, and learning more a little each time. I’m also pretty interested in the American History matching game; I’m putting that on my wish list for when we start an America unit in our homeschool.

What I love:

• The game uses lots of different depictions on the cards: photographs of real places and art, illustrations, etc and are well made.
• The pictures spark great questions and provide a jumping off point for further research and learning, even though we aren’t doing any “formal” history lesson right now.

Potential pitfalls:

• The game says it’s for players age 3 and up. But even though my 4-year-old made the first match on his first try (there’s luck for you!), he didn’t stick with us in the game for very long. Maybe if we had done a smaller number of cards than the whole 64, he would’ve been more interested. He’s not much of a Memory fan in general though, and he did pipe in with questions and want to see the pictures when others made matches, so even with smaller kids who may not want to play the game, there are still lots of fun ways to use the cards for learning.

Check out The Classical Historian’s web site for this and several other games that are fun for the whole family! Also, the Mosaic Reviews Facebook page is hosting a FB party for The Classical Historian on Friday, June 28, from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. EDT. Feel free to pop in and learn more about the games–and maybe even win something!

Made a match of Monastery! Now it’s your turn!

DIY Decorated Flip Flops + Gift Idea {create}

I heard today was National Flip Flop Day, and it’s also the first day of summer, so I thought it was the perfect day to pull out this idea and post it (finally). Last summer, TG went to a birthday/pool party, and I was trying to think of a fun and inexpensive gift that wasn’t necessarily a toy. I saw a few make-your-own kits of various things in the stores, and so I decided on decorated flip flops after seeing many things like this on pinterest (picture below from The TomKat Studio here).

Adorable flip flops! Photo source: The TomKat Studio

So, first up, TG and I hit up the stores to find the needed materials: flip flops and various embellishments like ribbon, stick-on jewels and flowers. I did a quick scan of Pinterest today and see other materials also being used, like pipe cleaners and pony beads and even paint, I think! Really, the possibilities seem endless. I precut the ribbon into strips (I didn’t measure, just sort of eyeballed it; ours might’ve been a touch too long in retrospect).

Precut ribbon and stick-on jewels to decorate the flip flops (excuse the poor picture)

When the materials were ready, I let TG start tying the ribbons around the flip flop straps. She tied each one twice. Keep pushing the tied ribbons toward the front of the shoe as you tie so they don’t end up spread out too much. How many you put on depends on how full or bunched up you want. If you’ve got a younger child doing this step, you may want to go behind them and make sure they’re on there tight so they won’t unravel or fall off. Also, I would put some sort of fray check on the ends of the cut ribbon; I didn’t and ours started fraying after a little while.

Tying the ribbon around the flip flop straps

This is a great way for your kids to practice tying knots as well 🙂 We made one pair for TG’s friend, and put extra embellishments in her gift to change that pair when she wanted, or create a second pair with different colored ribbon or jewels. The completed shoes really are adorable. We made another set for TG that she wore to the party, and she wore them almost the whole summer until the ribbons all fell off or frayed too much.

DIY decorated flip flops

For TG’s friend’s gift, we got lucky in the party favor section of Wal-mart last summer. They had cute mini totes that were just perfect to hold the flip flops and embellishments we had ready. We also added some little extras like lip gloss, a nail file and polish set, hairbows and a book. It was a great gift for a 6 year old (who am I kidding; I’d like a gift like that, too!). I think you could even do this for boys as well as girls. Instead of the knotted ribbon, you could wrap the straps with a camo or other boy-friendly ribbon, or add one big embellishment in the middle (maybe a superhero or sports theme) instead of jewels.

Add a few extras to the flip flops and you’ve got the perfect summer gift.

As a final touch, I created a short little poem to attach to the tote to make it a little more clear what TG’s friend was supposed to do with the flip flops and random stuff inside the bag. Just in case :-). This was a fun craft thing to do with my daughter that really didn’t take a whole lot of time or money. I think the gift with all the extras ended up being about $10 or $12, so the flip flops are even less. If you’re looking for some kicked up flips this summer, head to your nearest craft store and get on it! Happy Summer!

Cute gift idea for the little (or big!) girl in your life

Homeschool Mosaic Review: Apologia Picture Book How Do We Know God is Really There?

Our homeschool year has been finished for a few weeks now, so I’ve been away from the computer for a bit as we enjoy our free time together as a family. But I’m back with a couple of Homeschool Mosaic Reviews in the next week or so, including this picture book from Apologia that tackles a tough question: How Do We Know God is really There?

My kids love sitting out under the stars and listening to their dad tell them about what they are seeing in the sky (he loves astronomy!), so I was excited when Mosaic Reviews offered the chance for me to review this picture book about a boy and his father talking about the evidence of God’s existence through His creation of the cosmos. It seemed like it would fit in with the talks they have already had.

Reading Time: How Do We Know God is Really There?

How Do We Know God is Really There? by Melissa Cain Travis is the first in a series of picture books “designed to introduce kids to important questions of the Christian faith,” according to Apologia’s site. In the picture book (available here for $16), Thomas and his father are enjoying viewing God’s creation through a telescope, but what he sees prompts Thomas to go even deeper with his questions, because a friend told him God didn’t exist. His dad converses with Thomas to explain about how science proves God’s existence because something (the universe) cannot be created from nothing. 

I’m not sure the science part of the book quite resonated with my kids yet; my 4-year-old in particular was antsy before we got to the end of the book. But it did prompt some good discussions, and the kids loved the pictures. They thought skateboarding on the moon and racing around Saturn would be fun, and they laughed hysterically at Thomas’ poor cat.

Thomas scares his poor cat!

 

What I love:

• The book is well made. The hardback cover and thick pages seem like they will hold up well, which is important in my house where my kids don’t treat books as nicely as their mom (yet).
• The colorful and fun illustrations by Christopher Voss engaged my kids and they liked to leaf through the book and talk about what they saw in the pictures.

Potential pitfalls:

• Even though it’s a picture book, some of the content seemed just a bit over the heads of my 4 and 6 year olds. However, I think it’s a great conversation starter even for the younger ages and talk with them about the subject in ways closer to their comprehension level. For those with a bit more science background, I don’t think this would be a problem at all.

If you’re interested in this fun and educational book, there’s a bigger sample here on Apologia’s site–go check it out!