Terrible True Tales Vikings

Posted on September 26, 2025 by ofamily

I have been enjoying the idea behind the newish series Terrible True Tales. Each book contains 4 short stories which are young kids historical fiction based on something that did actually happen. They are fun reads for younger kids and great for us home educators who want to weave a bit of learning into reading.

The latest is Terrible True Tales of Vikings.

I would say these books suit 7+ ages, but really it depends on your kiddo. Each story is short, fun and filled with historical facts. After the story there is always an “Afterward” which clearly states what part is fact and then a “You Try” page which has ideas on possible activities which you could do.

So Very Briefly what are the 4 short stories about.

The first one is called The Eye of the Viking God. This one is about a young Saxon girl who was kidnapped, turned into a slave by the Vikings and it deals with her life as a Viking slave and how she managed to escape.

The second is The Battle for the Viking Gold. This deals with the raids on the English monasteries. I must admit I quite enjoyed the characters that were created in this one especially that of the naughty boys, the idea of them pranking the monks really did get me chuckling as I could imagine something like that happening.

The third one was The Sword of the Viking King. This was my favorite story probably because it included King Alfred and dealt with the Saxons fighting the Vikings, so there were lots of extra bits in this story that I found interesting.

The fourth one was The Hand of the Viking Warrior. An interesting account of the Vikings trying to set up farms in America.

I thought all 4 short stories were well written and included lots of every day historical facts. This is the kind of book that my son would have enjoyed when he was younger and it is something that I would have used when we learnt about the Vikings. I would recommend this book.

Admin – I do include Affiliate links. If you follow an affiliate link and go on to purchase that product, I will be paid a very small commission, however your cost will remain the same. I only include affiliate links for products that we recommend.

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IGCSE Chemistry workbook

Posted on September 19, 2025 by ofamily

When it comes to your IGCSE Science subjects there are two things that I discovered are vital – firstly a good student book which explains everything and then secondly questions, lots of questions, more questions that you realize you needed. We have our student book so the next thing I needed was our questions and I totally took the easy route – I went for my tried and tested Triple CGP set (tried and tested with my oldest when she did both Biology and Physics). The Workbook, The 10 minute test book and the question cards.

This is my must have set for any IGCSE Science subject.

For the purposes of this post I am going to focus on the Workbook because we tend to use it first. We use the workbook as we work through the sections and we tend to use the 10 minute test book and question cards once we get the end of sections.

Okay so the workbook is a black and white, write in book filled with questions and there are answers at the back. There are NO explanations. This is a question and answer book. It covers all the topics as per the specification.

This particular workbook is for those targeting Grades 8 and 9 so the questions are a bit more challenging. There is also a workbook which has a bigger range of questions – CGP Workbook. We went for this one because we know we are going for an 8 so I wanted to have focused questions in this Grade range for my son.

The questions are varied and they have included a lot of the calculation/maths type questions (these are always good to practice).

They also clearly indicate which questions will only appear in Paper 2. Now I understand that at the beginning this is not going to seem that important, you are just focused on learning the content but later on when you are revising you are going to love the fact that you have resources that clearly separate out the Paper 2 only questions.

They also have included a set of mixed questions for Paper 1 and Paper 2 at the end of the book. I think this is going to be very useful when it comes to revising.

I know this workbook is going to be one of our important resources for Chemistry. We did every page in the Physics and Biology workbooks and I am sure we will be working through every page in the Chemistry workbook too.

Admin – I do include Affiliate links. If you follow an affiliate link and go on to purchase that product, I will be paid a very small commission, however your cost will remain the same. I only include affiliate links for products that we use and recommend.

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A little home education update

Posted on September 10, 2025 by ofamily

I thought it was time to write a little update on where we are with our home education journey.

My oldest has now finished her IGCSE’s (I am really proud, she got A*’s for English, History and Biology and A’s for Physics and Maths). She is now starting her A Levels and has chosen to study English Language, Maths and Biology. We are trying something a bit different with her A Levels and for the first time we are using a distance learning course. The main reason for this was I wanted her to get external feedback on assignments. I am still quite involved as it is really self study with tutors marking assignments so I am trying to keep up with her work in case she does have questions and also so we can discuss what she is learning.

My youngest is entering his Year 10 (well if he was in school it would be Year 10) and we are working towards his IGCSE exams for English, Maths, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Geography and Environmental Management. He has chosen to do 7 subjects mainly because he finds them interesting and he is also a faster worker so he tends to get through the content easily.

It is going to be quite a challenging but interesting phase of our home education. Both kids working towards exams and me trying to keep up with them. It is very different to how we started but that is the beauty of home education, as your kids grow and change so the way you style your home education adapts.

I honestly never thought we would be here. It was never my master plan to home educate. We choose to home educate because we believed it was the best option for our kids. I still believe that. I still believe that home education was the right environment for my kids and it has been an honor to be a part of this journey with them.

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An Eagle in the snow – a what if story about the World Wars.

Posted on September 3, 2025 by ofamily

I remember reading this book with my kids a few years ago and it sparked a number of discussions around very interesting topics so when I spotted it in our local library again I had to get it out and reread it.

An Eagle in the Snow is a masterpiece that combines World War I with World War II in a moving story which raises the question of – What if Hitler had not survived the First World War? But the question is not as straight forward as you would think.

When we first read this book years ago the kids and I ended up discussing this idea in great detail and from a number of different angles. It turned into a whole discussion of when is it right to kill someone, can someone be guilty for events that they might do in the future and if you are in war do you still kill the enemy even if they are injured or unarmed. Aah there is a whole range of questions that this one little book raised.

An Eagle in the Snow starts off in the Second World War where you meet a family who has just lost their home in the blitz. You read about life during the war, hiding out in bomb shelters and then going to see what remains even the devastation that they felt when they find their allotment destroyed and their horse killed. Because they have lost everything in the blitz the mother and son decide to take a train to an aunt’s house. On the journey the train gets attacked by a German plane and takes refuge in a tunnel. While in the tunnel another passenger starts telling them a story about his friend Billy and the First World War.

It is a beautiful tale which deals with many aspects of the First World War including how it must have felt to try and put your life back together after the war. However the key point comes when Billy discovers that a German soldier who he chose not to shoot turned out to be Hitler. Naturally Billy starts going through a lot of emotions including regret and guilt.

I don’t want to give too much away but it really is a beautiful story and it deals with life in the Second and First World War.

And the ever important question – how true is it? It is based on a story that both Hitler and the British soldier involved confirmed.

We highly recommend An Eagle in the Snow, it is a great book to read when your kids are studying the World Wars.

Admin – I do include Affiliate links. If you follow an affiliate link and go on to purchase that product, I will be paid a very small commission, however your cost will remain the same. I only include affiliate links for products that we use and recommend.

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Terrible True Tales Tudors

Posted on August 20, 2025 by ofamily

I quite liked the idea of these Terrible True Tale books – they take a true event and then write a story around it. I always thought they were great to read if you were studying that time period so when I heard there was a new one out – Terrible True Tales Tudors, I said I would review it (this is NOT a paid for post I just agreed to read a review copy of the book and give my thoughts on it).

The book itself contains four short stories, each one set in the Tudor times and each one based on something that did actually happen. The stories themselves are aimed at kids in the 7- 10 age range, so there is nothing explicit or too brutal in them, they are historical fiction stories written for young kids.

Each story is followed by a short explanation of what it was based on and an idea for a fun activity you could do afterwards.

The first story is a fun story which raises a question of switched identities, could Prince Edward (who was killed) have been switched and a decoy Prince murdered instead. I love these stories because it can really get the kids thinking about what could have happened, it can be a great start for lots of creative writing. And I also liked that the mean character in this story gets punished for the way he treated the servants.

The second one is all about how some people would con others out of their money. In this case a father, mother and son have a scheme going where they fool people into giving them money only for them to be spotted by someone from the palace and they ended up being taken to Hampton Court Palace to entertain Henry.

The third one touches on how random people could accuse innocent people of being witches and without evidence theses so called witched could be burned at that stake. I enjoyed the twist in this story because the so called witch ends up tricking the people who wanted to sacrifice her (I always like a story where the innocent win and the bad character gets punished).

The fourth story touches on Shakespeare and how one of his plays was used as a signal to try and start a rebellion. This is a story which I had never heard of before so I found it fascinating, I also enjoyed the way they depicted Queen Elizabeth.

All four stories give you a good idea about life during the Tudor times and get you thinking about events that happened and sometimes wondering “what if”.

I think this would be a great book to read if your kids are learning about the Tudors and I think the stories will definitely raise a few questions and get your kids thinking about possibilities.

For anyone interested here is an Amazon link – Terrible True Tales Tudors

Admin – I do include Affiliate links. If you follow an affiliate link and go on to purchase that product, I will be paid a very small commission, however your cost will remain the same. I only include affiliate links for products that we recommend.

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