The Dragon and the Raven

Do you know about the amazing audio drama productions from Heirloom Audio Productions?  We have reviewed others in the past, and were pleased to be able to review their newest offering, The Dragon and the Raven.

The Dragon and the Raven is 2 audio CDs that come in a tri-fold case, as well as additional online resources.  Online, there's a documentary video, which the kids and I found really interesting.  It was neat to put faces to the voices.  Furthermore, there are MP3 versions of the discs online, if you prefer to download and listen on the go.  There are printable posters, an ebook version of the story, and the soundtrack.  There is also a study guide.

The 49 page study guide is a great resource for homeschoolers.  It contains vocabulary and two types of questions for each "chapter" and at the end of the study guide there is additional history and Bible study sections.  All this for only $29.97.

Since it's very very hard to show pictures of listening, I'll show you pictures of the things that listening inspired us to do.

Since the story was about King Alfred, I found a King Alfred coloring page for the kids to work on while we were listening.  We also watched a short video about King Alfred, which helped the kids visualize the story a little better.

I mentioned that we've reviewed other Heirloom Audio Productions stories.  Here are links to Under Drake's Flag, In Freedom's Cause, and With Lee In Virginia.  If you've listened to the others, you'll recognize the familiar voices of Ned and Gerald, and the narrator, of course.  These are really high quality, nicely done, radio-style dramatizations, complete with musical score and sound effects.  This is not a monotonous audio book.

For another one of our listening sessions, I found a viking ship craft online and printed it on card stock so the kids could paint their ships instead of coloring them.

Painting and listening go well together, especially, when you're only working with one color and you don't have to worry too much about detail.

Another day, we listened and cut our ships out.  We were actually on our second time through listening to the CDs at this point.  My kids wanted to hear them again, and since the vocabulary is a bit rich for them, I thought they'd benefit from another hearing.

The sails were my own addition to the project, and I think I should have broken the bamboo skewers down a bit further so that the sails were closer to the ships.

This audio drama would make a fabulous addition to a study of England, of early European history, or of Scandinavia.  For those using My Father's World, this would fit best into the Rome to the Reformation year.  Or you could create your own King Alfred the Great unit study around the CDs and the Study Guide.  These family friendly, radio drama style stories are also great for listening to on long car trips.

We enjoyed this production every bit as much as the first three, and I cannot wait to see what comes out next!  There was a little hint at the end of this story, and I'm pretty excited to see if that's really the one they're working on now.

You can connect with Heirloom Audio Productions on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and G+.  There's also a Facebook page specifically for The Dragon and the Raven.  Please click the box below to read what other Crew families have to say about The Dragon and the Raven.

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