Transcript of CS#92: Emily Cavins Great Adventure Bible Timeline for Kids

Transcript of Interview with Emily Cavins about The Great Adventure for Kids.  This interview and others like it can be found at http://www.catholicspotlight.com

Listen Now to the audio version of the show.

Great Adventure Through the Bible for Kids is available at The Catholic Company.

http://www.catholiccompany.com/catholic-gifts/2005033/Great-Adventure-Kids-Pack/

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Chris Cash:  This is the Catholic Spotlight, the show where we talk about what’s new, cool, and exciting in the Catholic marketplace.  I’m your host, Chris Cash, director of eCommerce for catholiccompany.com, your source for all your Catholic needs.

Chris Cash:  And today in the Spotlight, we have Emily Cavins, for the first time on our show to talk about the awesome new Great Adventure for Kids Set, I think this is probably one of the most anticipated products of the year in the Catholic market, if not for the past several years just because it has been talked about for so long leading up to this point.  So Emily, glad to have you on.

Emily Cavins:  Thanks, Chris.  Great to be with you today.

Chris Cash:  Now this product isn’t just a work of yourself.  Who are the other people that were key in putting this product together?

Emily Cavins:  I suppose the original, of course, Jack has to have a lot of credit for thinking of these things quite a few years ago but Sarah Christmyer who also has worked on the Great Adventure Timeline and other studies with Jeff is also a key person in this.  Sarah Christmyer has been kind of keeping these things in the back of her mind for quite a while and so as the time came together for us to be able to work on the project and of course, the whole Ascension graphics team working really hard to put together some charts and also beautiful illustrations by Eileen McCook.  They’re just beautiful and wonderful.  I’m just so excited about those.  So her talent has really added a lot to the project as well.

Chris Cash:  They’re very bright and colorful.  I must say that right off the bat here.  I love the color scheme too.  It really catches your eye and captivates which is of course, is exactly what you want to do with any product for kids.

Emily Cavins:  Right and I really like the realness of them.  They’re not real cartooney but yet they’re very captivating for children.

Chris Cash:  So, I guess to start off with, what is the genesis of this project especially for those who probably might not be familiar with the Great Adventure as it’s been done by your husband for so many years.

Emily Cavins:  Well the Great Adventure for adults has grown over the years as well and it comes in 24 weeks, 8 weeks, day seminar going through the entire bible covering the 14 narrative books in the bible to get the full of salvation history and Jeff has been presenting that for many years and after most of them, I’m sure people come and say, “Well, what do you have for kids.  I mean, this is great.  I really want to share it with my children.”  And we have been listening to that for years and years and finally have been able to produce some items that follow the same color coding as the adult version.  Each time period, there’s 12 periods of bible history, all color-coded with little phrases that help you remember the color and why the color is directed to that time period.  So it’s just taking this wonderful system and making it accessible for children.

Chris Cash:  Now, can you explain what the system is in a brief…briefly, I should say.  Briefly explain what the system is and why this has proven to be an effective system for teaching people about the history of the bible and the narrative of the bible.

Emily Cavins:  Well, as Jeff always says, people always have this desire the entire bible through in a year and get excited every year about trying and you read through the first Genesis and got some exciting stories and then you get a little further down and when you hit Leviticus, it’s not one of the books that is telling a story and you kind of lose track of what’s happening in the Scripture and so what the Great Adventure series for adults and children takes the narrative books and those are the books of the bible that carry the story from Genesis all the way through the different periods of history to Jesus and the to the Church and what is exciting especially for me and for the children here is we have a part of it that says, “Okay, now you’ve understood these periods of history, now where do you fit into the story?”  And on one of our charts, we have a little section that goes through it with them.  How do you fit into the Church?  Where is your place in salvation history?  So it’s just not learning the facts of history and the bible, it’s finding out what does that have to do with me and attaching our lives onto this beautiful story of salvation that God’s provided in the Scriptures for us.  So it’s kind of like a key to unlocking the narrative, finding out what God’s plan was all through history and how it developed and where we fit into it.

Chris Cash:  And what I personally love about the Great Adventure series as a whole is just how well you walk away from even just the initial overview course of the series, understanding the narrative or the story of the entire bible.  So that you have a picture in your head of where everybody fits in and what the major events are and why they happened in the order that they happened rather than just a bunch of snapshots that you’ll get by going to Sunday Mass of a snapshot here and a snapshot there and oh, here’s David and here’s Solomon but how do they fit together.

Emily Cavins:  Right.  That is the whole crux of it, is where we have all these stories we’ve heard all throughout going to Church and reading bible books but this way, you’re taking each one of those and you’re placing them in a chronology so you know what’s the relationship between David and Abraham and David and Jesus and ultimately the Church, how does that all fit in.

Chris Cash:  Okay, well, let’s talk a little bit more specifically about the Great Adventure for Kids products and what’s included in this?  So could you kind of outline what the different pieces you’ve got for helping the kids learn all of this?

Emily Cavins:  Sure.  We have an initial pack.  This is our introductory items that Ascension Press is putting out and we’re hoping to continue on with many more but our first set is five different pieces, one of them being a color book which is a 9 by 13 size and it takes four illustrations from each of the 12 periods of bible history and you can…there’s also a paragraph called synopsis at the bottom of each page and key bible verses that you either memorize or just associate with the bible text and it’s very attractive for young children and also interesting enough for older children, sixth grade, seventh grade, eighth grade as well and it’s also kind of a cheat for adults as well.  You can read it and say, “Oh yeah.”  You can get your chronology through that.  So that is one item.  It can be used at home.  It can be used in a classroom.

Chris Cash:  So even if the adult hasn’t been through the adult version of the Timeline, they’re still going to come away with some basic knowledge of the history of the bible here as well.

Emily Cavins:  Right, there are symbols for each of the 12 periods of history like the first period is the history of the early world.  The early world and it covers Genesis 1 through 11 and so it’s a turquoise color like the earth viewed from space and the symbol is an earth, the earth viewed from space.  So each one of the periods has a symbol attached to it that helps you connect to something in the bible like in the exodus in Egypt period, there’s a symbol of the Ten Commandments, that’s when that occurred during that time period and then for like the time of David, there’s a crown for the royal kingdom; and it also has the color purple associated with royalty.  So it’s color-coded and it’s symbols and pictures that you can connect immediately to.  So by going through and there’s one page in the coloring book that has all that laid out.  So even as an adult, it’ll show you where in the bible it’s found, which books of the bible that you can read those, that section of history in.  And that’s being followed through all of the different parts.  Like there’s a bookmark for reading and that’s just like a simplified version of the 12 periods of bible history, color-coded with the book and symbol on it for quick reference.

And then, one other major piece is the Bible Timeline Chart for children that is similar to the adult version and how it folds up nicely.  You can tuck in your bible but it’s an accordion-fold chart and if you lay it out, it’s about 3 feet, not quite, 2-1/2 feet long by the time you fold it out.  And on one complete side, is a very colorful chart of those 12 periods of bible history with illustrations and pictures of major stories underneath each one of those categories and like it has a beautiful illustration of Adam and Eve in the garden and Noah’s Ark and then a few go on down to all the way up to right before Jesus, you’ve got the period called the Maccabean Revolt.  Several illustrations there that connect the main stories of that period so the chart in itself, adults can look through and they, “Oh!  That’s when that happened or that’s where that story happened.”  But one of the other features of the chart is it has what’s called Jesus Bloodline and it highlights all the people who are in the lineage of Jesus and then of course, and then it shows, of course when Jesus is born so the bloodline traced through there.

So as you’re reading the bible and you read about these different characters, you can refer on the chart and see, “Oh!  That person is directly connected to Jesus.”  There’s also time periods at the bottom of the chart that illustrates, that explain when in real time the bible happened as far as years and on a side note, I’ve been studying at the University of Minnesota the archaeology of Israel and it’s been highly fascinating to hear the lectures in that series and they’ve discovered so many tie-ins to the Scriptures, things that they’ve found in archaeology in Israel and other documents and findings that really come like the Iron Age on, date Israel quite accurately in the chronology.  So that’s an exciting part of it too is that it’s not just the bible that’s tied into what’s happening in the whole world.  It’s not just a separate entity.  Also on the chart, on the backside of it then, is a bible timeline prayer which our family has been doing since this has been published and our kids are excited.  We have two children living at home with us yet.  They’re two girls; they’re 9 and 12, or 10 and 12, yeah.  And so they take turns being the leader, leading the prayer in each of the periods that they hit.  It gives you a little bit of a lesson of what that time period like in the time of exodus in Egypt, the time of Moses, the leader would say, “You freed your people from slavery in Egypt so they could worship You,” and then the family response, “Free us from sin so we can serve and worship You.”  So it’s just the summary of the entire salvation history was in the prayer and it’s another nice traditional prayer to add in with your family night prayers.  I don’t want to keep on just rambling.  Stop me and…

Chris Cash:  Oh no, no, no.  Those of us out in the audience, we’re very interested in hearing a lot of these details and then of course, you have not talked yet about the card game or the prayer beads.

Emily Cavins:  That’s right.  Yes, now the prayer beads, I guess I should mention that, go along with the prayer.  The prayer beads are like a chain.  It has a little lanyard hook on it.  You could hook it onto your book bag or even as zipper pull but each…as you pray the Bible Timeline Prayer, it explains that you pull one bead like the first bead is turquoise like the early world and so then you pray that portion of the prayer with that bead then the next color is burgundy and you pull that one down the chain and you pray that section and continue on to the 12 periods, each with their own color.  So it’s just real helpful in learning the different periods so after a while, you can just look at the different colors on the prayer chain and these are the same colors that are on the adult bible timeline bracelets that have been out for many years and so you can look at the colors on there and just list off…rattle off the different periods of bible history and as each day goes by, you’re studying a little bit more of those periods and you can explain what happens and where in the bible it’s found and after not very long, you have a synopsis of the whole bible in your mind just by memorizing these colors and on the bracelet.  And yes, as you mentioned, the card game is probably one of the most exciting parts of this whole five-pack, five items in the pack that we have.

Chris Cash:  This is not something you’re going to find in the adult series.

Emily Cavins:  No, no but they will allow the adults to play these because I think…

Chris Cash:  Oh well, thanks.

Emily Cavins:  You’ll be surprised how much you will learn.  Now these are like standard sized cards and they have beautiful illustrations on them just like the Timeline Chart itself but these are of course, larger than what are going to be on the chart and there are four cards per color of the bible history.  It’s actually like there’s a standard main deck and then there’s an expansion deck which we’re hoping to add many more on in the future but so we have expansion deck which adds another two colors per period to the pack so you can add more people to play as well.  And we have six different games with this.  One is the simple memory where you take cards from the same colored period and lay them out like you would play memory and flip up the cards and do the matching.  And then there’s this simple Go Fish where you’re collecting a set of four cards from the same time period.  Then we’ve got other games that are more advanced.  We’ve got Rummy; these are all like standard rules that are explained.  I doubt it which is kind of a fun game like Wink and Spoons which could be used like in a classroom setting when you have quite a few people.  It’s kind of a fast paced game of matching.  The one that I like a lot is like Crazy Eights and in that particular game, not only do you collect sets but you need to know which period comes before and after because you can play off of the card on the table either going by up a period or down a period.  So after playing that a few times, you know the timeline backwards and forwards.  There’s also reference cards to help you or you can use your timeline chart because it takes a little bit to get it but once you do, it’s fixed in your head.  You know what happens when and even with pretty younger kids, just the colors of these beautiful illustrations, they can identify so many things with so many bible stories with that beautiful illustration of the Day of Pentecost with Mary and the disciples and Peter and Paul and other figures that they’ll certainly know but they’re just so captivating, the pictures that…that’ll really…it’s one of those things that really sticks with kids.  I can remember some puzzles I had when I was really small and how I just enjoyed putting those together…bible pictures of Moses being taken out of the water and those types of images stick with you for your life.  So that’s a synopsis of all of those five products and yes, let me know if you have any other questions if there’s something I didn’t cover on it.

Chris Cash:  Well, I think we’re going to take a short break here to hear from our sponsor but we’ll be back in just a minute to talk more…

Emily Cavins:  Okay, okay.

Chris Cash:  …Emily Cavins about the Great Adventure for Kids.  This is the Catholic Spotlight.

Chris Cash:  And we’re back with Emily Cavins talking about the Great Adventure for Kids, so I guess, you’ve done a pretty good job of outlining the product as a whole.  Have you gotten any feedback so far on how the children are responding to this product?

Emily Cavins:  Well, I guess I have used my own children for one thing as guinea pigs and a few of my other friends and they have enjoyed it so far.  They do love praying the prayer in the evenings.  They’ve been…I only have one copy so far of the color book so they’re sharing it pretty well.  They’ve been coloring it but I…

Chris Cash:  You have older children, that’s how I…

Emily Cavins:  …Yeah, I know Matt Pinto, his children tried out the Memory game and some of the other games with the card games and they got a bit competitive with it and I think a few fistfights broke out.

Chris Cash:  That’s what happens when you’ve got all boys.

Emily Cavins:  Right, you’ve got it all.  So they obviously wanted to win so…and I’ve had several…the unfortunate part of it is that it’s so new that people haven’t been able to give us feedback.  The only things I’ve heard about it, “We’re so excited that you have something.”  A woman approached me last night who was a first-grade teacher and she had purchased the pack and was looking through it and she was saying, “Oh, do you have a curriculum to go with it?”  And so well that’s what we’re hoping to do down the line.  This is our first step in roll out here and she was just excited to be able to use beads in her classroom and she said, “Can you make this chart a classroom-sized chart?”  And people have grand ideas of all the things you can with this in different ways using teach in the classroom and at home, at Church…

Chris Cash:  I’m sure Matt is taking great notes about all of this stuff too, right?

Emily Cavins:  Oh definitely.  Matt is a very good visionary and I think that’s part of the success of all of the ventures from Ascension Press with the Bible Timeline, it’s been wonderful to have such a wonderful company promoting and just getting these things all out of the country.  The part for us that’s real exciting is hearing the testimonies of people saying not only did they understand the bible but it changed their life just being more involved in that and more…just understanding of their faith and that’s the point of all these children’s products as well.  We want children to be in love with their faith and ultimately with Christ and have that be what molds them and is their goal in life.

Chris Cash:  Now how did you get involved in putting this project together because up until this point, your husband has been in the spotlight for the most part with all of the Great Adventure stuff so obviously, this is a little bit of a change for you to be able to see your name up in lights with this product.  What was it that brought that about?

Emily Cavins:  Well, several years ago, we have a child who is 24 and when she was young, this was the time when Jeff and I first began creating the Bible Timeline before we had come into the Catholic Church and we were teaching in the church that we were pasturing in and kind of developing these things together and I would teach the children’s program at our church and use parts of this to make charts and types of things to help the children learn the chronology of the bible and so it just kind of was a no-brainer after a while and then “Hey!  Why don’t I work on the children’s project?” because I kept saying to him, “Well, when are we are going to do this?  When is it going to ever get done?”  And he said, “Well, how about you work on it?”  I was like, “Hey, good idea!  I guess I would be probably…I’m somebody who should since I’m familiar with it from inside and out.”  And it just worked out timing-wise in our family raising.  Our children are a little older and so I could devote some time to developing this.  It’s really been a pleasure and just an excitement to see especially how beautiful the color illustrations are.  It just really…it just makes you happy to look at it.  So that’s pretty much how I got into it but I’m very happy to be involved in looking to the future to keep on developing more things as well.

Chris Cash:  Were there parts of this product that had to be cut at the last minute due to space limitations, or…?

Emily Cavins:  Yeah, we had some grandiose ideas of what all we were going to fit on to the Children’s Chart but I think what we have on there is just what children need and then when they’re ready to add more information, there’s the adult chart which like fills in the supplemental books.  We just hit the main books to read and the supplemental books are the books that are related to the narrative but don’t necessarily tell the story like the Book of Psalms, it is a supplemental book that would come in during the time of David in the Royal Kingdom and so those are all mentioned on the Adult Chart but the Children’s Chart is just a nice brief summary for them.  Enough information to get them through to the next phase of understanding the bible.  Yeah, I wanted to put some maps and other things on there but those things will come in time as we develop a curriculum.  We were able to put one map on showing the divided kingdom when the nation of Israel split into two, the…Judah to the south and Israel to the north so there’s a nice map illustration on the chart for that but we’ve got time and lots of ideas, tons of things we can do in the future so I’m pleased with what we were able to put on into all of these projects.

Chris Cash:  Now what would be your expectation for the age range on this?  I know that with the adult Timeline, I’ve heard stories of many high schoolers going through that program and getting quite a bit out of it.  So what do you think the age range on this is going to be?

Emily Cavins:  Well, I think it’s the elementary.  It’s…the Memory game can be as young as three-year-olds can play and start connecting pictures and things and I would say, it’s probably through sixth grade and then Ascension Press has a Teen Timeline which kind of hits the teens so we need to be working a little bit on the middle school kids.  This curriculum could go up to eight grade.  It kind of depends on the child, if they would be more geared towards looking at the Teen Timeline or using the children’s but I think it covers the elementary age quite well just the…the pictures aren’t too childish but they’re not too advanced that…

Chris Cash:  Trying to stay from the “that’s stupid factor”, huh?

Emily Cavins:  Yeah, right.  Yeah, I don’t think there’s any of that in here.  I’m really pleased with how well the artist was able to capture the different scenes and just make them very pleasant.  I mean, for adults as well.  I mean, I like looking at them.

Chris Cash:  Well, I think that that pretty much covers it for the day.  I know that the excitement for this product is just really huge.  My wife even got an email this past week from her Indianapolis home school group where the people were encouraging each other to pre-order copies of this.  Hopefully, they’ve got them by now.

Emily Cavins:  Right.  Yeah, we’ve worked up to the very last minute to get these things out the door so the team worked really, really hard and I’m very proud of the work and the time everybody put in.  I’m just really excited.

Chris Cash:  Well, I think everybody out there who gets a hold of this is going to be hopefully equally excited.  Is there anything final that you wanted to share with our listeners before we finish up?

Emily Cavins:  Well, I think, maybe some feedback would be great too at some point and I know that on your website, there’s places to write reviews.  So I’m excited to hear from people of how they use it.  People come up with really creative ideas that we didn’t think of in the first place saying, “Oh, well you can do this with it and that with it.”  So the feedback is wonderful for us to hear.  Go ahead and write it on the Catholic Company website review and I want to hear about it.

Chris Cash:  Hey, that’s some good advice.  Hopefully, we’ll be able to get this into our reviewer program in the next few weeks.  Emily, thank you so much for coming on and we look forward to hearing from you again when the next set of products come out.  I’m sure they will be equally as exciting.

Emily Cavins:  Great!  My pleasure.  Thank you so much.

Chris Cash:  All right, God bless.

Emily Cavins:  Thank you, bye bye.

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Transcript of Interview with Emily Cavins about The Great Adventure for Kids. This interview and others like it can be found at http://www.catholicspotlight.com

Listen Now to the audio version of the show.

Great Adventure Through the Bible for Kids is available at The Catholic Company.

http://www.catholiccompany.com/catholic-gifts/2005033/Great-Adventure-Kids-Pack/