An Honest Review of Master Books High School Morning Basket

Published:
November 2, 2019

Sarah Shelton

Contributor:
Sarah Shelton

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning if you decide to make a purchase via my links, I may earn a commission at no additional cost to you. See my disclosure for more info.

Morning time is a great way to connect in the morning with your children. It’s a wonderful way to sit and start the day with God and with your family. I love how morning time helps us to be consistent with the books that we want to read, and with devotions and daily Bible time. Have you ever considered morning time with a high schooler?

Honest Review of Master Books High School Morning Basket text with image examples of different book covers

I was intrigued when I saw the new morning basket sets from Masterbooks and that they had a High School Morning Basket. We have always done family morning time together to start our day, but my teen was so excited to have her own set of books to use independently. 

I was pleased that this morning basket had a nice, well rounded pick of books curated for the high school level. That really helps to take the stress out of picking and choosing what to use. Having them all laid out in one “basket” means that she will go through all of them in the year and actually complete them. We all have good intentions for lists of books and things we want our children to use, but the follow through can be difficult sometimes.

We use this morning basket as our formal Bible time for my 9th grader.

Morning basket image example full of different books

What is included in the basket:

 Answer Books for Teens Volume 1 

This is a classic book from Answers in Genesis, that tackles common, yet tough questions that teens may bring up in this generation today. They are simple questions, with to-the-point, Biblical answers to each questions. If you have the ability to go through this with your teen, it can really bring up some great conversation starters.

Bible Brainstorms 

This is a fun, paperback book that that consists of, word searches, scrambles, and puzzle activities. This one is different because the activities come straight from the Scriptures. Doing Biblical brain games is a great concept, however my daughter found quite a few of them to be very confusing. I think this is due to her dyslexia, yet I even had a hard time figuring them out! Thankfully, there is an answer key in the back of the book. It does make for a fun addition to her homeschool day.

 Evidence for the Bible 

My daughter is thoroughly enjoying this book. The quality is amazing! It’s a nice and sturdy hardback book that has beautiful, color photographs inside. It would make a neat addition to any home library. She has thoroughly enjoyed the archaeological aspect of it, how it ties into Biblical history so beautifully. We are even using some of it with my younger ones as they are learning about archaeology and hieroglyphics in their history curriculum right now.

 If Animals Could Talk 

This is a new favorite! My daughter loves animals, she reads everything she can about animals and is very passionate about them. This book is so unique and very well done. Each chapter is written from the animal’s point of view as if they are speaking directly to the reader. They explain the magnificent way that they were created by God and how that is useful to their design in a Creation science view. My daughter says this is one of her favorite books in the basket!

 So Noted! The Genesis Commentary by Dr. Harry Morris 

If you have a young theologian in your home they will enjoy this heavy duty commentary on the book of Genesis by Dr. Henry Morris who is one of the most respected authors of Bible commentaries. This is a high quality, large paperback book that lays nice and flat when you open it to read it. It’s the size of a workbook-style book and includes the ENTIRE book of Genesis in the King James Version. There is note-taking space on the side of each passage in the workbook where your student can jot down information as they are going through the book. It includes all of Dr. Morris’ commentary on the book of Genesis as well as appendices on different topics like Creation and the Flood. This is a great book for students that want to learn how to dig deeper into the word of God. Since it is written in the King James Version, my daughter likes to use her ESV Bible to compare. KJV is hard for her to understand and not something we usually read from. The commentary really helps this as well.

Great for God! 

I was happy to receive this book as I have been wanting my daughter to learn more about missionaries and their stories. It has been hard for me to take the time to pick and choose individual missionary biographies and then schedule them all out for her to read. This book is great because it covers short biography stories of 23 different missionaries. Each chapter highlights a different missionary. In addition to the missionary story, it gives the statistics of that missionary, their birth and death, the legacy they left, and a famous quote. I love that it covers so many missionaries. I am hoping as we go through the rest of this year that my daughter will find missionaries that she wants to learn more about, then we can expound on our missionary studies.

To wrap it up:

As you can see, this is a very well rounded mix of books with varying topics, that can make for a solid, Biblical based morning time. The price for the bundle of books is only $49.95. If you purchased them all individually, the retail value is: $91.94. This makes for a great value for high quality books for your home library!

The only suggestion that I would have for this morning basket set, is that it would come with the schedules and checkboxes that Master Books does such a good job creating for their curriculum. If they were available in a mini workbook format, or as a download on the website, that would be helpful. I know that many students can just pick up a book and read from it, but I have a hard time just having mine pick from a basket. I don’t always have time to follow up with her and make sure that she has completed it. A schedule is great for both of us, as she can keep track of what she is doing and have a higher success rate of completing it.

Thankfully, a mom in the Moms of Master Books Facebook Group created some amazing Master Books inspired schedules of all of their morning basket books. It spaces the books out throughout an entire year, having them reading and completing portions of them each day, spread out. You can find all of the schedules in their files section. We printed it out and put it in a small folder and my daughter pulls it out each day and knows what books to read from next.

The schedule I use spaces the books out over 180 days. It takes my daughter about 30 minutes a day to follow the schedule and read the assigned books. We then discuss them in the afternoon. I feel confident in giving her a 1/2 a credit in Bible for this morning basket set.

Organize and plan your morning baskets with our Morning Time Binder Printables!

Morning Time Binder Printables

 

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