Who we are

Mack & Bell Learning Solutions is a small, family-owned and operated business based in the Edmonton, Alberta area; the Mack & Bell Adventures experience is just one part of my little enterprise. How small? When this started, it was just one person, a stack of library books, and a kitchen table during a pandemic.

As a professional learning designer with more than 15 years of experience, I’ve created training and educational tools for corporate, non-profit, and community audiences across Canada. I knew how to make content that wasn’t just informative – it was engaging, accessible, and built to stick.

But I also spent five years as a homeschooling parent. That experience reshaped how I think about education. I saw firsthand how kids thrive when they’re allowed to be curious, to move at their own pace, and to connect with what they’re learning in a meaningful way. Mack & Bell Adventures brings together everything I know about good instructional design, and everything I’ve learned from watching kids fall in love with learning when it’s done right.

Why did we start Mack & Bell Adventures?

Our oldest child was in 1st grade in 2019-2020, and when school shut-downs happened in March 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, I watched our kiddo struggle with schooling remotely. I decided to homeschool for grade 2, and 5 years later we were still schooling at home!

I struggled to find quality materials written from a Canadian perspective. And when I found some, we had a hard time finding resources that were secular in their presentation of things like History and the Sciences. I had to do a lot of work adapting, researching, and designing lessons from scratch for things that we expected to find included in “complete curriculum” packages.

Fueled by frustration (and some surprisingly joyful, homemade units), I started tinkering with ideas for a learning video game. What it evolved into instead is Mack & Bell Adventures: a story-based Canadian learning program for grades 5-8.

What makes Mack & Bell Adventures different?

There’s no shortage of learning content out there – but so much of it is generic, Americanized, or stuck in a worksheet mindset. I built Mack & Bell Adventures to be something entirely different:

• Rooted in Canadian stories: with geography, history, science, and art woven together through the lens of Canada’s land, people, and cultures.
• Wonder-led learning: every module begins with a story, a mystery, or an adventure that kids want to explore.
• Multi-disciplinary design: one adventure can cover map reading and navigation, Indigenous governance, early astronomy, and traditional food preservation – all through a single engaging narrative. Instead of focusing on the acquisition of facts, we emphasize part-whole understanding, developing conceptual and procedural knowledge, and testing if-then principles through exploration.
• Created by a Canadian parent-educator: not a faceless publisher or tech startup.
• Inclusive by design: with modules that centre Indigenous voices, highlight Black and immigrant contributions, and celebrate the diversity of Canada’s past and present – with an optimistic gaze toward our future.

We’re a small Canadian business – and proud of it

Mack & Bell Adventures isn’t a startup in a glass tower – it’s a labour of love from a real Canadian family who wanted something better for our own kids, and decided to share it.

We understand the realities of juggling homeschooling, distance learning, and after-school enrichment. We also know how hard it is to find Canadian resources that are both rigorous and joyful.

We’re a small team, but we care deeply about creating something that’s smart, ethical, and built to support the families and educators who use it. If you have questions, ideas, or just want to connect, I’d love to hear from you.

Let’s go on an adventure… together.