Captain Bayley's Heir a Homeschool Crew Review

We have been listening to another great audio drama from Heirloom Audio Productions.  Their newest adventure by G.A. Henty is Captain Bayley's Heir. 

I received:

Captain Bayley's Heir Physical CD set

Captain Bayley's Heir Adventure Playlist

Captain Bayley's Heir E-book the Original

Captain Bayley's Heir Official Soundtrack

Printable Cast Poster

Study Guide and Discussion Starter in PDF format

Inspirational Hymn Poster

Desktop Wall Paper

Live the Adventure Club

The story is adapted from G.A. Henty books. G.A. Henty does a wonderful job on focusing on Christian character, Godly lifestyle, and Biblical principles with all his stories. I love sharing his stories with my kids. The stories cover so many eras in history and history is a subject that my family loves. He has written 122 books in all and you will surely find something for everyone.

Captain Bayley's Heir Synopsis:

The main character is Frank Norris who is attended school in England. The era is 1850’s. One day he will inherit a considerable fortune as heir to Captain Bayley.

Frank is an honest chap with Godly attributes. He befriends a lad who has to get around in a cart. Frank is willing to help out anyone.

Then one day he and his friends go somewhere that the school has forbidden them to go.  Frank breaks another person’s nose out of self defense. This person bribes him and unless he can pay the fee he will inform his school president where Frank went. Frank prays for a miracle for the money as he can’t ask his family for it. The money turns up in the allotted time he was given. Then the unthinkable happens as Frank is accused of stealing the money. The school tells him that he needs to come clean or he will be expelled from school. Frank can’t bring that kind of shame to his family and decides to flee to America with the help of his cousin. 

Frank’s character shines through in everything he does. Frank is not afraid of hard work. He lands jobs and works hard at everything he does and finds favors with the people he meets.

He feels guilty putting his family through the shame he has brought to his family back in London. He feels that he must prove himself in America and make something out of his self. He sets his course on California and the gold rush. He travels cross country and meets new friends; he travels on the wagon trains, fights off an Indian raid, hunts buffalo, and countless adventures. He goes through many more trials and tribulations that change him into the man he is suppose to be.

Frank strikes it rich in California. Will he be able to let his family know back in London what has become of him?  

Captain Bayley's Heir CD set comes in a tri-fold case with 2 CDs. The audio book is over 2 hours on non-stop adventure. My family loves all the realistic sounds on the audio book. You can close your eyes and just imagine the scene. You hear the wagons on the trials, the camp fire, and so much more.

Now for the Bonus Materials:

Captain Bayley's Heir Adventure Playlist: The playlist is a way for you to listen to the CD without the actual CD. You can download it or listen to it from your computer.

Captain Bayley's Heir E-book the Original: G.A. Henty original story with updated colorful illustrations.  

Captain Bayley's Heir Official Soundtrack: The original music composed by John Campbell from the story. You can listen to the music without the story.

Printable Cast Poster: Promotional story with the actors/actresses with Brian Blessed (Tarzan & Star Wars), John Rhys-Davies (The Lord of the Rings & Indiana Jones), Jade Williams (The Royal Shakespeare Company), and other star studded cast.

Inspirational Hymn Poster: With a favorite and beloved hymn with the quote from the story, “Amazing Grace How Sweet the Sound” that has a beautiful sunset and a wagon and a lovely backdrop of the landscape.

Desktop Wall Paper: You can display the colorful picture from the cover of the CD on your computer with this high definition imagine.

Live the Adventure Club: This is a website filled with all the material for the Heirloom Audio Productions CDs. You have access to all the materials. There is a community forum that you can discuss the stories, general, homeschool, prayer, and many other topics with others. They have many other resources on the site to enrich your homeschool.

Study Guide and Discussion Starter: The Study Guide comes in a PDF format. This is a full color PDF with 38 pages.

The Study Guide is intended as a discussion starter for your younger kids. For older kids you can use the Study Guide to assign a written assignment. You could have them use this as a book report, research paper of the era or on one topic like the Gold Rush. There are many topics you can cover with this Study Guide. Or you can just have them write down the answers to all the questions. 

The Study Guide is broken down in three sections Listening Well, Thinking Further, and Defining Words. The nice thing is that at the beginning of each section/page it has the CD number along with what track it covers.  It gives you the running time of each track.

Listening Well:  All of the questions can be found on the CD.  Some of the questions may be easy and other questions may be harder. You can print out the questions and have them ready to go over after each part.  This particular section lets you see that your child comprehends the story and if they are listening.

Thinking Further: This section will have many thought provoking questions that your child will need to come up with. They may have to look up something, come to some conclusions about the characters and their actions. It will take the story to a whole new level to increase their understanding of the story.  For younger kids some of the questions you may have to start out and let them finish up your thought.

Defining Words: Grab a dictionary for this section. You can have them write down the vocabulary words or tell you what they mean orally.   

The numbers of questions vary in each section of the story. For example on  the page: Prospecting which is on CD 2 and Track 4.

The Listening Well has 16 questions. Some of the questions would be:

Why has Mr. Adams insisted on digging in this particular spot?

What do Frank and Jim have in common?

One question requires your child to think about the scene and then elaborate on the dream. While the second question may be easier as each child  may have different answers.

Some examples of the Thinking Further:

Find Sacramento on a map. Today, it’s the capital of California.

 Dickens says, “We often miss the treasures of the river while we spend our lives in the creek.” Is he only talking about their current situation? What does his proverb mean?

You get to add some geography into your study. There is a lot of variation in the questions throughout.

From the second question you can see that some of the questions can be a lot more thought provoking and you may need to give an explanation to the younger kids.

Some of the vocabulary in this section for the Defining Words: Afoul, nugget, and tug. This is one of the shorter sections with vocabulary.

There are sections throughout called, “Expand Your Learning” This is going to go beyond the Study Guide and give you more information on topics as you can see from the picture above.

For older students they have some recommended books to further the study on this topic.

One of my favorite parts is the Bible Study section. This Study Guide has three Bible Studies: “God’s Grace”, “Becoming a Christian” and “Honoring Your Parents”. What is nice about this is that you look up the Bible verses for yourself in the Bible version you prefer, and it’s not a commentary. It’s a heart to heart with you talking to your child about God.

How did I use Captain Bayley's Heir in my Homeschool?

As always as soon as my kids see anything from Heirloom Audio Productions it goes with use as we walk out the door and into the CD player. Now that we live out of town we can usually listen to the CD in a day. This was the case this time around as we were in town for a whole day for appointments. Then of course the kids want dad to listen to the story also.  Anything from Heirloom Audio Productions will be listened to at least 5 times when we get a new story and then we listen to them several times after that with the mix of other stories.  

This time around we did work through the Study Guide and Discussion Starter. We don’t write anything down as a family as we just go through and discuss the questions. I was able to use it with both my 14 year old daughter and 11 year old son.

However, I do have the kids look up places on the map and any words that they don’t know I have them look up in a dictionary. I have them use the dictionary online and in our physical dictionary.

I used the Captain Bayley's Heir Adventure Playlist for the first time. My son downloaded it to my computer and we could go back and listen to sections if needed to on some of the questions.

I had my kids look up the scriptures in the Bible Study over the course of the review. They had to tell me about how certain scriptures applied to the story and how it applies to them.

My son is very curious and looked up some videos online about the Gold Rush and about how to sift gold.

For me Heirloom Audio Productions is a life saver as my daughter has Autism and other disabilities and driving in a car is stressful for her and for the rest of the family. Since we started listening to the stories from Heirloom Audio Productions she is delightful in the car. Yes, every time we are in the car driving we have on one of Heirloom Audio Productions stories and have added on a few other audio books. Heirloom Audio Productions is her favorite. I cannot tell you how many times I have listened to all the stories as I have lost count. We all know the stories by heart. The funny thing is that we are not tired of them as they still grab our attention!

My family has listened to many audio books I have to admit that Heirloom Audio Productions is our favorite and we haven’t found anyone who measures up to Heirloom Audio Productions quality. Most of all I love the characters in the story that have courage, morals, and faith in action. You are missing out if you have never heard one of the audio dramas from Heirloom Audio Productions.

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Other reviewers have listened to Captain Bayley's Heir. You can click on the link to see what other from the Homeschool Review Crew are saying.