Around the World Stories Review {+giveaway}
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I have dreamed of traveling since I was a pre-teen. First on my list is Australia. A certain Aussie soap star may have been the initial trigger for that dream. (I’ll leave it up to you to guess if I’m talking about Robert Scorpio or Dr. Noah Drake on General Hospital – or both. However, that’s neither here nor there. The point is, I’ve long been fascinated with visiting Australia.)
Next on my list are England, Scotland, and Ireland.
I don’t know if my travel dreams will ever come to fruition, but thanks to one American family who is allowing the rest of us to live vicariously through them and their stories, we can travel Europe.
Around the World Stories invites families to travel and discover the world through original audio stories.The family who created the site left the U.S. in June to travel Europe for a year, writing and recording stories as they go. {insert dreamy sigh here}
Around the World Stories is a website subscription service. Your subscription gets you access to the site featuring a new story every week and a parent guide for each story.
Around the World Stories
I agree with the creators of Around the World Stories, “Lessons may come and go, but a good story sticks.”
The high-quality audio stories run 25-35 minutes each. Written for kids ages 4-10, the stories are so well done that I think they’ll appeal to an even wider age range of listeners. I’ve enjoyed them!
[bctt tweet=”Lessons may come and go, but a good story sticks.” username=”Kris_WUHSMom”]
You can listen to the stories on any device that has internet access since they’re streamed on the website. If you want to have access to them later, you can download them to your music library and sync with other devices like you would a podcast or music.
Each week, a new story is added to the website, and each month focuses on a different European country. So far, there are stories for The Netherlands, Germany, and France.
As Matt and Tania (the creators) and their family travel around Europe this year, they’ll be adding new stories inspired by the 13 countries they’ll be visiting. They’ve even gotten their kids in on the action by letting them record some of the story intros.
If you’d like, you can live vicariously and follow along on their adventures on their blog, Facebook , or Instagram.
The audio stories are fantastic for listening to as your kids engage in other quiet activities, such as coloring, painting, drawing, creating with Legos or Play-doh, or riding in the car. Audio stories allow kids to exercise their imaginations, build thinking skills, and increase their attention spans.
Around the World Stories Parent Guide
Each Around the World Stories tale includes a parent guide with more information about the setting and details of the story and suggestions for related activities. It includes a glossary of the foreign words and phrases used in the tale so that you can practice them at home.
You can also expect the parent guide to include things such as:
- Recipes
- Crafts
- Cultural facts
- Tie-ins to literature, art, and history
- Facts about related national holidays
Around the World Stories provide an excellent opportunity to bring geography to life in a unique and captivating way. Bonus points for doing so in a way that gives Mom (or Dad) a break from reading! Not only do you get a break, but you’ll enjoy the stories, too.
You can sign up for Around the World Stories for $7.95 per month, payable by credit card or PayPal, and you can cancel anytime from your subscription page. You can also purchase gift subscriptions.
Giveaway
Does Around the World Stories sound like something you and your family would enjoy? I’ve got a chance for you to win! One WUHS reader will win a one-year subscription to Around the World Stories – but you don’t have to wait! Get started with the first month. If you win, you can cancel and let your prize subscription take over. Follow the directions on the RaffleCopter widget below to enter.
Rules: This giveaway is open to United States residents, ages 18 years and older only. Giveaway ends at 11:59 PM (ET) on Wednesday, August 31, 2016. The winner will be selected at random using Random.org via RaffleCopter.
The winner will be notified via email and given 72 hours to respond. You must enter a valid email address to win. In the event that the winner cannot be contacted by email or does not respond within 72 hours, the prize will be forfeited and an alternate winner selected.
Click to read the complete rules. By entering this giveaway, you indicate that you have read and agreed to abide by these rules.
Kris Bales is a newly-retired homeschool mom and the quirky, Christ-following, painfully honest founder (and former owner) of Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers. She has a pretty serious addiction to sweet tea and Words with Friends. Kris and her husband of over 30 years are parents to three amazing homeschool grads. They share their home with three dogs, two cats, a ball python, a bearded dragon, and seven birds.
You can come stay with us, Kris ????
Be careful what you offer. I may take you up on it! 🙂
Geez, I wish! Kris, I think we’re kindred spirits…seriously. Besides agreeing completely with you on everything homeschooling, you just listed every single one of my top places to visit, too! In fact, I have kids named Ireland and London because I’m so enamored by those places. I was supposed to go on a tour of the British Isles with my high school, but they canceled the trip because there was too much turmoil there at the time. Sadly, I’ll probably never get there. As for Australia, my kids and I don’t just want to visit there- we want to live there!
How funny. If you move to Australia, I’ll come visit. 😉