Part of being a homeschooling parent is learning how your kids learn and using resources to help them. This is especially important if they learn differently than you do. This is the case with my oldest son and me. I’m a very visual person; he’s an auditory learner. Once I realized this (which unfortunately for him, was only very recently), things have gotten a lot better for him.

Another part of being a homeschooling parent is to instill a lifelong love of learning in our children. This means finding resources that make learning fun. (Some things will never be fun - geometry proofs, anyone? - but that doesn’t mean they’re not important. But things that can be made fun should be.) This is where Heirloom Audio Productions comes in. We’ve been blessed to review a few of their audio dramas in the past year, and for this review, my son was able to listen to In Freedom’s Cause: The Real Story of Wallace and Bruce. Because this was primarily for him, and I don’t do well with audio-only things, he’ll be helping me heavily with the review from this point forward.

From my 13-year-old son:

The story takes place after England conquers Scotland. There are two character, and they are realizing that the royalty in Scotland are just “puppets” of England. They want the Scottish to be free from England’s rule. They go out to find William Wallace because he is supposedly the best fighter ever and can rally soldiers. They find him, and together they train the army. They try to take back Scotland.

I really liked this story. I think it’s a fun way to learn history. The sound quality is really good. There’s a lot of music and sound effects, which really adds to the realism of the drama. The sounds of the armies moving, especially the clanging armor during the battles, were really cool. Having more than just voices makes it a lot of fun to listen to.

Back to Mom:

In addition to creating great audio dramas, Heirloom Audio Productions also makes really good study guides to go with their stories (which are all based on the novels written by GA Henty). I haven’t seen the one for In Freedom’s Cause, but I have seen others, and they typically include things like comprehension questions and “beyond the story” activities like recipes to cook based on the story.

Overall, this was a really good thing for my son to have. He’s really thrilled to own it, and I’m happy that he’s getting excited about history. Being able to find quality products for learners of all types is a valuable thing, and for auditory learners, Heirloom can’t be beat.

-Product review by Wendy Robertson, The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, LLC, March, 2017