Schoolhouse Review Crew: Legacy Documentaries - Almanzo Wilder: Life Before Laura DVD

The kids have been lucky lately - and it's summer time to boot - because we managed to get back-to-back video reviews! As it happened when the Review Staff put out the word about the Almanzo Wilder, Life Before Laura video by Legacy Documentaries, I had just finished reading the book Farmer Boy, by Laura Ingalls Wilder, and had already decided it would be an excellent read-aloud, so the video dovetailed nicely.

The book is Laura's retelling of her husband's childhood experiences on the family farm, and the video gives more detail on the man himself. In the book, Almanzo is 8 years old, and a farmer at heart. I loved that the video provided readings from the book, was hosted by Dean Butler, the actor who played Almanzo's character on the Little House on the Prairie TV show (how I loved that show growing up!), and gave interviews by historians who specialize in Mrs. Wilder's work. As an aside, Mr. Butler is also involved with Legacy Documentaries in other ways according to their website.

Homeschool Review Crew: Brainfood Learning, Fascinating World of Mammals

Like so many other brick-and-mortar raised schoolchildren, I have fond memories of entering the classroom to see the old movie projector set up, to get to sit back in my seat in a dark classroom and hear the soft whir of tape moving through the big metal machine as the screen lit up in front of me... Movie days in class were special - and changed as I got older, of course - by high school, we watched the increasingly rare images move across a television screen instead of one that pulled down; the whirring tape was replaced by the clicks and hums of a VCR machine. The experience remained an enjoyable one. 

When I saw that I could provide a similar experience for my homeschooled kids, I had no thought of turning it down! Our first video was provided by Brainfood Learning, and was the title The Fascinating World of Mammals, which retails for $14.99. 

Kids being kids, they settled in eagerly for some screen time (not as rare in our house lately as it should be perhaps, but they are eager even when it's educational at least), and requested pop corn or a snack to go with it. (Hmmm... I don't recall popcorn being part of my own childhood movie day experiences... but I digress.) The Fascinating World of Mammals is not a full-on documentary, but is a series of ten shorter clips. The video was split into ten animals: beaver, kangaroo, moose, dolphin, lion, giraffe, elephant, bat, chimpanzee, and bear. 

First Flight - Video Review

My mom works in a small shop in Tacoma, Wa, called Chirp & Co. When we visited at Thanksgiving, the boys did all kinds of cool home school stuff. They made their own walking sticks, helped with stocking and customers, painted their own birdhouses, etc. There were actually several more workshops upcoming that we would have loved to attend, but alas, the vacation ended and we were pulled back to "real" life back in Maryland.

BUT one of the last things Mom gave me to pack and take home was a lovely little video sold in her shop called First Flight: A Mother Hummingbird's Story by Noriko and Don Carroll. We didn't get around to watching it until just this past Tuesday. What was just a 45-minute video for me, turned into an impromptu science and art lesson that lasted several days! First, here is a brief synopsis from the back of the video box: