April Showers sale at SchoolhouseTeachers and Hey Mama! Schoolhouse Plannner

*affiliate links used in this post* 

Happy Spring! Has it finally arrived where you live? I hope so. Yesterday evening Kurt and I took a drive through the country to go locate a group of birds we had heard about and I so enjoyed seeing all the green grass and blooming daffodils.

I just wanted to pop in here and make sure you knew about the April Showers sale over at SchoolhouseTeachers.com. I know several of you are already members, but do not tune out, because I have great news for you to read below!

Homeschooling, it takes a toll on you some days. Spring can be tough because the kids want to be outdoors, and you want to be outdoors, and no one really wants to finish their math assignment or do their writing. That makes this a perfect time to switch up your daily routine and choose something different to write about. If you take a scroll through the course offerings at SchoolhouseTeachers you are sure to find something interesting for even the most reluctant writers. You can find simple themes for kids to write about, help with those book reports for middle grades, and writing assignments covering a wide range of topics for your high school students: folklore, adventures, classic literature.

With the April Showers sale going on this month, new members can join SchoolhouseTeachers.com for just $111 for twelve months AND you can get a copy of the new Hey Mama! Schoolhouse Planner when it ships in May! Use the discount code: ONES. I always appreciated that SchoolhouseTeachers is just one membership for the entire family, with no extra book fees.

To see pictures of the inside of past issues of the Hey Mama! Planners, click over and see my past reviews here and here. You will also get some ideas of how you can adapt the pages to best fit your own teaching/ learning styles. :)

What if you really want to just finish up this year and start on next year, then it is time to do some planning. If you are already a member of SchoolhouseTeachers.com, you can have a copy of the new Hey Mama! Schoolhouse Planner shipped to you in May just by paying for shipping by April 30th ($8 in USA, higher internationally). To see this option, log into your account and click over to your dashboard, then click the Special Offers for Members tab!

I really recommend the Hey Mama! Schoolhouse Planner to everyone looking for an adaptable, easy to use print planner. I used the Hey Mama! planner every year it was printed, and on the other years I printed off pages form the digital version and had them spiral bound to use in our homeschool. I've seen just a couple glimpses of the color scheme for this next year and it almost makes me wish we were still homeschooling, it is SO beautiful!

If you have decided to not use SchoolhouseTeachers.com, but still want to get your hands on one of the new Hey Mama! Schoolhouse Planners, you can purchase a copy from The Old Schoolhouse store for $29 with free shipping if you live in the US, slightly more (plus shipping) if you live in Canada. It is also available to be shipped internationally.

That's it for today. Go outside and enjoy some sunshine!

The Old Schoolhouse Flash Sale - only thru Friday night!

*this post contains affiliate links*

Happy Thanksgiving! I hope you are spending your time having a great time with family and friends. I just popped on here because I would be remiss if I didn't let you know about this awesome two-day only sale on PRINT copies of The Old Schoolhouse magazine!

I have read The Old Schoolhouse magazine for years and years, and I'm super excited that it is going back to print for all four issues each year. I'm planning to buy a gift subscription for our library, for all those families who might be looking to homeschool. Who might you give a gift subscription to at this awesome price? Be sure to pick up a subscription for yourself too! Think about it, and make sure you get them ordered before midnight on Friday!

One year (4 issues) only $10!

Get the PRINT trade magazine for homeschool families delivered to your door every quarter during our 48-hour Thanksgiving Flash Sale and SAVE BIG! Each issue, over 120 pages, is packed with ideas, inspiration, and practical tips for your homeschool and your home. Plus, there is bonus holiday content, an Annual Freebie Directory, and resource guides.

Grab a one-year subscription for just $10—that is about the cost of a single issue! Why not treat yourself, along with a friend or two, and get a head start on your Christmas list? You have to ACT FAST though. This sale is good Thursday and Friday only (Nov. 22 & 23). 

DO NOT MISS YOUR CHANCE TO SAVE! 

St. Bartholomew's Eve from Heirloom Audio ~ a Crew review

If you lived in a country where you and those who worshipped God like you did were a small minority, and religious persecution broke out, what would you do? This is the tough topic that Heirloom Audio has chosen to tackle in their tenth audio adventure: St. Bartholomew's Eve, a story that spans the thirty years of the Huguenot wars in France from the 1560's to the 1590's. Heirloom Audio deserves another A for this excellent production that treads firmly but gently through the struggles of the Protestant Huguenots during a time when the Catholic church ruled in France almost as strongly as the Monarchy itself.

We appreciated the tact with which Heirloom Audio handled this difficult subject matter, while still producing an entertaining audio drama. Since we already owned and regularly listen to the first nine Heirloom Audio dramas, Arlene and I were more than ready to listen to St. Bartholomew's Eve and learn more about this part of history. I will confess that before we began listening I knew very little about the French Huguenots. After listening to this adaptation of G. A. Henty's historical fiction book, also titled St. Bartholomew's Eve, I was feeling challenged to do some more research into the history of the Huguenots.

In St. Bartholomew's Eve, listeners are transported back to France in the late 1560's. There is turmoil in the air for the Huguenots, who desire to worship God as their hearts dictate, but who make up a scant 10% of the population of France. They are constantly on guard because of attacks from the Catholic church and its ruling family in France, the Guise. Our main character, Philip Fletcher, has crossed the English channel to live with and fight alongside his French cousin Francois. As with other Henty tales, there is friendship, fighting to protect the weak or injured, and a damsel that needs rescued from distress. 

St. Bartholomew's Eve handles the stickiness of the Protestant/ Catholic debate well. When Philip first lands in France he is spoiling for a fight with the Catholics. His wise aunt explains that there are good Catholic men and women left in France, not all of them have been persecuting Protestants, and that fighting is reserved for those treacherous situations where there is no other way. As Arlene and I listened to the story unfold, it made me think about those areas around the world today where Christians are under great persecution. I wondered how I would react if my way of life, and my ability to openly worship God, were under attack.

During the story of St. Bartholomew's Eve, Philip and Francois join with other Huguenots to fight for the freedom to openly worship God as He directs their hearts. There are multiple battles, with advances and loses for the Huguenots, and then what appears to be a time of peace approaches as Protestant ruler Henri of Navarre plans to marry the sister of Catholic King Charles IX, Margaret of Valois. The Huguenot leaders flock to Paris to witness the marriage of their leader, but end up being sheep led to slaughter as the Queen Mother, Catherine de Medici, and the Duke of Guise hatch their nefarious plot that turns into the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre.

While this period of French history has a lot of bloodshed and great loss, it can be used as a teaching tool to remind us of how others have lived and died for their faith. The tactful way this tough topic is handled gives parents many opportunities to talk with their children about love, tolerance, intolerance, and freedom of worship. It also allows us to chose to model for our children a better way of interacting with those whose religious views differ from our own than the French Guise family and their followers did in the 1570's. While these audio adventures are designed for ages 6-16, for this one, I'm going to recommend it for ages 12 and up. That is also the age I recommend for Heirloom Audio's In the Reign of Terror.



To read our reviews of previous Heirloom Audio titles, click here for our review of Wulf the Saxon. The links to the other titles we have reviewed are at the bottom of that post. Or, you can click on the little orange Heirloom Audio Productions tag at the end of this post.

Connect with Heirloom Audio 
Facebook
Instagram
Twitter












SaveSave

CashCrunch Careers ~ a Crew review

Many families include a student who would like to have a solid answer for the question “What do you want to do after high school?” Adults looking for a career change often face the same dilemma. Deciding what area to pursue in college can be a daunting task. CashCrunch Careers from CashCrunch Games hopes to help those searching for these answers find them. Arlene and I both took their career assessment as a part of this review for the Homeschool Review Crew.

CashCrunch Careers combines US Department of Labor research with corporate recruitment tools in one platform. The goal of CashCrunch Careers (from the YouTube video on their home page) assessment : "Matches your personality attributes to specific jobs."

How does this all work, and does it work? To begin, each person will need to take the assessment. This usually takes about 10-15 minutes. It is a personality survey that asks you to truthfully choose from two words at a time. Choose the one that most reflects who you are, not who you wish to be. If you need synonyms for the words to help you distinguish, you can hover your mouse over the word. Choose from 75 pairs of words: likable or adaptable, understanding or honest, etc. 

At the end of your career/ personality survey you will receive a two page CashCrunch Career report that you can view online, or download and print. Arlene and I both viewed ours online, and then printed a copy to keep. The report includes four sections:

- Career Work Styles

- Motivators & De-motivators

- Career Attributes

- Career Match

The first three sections are information that describes your personality and the fourth one is designed to point you to the best careers for your personality/ career attributes. This fourth section has clickable links to lead you to more information about the various careers recommended.

For both Arlene and myself the first three sections were spot-on. Arlene is a high school senior who was looking to see if there was a career other than what she is currently planning to pursue that might be an even better fit. For myself, I wanted to see what the report would recommend since I am considering a career change once Arlene graduates.

Both of us were disappointed by the information provided in the fourth section (Career Match). The report reads: The purpose of this section is to match your Work Styles and Attributes to careers based on 10 years of research conducted by the US Department of Labor. By this stated purpose you would think that since Arlene and I had vastly different reports in the Work Styles and Career Attributes sections that we would have different jobs recommended. We did not. All 20 of the Matching jobs on both of our reports were exactly the same.

When I contacted the creator and asked him about this he replied:

The career categories for most people will be the same, even though the reports should suggest huge differences. 

In each of the careers, the jobs can vary quite considerably. For example, in the publishing world you will need editors, writers and graphic designers. In the police force there are a number of different personalities required depending on their roles. Some will rise to the ranks in leadership, be detectives, others will follow a more scientific route into CSI and so on. The purpose is to show that within career categories, there are a number of different roles for different personalities.

The ranking is based purely on your inherent traits. As mentioned before, you could work in the same career field but just do different jobs. 

I hope this addresses your concerns.

So I went looking through the reports and links again to see if I had missed something. We were hoping to find a breakdown of individual jobs under each category, that variation we were told about. In the top career listed for both of us: General and Operations Managers, there were no sub-categories. How is a high school student supposed to know where to start their college courses if they are told they will make a great CEO or COO someday but the reality is they need to find an entry-level or mid-level job to prepare for? We did not find the variety of different roles within each field we were hoping to find.

Of our 20 career recommendations, all of them said: manager, administrator, or director except one: Farmers and Ranchers. Something just did not ring quite true for either of us with this, so we dug deeper. We compared our Career Attributes with those listed for each of these 20 recommendations. For some of them there were a solid three of five that matched, but for the top recommendation for me there was only ONE of the attributes listed that was in my report, and for Arlene’s second place recommendation she had NONE of the attributes listed for the position. Two of Arlene's recommendation had no matching attributes and for four of them she only had one.

While we feel that the beginning part of this CashCrunch Careers assessment could be a valuable tool, overall it falls short of the mark it claims to aim for. As it is right now we give it a B- grade. More time needs to be spent on improving the career match section. It should provide stepping-stone positions to consider that could lead to high-level managerial or other top-level jobs in the various industries for those whose career attributes do truly fit the position. We are hoping the creators will consider expanding the Career Match section to better serve these areas of concern.

Books of the Bible At-a-Glance ~ a Crew review

Have you ever been in a group Bible study setting with a wide range of people? If you have, you've probably noticed that we come from all different types of backgrounds. While some people can easily find any book and give you a short summary, others struggle to find books or grasp a basic understanding of its themes because they are new in their faith, or have never studied the Bible outside of a Sunday morning church service. This is where a resource like Books of the Bible At-a-Glance from Teach Sunday School can be extremely helpful!

The first time I remember being challenged to read through the Bible on my own was when I was in high school. Our youth group leader told us to not take his word for it, but to read the Scriptures ourselves to make sure what he taught was true. Even though I had grown up attending church every Sunday morning, I was not comfortable finding lesser-read books in my Bible by myself. I often had to look in the table of contents.

In a group setting it can be intimidating when it seems like everyone knows more than you. Especially if you teach or mentor high schoolers, you want to give everyone a basic knowledge of the book you are going to study before you begin. These one page overview sheets are a great way to give everyone a solid foundation to build upon as you study your Bibles together. Books of the Bible At-a-Glance is a downloadable PDF that includes a page for each of the 66 books of the Bible. Each page shows where in the Biblical timeline the book falls, and short summaries about the main points of each book. There is a section with most famous verses in the book, and another section that lists some of the famous stories included in the book. In the New Testament Epistles this section changes to cover the problem or issue that the writer is addressing.

In our home I have been looking these over as I move to the next book in my daily Bible reading. Arlene and I have also been talking about various ways other people might use them. The license you receive when purchasing this PDF allows you to print as many copies as you need for your personal, family, or single church/ single school use. That is really awesome! I can see a church purchasing this resource and then making the at-a-glance pages a bulletin insert whenever the pastor starts teaching from the next book of the Bible. They could also be used in your youth group as a way to get everyone started with a basic understanding of the Epistle you will be studying this month, perhaps 1 Corinthians or James.

My Mom taught Sunday School and Vacation Bible School for decades. I showed her a few of the pages and asked her if she had any additional ideas about how these reference sheets could be utilized. She suggested handing them out in an adult Sunday School class and then having the class members add in the chapter and verse next to the famous stories as you get that far in the book. For the Gospels you could write the cross-references to the other tellings of the same stories - something that would be especially helpful when studying the synoptic Gospels for the first time!

Some other ideas we had for using these Books of the Bible At-a-Glance sheets were for Awana or Bible Bowl teams so they kids get a better idea of the chronological order of the books and verses they are working to memorize. They could also be used for weekend events with campus groups like InterVarsity or Campus Crusade. The normal price on this PDF resource is $19 - super reasonable! Right now they are offering the first 250 purchasers the discounted rate of $9, and they always come with a 60 day money back guarantee.

I encourage you to check out Books of the Bible At-a-Glance from Teach Sunday School. Then purchase a set for your family or your church!

Connect with Teach Sunday School on Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube

Paddington Bear - Unit Study ~ a Crew review

In our house we have always loved Paddington Bear from the picture book by Michael Bond, so even though my youngest recently turned 18, we were excited to check out the Paddington Bear unit study from Branch Out World, a UK based company that encourages families to learn together.

This Paddington Bear unit study is from Branch Out World’s Picture Book Explorers series and is geared for ages 5-9. I definitely think you can push that upper limit up to 11 or 12 with out any major problems. You will spend five days (or more) reading the picture book together and doing activities that help your child learn more about: setting, words, pictures, science, and math + crafts. Because it was originally written for the UK, you will find British English spellings like maths and colours, which add to the charm of reading Paddington.

While you may find the various activities a bit above the understanding of your five year old, I think from ages 6 and up would really enjoy doing the extra activities. This makes it an easy open-and-go unit study to use with a variety of ages. Your youngest children can simply enjoy hearing you read Paddington while the older ones can dig deeper.

This downloadable PDF begins with instructions for the parents to help you prepare ahead of time (trust me, it’s not a lot, mostly things you will already have at home) so you can dive right in. It also contains a word of caution to try to work on this for five days straight, or as close together as you can, before your children loose interest in the subject. While that might happen with some books, I think it is more likely that your children will fall in love with Paddington and want to do EVERY suggested activity. Why do I say that? The Paddington in our pictures here belongs to our 20 year old who has loved Paddington since we first read it probably 15 years ago. That was also the first time I ever tried marmalade… and I still keep a jar in the fridge today. :)

Day 1 focuses on setting and this is where you will look at (and colour) maps of the UK and Peru. In case you have not yet read Paddington, he comes from Darkest Peru. There are other suggested activities for your older children that talk about immigration, travel, and flags.

Day 2 is focused on words and covers things like themes, inspiration for books, subject-verb agreement, and explains narration and how your child can learn to use it. We highly recommend teaching your children how to use narration. It is a basic tenant on Charlotte Mason’s style of education, and one we have used for all of our 16 years of home education.

Day 3 focuses your study on pictures. Here you will learn more about the illustrator, look at the pictures and how they emphasize various points in the story, and give your child a chance to do some drawing themselves. Throughout this unit study there are a variety of activities for each day, of which you can choose one or many.There are also mini-books you can print off to help your child work through some of these topics.

Day 4 is about science and may be one of my favorites as far as activities. Here you learn about what kind of bear Paddington is (besides the adorable kind!) You also have suggestions for Nature Study (another key component in a Charlotte Mason education,) and several science experiments with soap and shaving cream. These would probably best be done outside on your porch. :)

Day 5 has several awesome activities that focus on math, crafts to try, and recipes to make together.

Overall, I think this is a stellar way to take a well-loved picture book and expand upon it and the learning opportunities it provides. For those of you stateside, we found that the picture book version recommended in this unit study is illustrated by R.W. Alley who illustrated the Paddington Treasury that we purchased at our local Costco store last summer.

Our girls have always loved Paddington, especially our now 20 year old daughter Emily. A couple of years ago her younger sister Arlene saw that a local store had stuffed Paddington bears for sale and bought Emily one for Christmas. Then Arlene begged me to find a way to keep Emily from going to that store for two months so it would not ruin her surprise.

As I was borrowing Paddington to finish up the pictures for this review, one of Emily's friends saw me with Paddington and he said “Oh! Where did you get a Paddington? My favorite book was always Paddington in the Kitchen where he bakes a cake.”

A well-loved bear, and a wonderful unit study. What a great combination!

Math Refresher for Adults ~ a Crew Review

Over the years I have heard a lot of moms bemoan the fact that they have forgotten a lot of math (or never learned it well in the first place) and are now a bit concerned about being able to help their children with math. While most of these have been homeschooling moms worried about teaching math, I've heard it from public schooling parents too. That's why I was interested in reviewing the new Math Refresher for Adults book from Math Essentials. Because no one should be afraid of math! 

Math Refresher for Adults covers everything from basic addition up through algebra. One of the best things about this math book is that is has accompanying videos for each lesson where you can watch Richard Fisher (the author) work the problems on an electronic whiteboard while he describes each step. That means if you think of yourself as being math-phobic you can learn math in the privacy of your own room, on your own computer or tablet, with headphones - and no one will ever know. :)

For the rest of you, choosing to use Math Refresher for Adults may be a wise choice for the summer before you return to college - to practice for your placement test. Or you might want to brush up on your math skills before applying for a new position, or asking for a raise at work. 

For myself, I wanted a chance to exercise those parts of my brain that have not had a workout in a while. There are some parts of algebra you just don't use much as an adult. I've also read several studies that say learning new skills can help ward off dementia. While math isn't new to me - I used to enjoy working story problems a lot - I don't use algebra very often at work - so I figure reviewing math is almost like learning something new. Plus - it means I can shut myself away in a quiet room for 15 minutes a day, several days a week. That is a blessing at the end of a long day spent dealing with the public. :)

So how do you use Math Refresher for Adults? It is a 270 page softcover textbook. If you're wanting to use it to review math to help your 4th grader with long division, but your high schooler wants to use it to study for their SAT, then you can use it as a traditional textbook and copy the problems onto another piece of paper to give yourself plenty of space to show your work. If you are like me, and just want to use it yourself, you can write in the book for most of it, and only copy out the more advanced pre-algebra and algebra problems. You CANNOT photocopy the pages, as that breaks copyright laws. 

I like that this book includes the basic arithmetic functions of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, as well as basic geometry and several sections filled with story problems before you get to the pre-algrbra and algebra sections. Each lesson has at least one story problem down at the bottom of the page, wisely named problem solving instead of story problems to help those people who have mental hangups with the term story problem.

So how else might you use this book? There are a lot of ways, but what about this: your child comes home from school (or co-op) and says, "Mom - help me, I can't remember the difference between area and perimeter!" Ahh, see, you weren't even the teacher, but somehow you are expected to know the math answer. Yup - that happens in thousands of homes every week! You grab your Math Refresher for Adults book off of the shelf, turn to pages 89-97, find the geometric shape they are working with, and log into your videos on the Math Essentials website. Now in just a few minutes you can choose the correct video, watch it with your child, and then you can BOTH feel confident that they can tackle their homework. Most of the videos runs from 2-5 minutes in length, and are focused on one specific piece of the math puzzle. 

Now doesn't that sound easier than trying to randomly search the web for the correct answer? Yes, yes it does! 

Oh, and if you're still a bit confused about decimals - don't be - there are several lessons about decimals in here. Plus, some lessons on percentages - you know, so you can figure out just how good of a sale your store is having on that dress you've been eyeing all summer! You're welcome. ;)

To read more reviews of Math refresher for Adults, click on the banner below!

Connect with Math Essentials on Facebook

The Master and His Apprentices ~ A Crew Review

*this post contains affiliate links, if you choose to make a purchase using these links, it will not cost you any extra, but it will allow us to earn a small commission - thank you!

Who is your favorite Artist? Monet, Renoir, Degas, Seurat? Art History is a subject I have enjoyed for years. My dad was an artist and I was fortunate to get to spend long hours of my childhood wandering the halls of the Indianapolis Museum of Art and other galleries. That is not the case for most students today, especially high schoolers, which is why I was intrigued to learn about The Master and His Apprentices:  Art History from a Christian Perspective. This in depth art history course covering the time from Creation through the Renaissance is available from The Master and His Apprentices as either a hardcover book or a PDF style eBook.

Arlene and I received the eBook version of The Master and His Apprentices textbook along with the Teacher’s Guide for this review. Since Arlene has already had quite a bit of Art History, we chose to use this as a supplement to her other coursework. 

The Master and His Apprentices textbook was designed to be used for a complete Art History high school level elective course, and the Teacher’s Guide has the syllabus laid out for you as either a classroom teacher or homeschool parent to cover one entire school year (36 weeks) with suggestions on how to modify it if you are following a 34 week school year. We have read through several chapters already and I heartily concur that this could be a full credit course if used as originally designed. But I want to focus today’s review on how this textbook could also be a wonderful supplement to use in your home or classroom as a supplement to other learning for students of about ages 12 and up by themselves, or for all ages with Mom or Dad paraphrasing for them.

The course begins with an overview of art. Gina Ferguson, the author, shares several thoughts about art in Chapter 1: Introduction to Art. As you will soon learn, she is a young-earth creationist who is passionate about sharing her wonder and awe at the beautiful creation that God has designed, and how Art is man’s recreation of the world God made that we see all around us. This thought particularly struck me as summing up her reason to study art:

-Art, when crafted in its intended form, raises hearts and minds in praise and adoration to God Most High, the Master Artist.

As Arlene and I worked through the beginning chapters of this 380 page book, we noticed several things that make this not only a wonderful art history book, but a solid world history book as well. Beginning with chapter 3, each chapter focuses on a recognized period of time in reference to art/ artifacts. Each chapter included a part of a larger timeline and has three sections:

-important world events

-famous art from the time period (i.e. Aegean, Early Greek, Baroque)

-major Biblical events/ Christian history

We liked how this sort of timeline allows you to see what other cultures were creating as they relate to the time period in the Bible or during Christian history. That way when you get to the Proto-Renaissance period in Chapter 13 you can see the artwork that was created around the time that Wycliffe translated the Vulgate Bible into Vernacular. For those of us who are history geeks, that is a really cool way to relate world history, art and Christianity without needing to memorize a bunch of specific dates.

Arlene (18) and I both agree that this textbook would be an excellent resource to use while studying world history, as reading the appropriate section could really help your student have a deeper understanding of the world as a whole in a specific time period. This is a living book, and we highly recommend it for anyone using Charlotte Mason’s methods with their children (of any age.) Since it is written from a Christian perspective, you do not need to worry about your child turning the page and finding something untoward. 

Personally, I would love to purchase a bound printed copy of this book to have on my shelves at home, even though we are almost finished with homeschooling! Mostly that is because of the way in which specific artist are highlighted during the Renaissance and other periods. I have long enjoyed Albrecht Dürer’s woodcuts and engravings, along with several of the High Italian Renaissance painters. What a treasure trove of beautiful artwork! Just yesterday we were in a store with art prints and Arlene said “Hey Mom, it’s one of the pictures from our art book!” referring to The Kiss by Gustav Klimt.

At the end of The Master and His Apprentices textbook are about 30 pages of helps/ appendices. Included in this section are a master timeline, and a Pieces by Location guide to help you locate the works used in the book for if you are planning to travel. This is a wonderful addition. If we were going to travel to the Art Institute in Chicago for example, we could check ahead of time and see if the three pieces located there will be on display during our visit. Know that many (most) museums rotate pieces on and off of display, so it is always a good idea to call or email first to check before visiting!

Arlene wanted me to share a few thoughts about what she most enjoyed while looking through the textbook. She particularly liked that it showed that art is just the imitation of all the beautiful creation God has made for us to enjoy. She was also happy that it covered more than just paintings, that especially in the ancient time periods it showed sculpture and architecture. Also appreciated were the comparisons made of different areas of the world during the same time in history, and the plentiful use of pictures to illustrate the point, not just text. 

We give The Master and His Apprentices two thumbs up. It is a highly detailed, but still interesting, look at art throughout world history. Finding the creation account covered and used to begin teaching art terminology was a breath of fresh air in a subject - art history - that too often looks for the exotic or erotic instead of the praiseworthy pieces to focus on.

To read more about how you might use The Master and His Apprentices as a full curriculum, click the banner below and check out some of the other Crew reviews!