TOS CREW Review- Knowledge Quest

Many of you may know the company Knowledge Quest by the amazing History books, time lines and maps they sell by the truckloads, but did you know they also have a line of historical fiction books as well?  We got to review one this past month and we could have not been any more pleased!

Sacagawea ebook, an interactive historical novel, is written about the famous woman that helped Lewis and Clark on their expedition west to the Pacific Ocean.  Originally written by Karla Akins in four separate parts, this ebook is now available as a whole, encompassing 112 pages of suspense and excitement. 

    A quick download to my iPad was all it took to get us started!  I used this book as a daily read aloud to my kindergarten and 5th grade sons.  The plan was to read one chapter a day for 16 total chapters, but that got quickly trashed as the boys often begged me to keep reading "just one more chapter!"  The only thing that slowed us down was my voice getting tired...these are hefty chapters!  Since we have spent most of our military life in the mid west, my kids have a real interest in the exploration in that area.  Sacagawea is one of the explorers we have read a lot about, but reading about her in a historical fiction book really helped bring her character to life for us.  To get a glimpse of what she may have felt or thought was a neat addition to the research we had done previously.  While many of those thoughts and feelings are only speculation, Kayla relied on and often quoted diary entries made during the famous expedition.

The story is intense let me tell you!  From raiding Indians to waterfalls and mudslides, there is a lot of action.  I was a little concerned a few times when we started to read about the injuries some obtained on the journey and the dogs they bought to eat, but I guess it should be no surprise that it did not seem to bother the boys at all.  Go figure!

But what makes a book interactive?  All of the links throughout the text.  Wow!  Each time something was mentioned, from a coyote to a river to a specific weapon used,  there was a Internet link to go to for more information.  Some were even you tube videos on a particular subject.  This did trip us up for a while because at first every time the boys saw a highlighted word they wanted to click on it, but we finally agreed that they could look at as many as they wanted AFTER I had finished reading for the day.  That worked out better for us and was less of a distraction than going back and forth.  After we finished reading I left them to click away.  Don't worry, I did not miss much as they were continually running in to show me what they found.  Many of the links take you to Karla's personal blog, The History Scroll, that provides a wealth of information she learned from her research for the book.  Those were definitely our favorite links.

What can you do with this book?
First of all, enjoy!  It can be just a fun read aloud for the whole family!
Secondly, tie it to your history studies!  If you are going to be studying Lewis and Clark I would add this to your must read list.  It really will make a great addition.
Thirdly, use it as a springboard for a research paper.  Or two. The links are amazing!  Obviously a lot of time, thought and effort has been put into each link and I can see book reports flowing from those links alone!

You can purchase of complete ebook  Kindle edition for $4.97.

Happy reading!

     

CREW Review- Knowledge Quest Map Trek

Knowledge Quest is an amazing company dedicated to making history come alive with incredible books, time lines and maps.  In the past, my family has used the Wonders of Old Timeline book and loved it.  For this review we got to try something new, the Map Trek: Complete Collection 6-Ebook Set.  I am hooked.  Well over 400 maps WITH lesson plans!


Let me first tell you what you get!

With this downloadable option you will get Four World History Ebooks (Ancient, Medieval, New World and Modern) and two US History Ebooks (one with state maps and one with historical maps).  Each map has the teacher's edition which is multicolored and labeled with key features, as well as the student edition which is ready to be filled in by the student.  The state maps include the date of statehood, the capital, main rivers and waterways, rank in size, state bird and the state flower.  You can print off each map as you need it in your study or you can print them all out at once and with the help of the lesson plans use each set as a unit study! 


Let's talk lesson plans!  Each Ebook comes with lesson plans to help you use the maps in a study situation.  The lessons plans are broken down into three levels:

Level 1- Grades 1-4

Level 2- Grades 5-8

Level 3- Grades 9-12

Each level gets increasingly more challenging, allowing you to use the maps for many years, teaching new skills and information as your child grows older.

Here are some of the many things we like about using these maps;

-They are beautiful!  Multicolored teacher's maps are more detailed than your run of the mill outline maps and beautiful to look at.  Visual interest seemed to draw my kiddos in!

-They are easy to access and print out.  This is an easy download and very well organized set.

-They can easily be used as a stand-alone curriculum or linked with your favorite history program!

-And my favorite- Knowledge Quest has Curriculum Integration Guides.  Yes,
they have done the hard work and given us a guide to link the most used history curriculums out there to their maps.  In other words, when you study a specific section in your history curriculum, Knowledge Quest will direct you to a correspnding map in their collection.  This list includes Sonlight, Story of the World, Veritas Press, Streams of Civilization and more.  Just print the guide off, pop it in your notebook and you are ready with maps to further enhance your study.

-Oh, and one more fun thing.  Since we have taken a few weeks off of school, we have not had much history to link with maps yet.  But, using my blog visit history, we have been able to learn a lot of geography using these maps.  We printed out all of the continent maps and each day we check which new countries we have checking in here at Family, Faith and Fridays and then find them on our maps.  A great geography lesson!

For $47.00, you cannot beat this deal! Click here to order! There is also a hard covered Atlas with CD available for $55.00.

To see what other CREW members had to say about Map Trek click on the banner below.


   Disclaimer- Our family received Map Trek: Complete Collection Ebook in exchange for our honest review of the product.  The views stated are our own and were not influence by the company in any way.