Beyond the Traditional Approach to History
I have always loved teaching with movies. Videos and now DVDs have given our children the ability to see life in a way that nothing else can. Ben Hur does a magnificent job of illustrating a chariot race. Mr. Smith Goes To Washington shows a grand example of a filibuster and its purpose. And The Longest Day certainly taught my children, with surprising accuracy, more about the Normandy invasion than they could have ever grasped using the traditional approaches to history.

New Updated Edition
If you agree with me that the judicious use of videos can open a whole new world for your children, but you don’t know where to start, let me suggest the latest updated and expanded edition of Learning With The Movies. This new edition adds a number of brand new categories of films, including Post War, Cold War, Other Wars, and Education/Special Needs.

More Than 800 Additional Movies
Written by a homeschool veteran and former faculty member in a university drama and theater department, Learning With the Movies is a guidebook for parents who desire to enhance, with film, their teaching of certain historical time periods or famous people. Now Learning With the Movies has added over 800 additional movies across all categories, as well as updated information on how to find movies, information about new hardware to make movie viewing safer for children, and ways to stretch your dollars to use film for school and family fun.

Educationally Driven
Unlike other movie review books that are more entertainment driven, Learning With The Movies is educational in bent, interested ultimately in what your children will be learning. Of course, Beth notes any concerns she has regarding content so that parents of younger children can either skip it or preview it to determine appropriateness for their family.

A Time Saver
This book is a real time-saver because it will spare you endless hours of wading through hundreds of reviews in search of the particular topic you are studying. Instead, with Learning With The Movies, you can quickly turn to the desired time period and peruse potential videos. Beth's succinct reviews will be enough to narrow it down to the few most suitable for your family – then we suggest taking a quick glance at online reviews as well, to get more than one perspective. You’ll save hours of wading around the internet, without forgoing the benefits of including movies in your studies. In addition, this new version of Learning With The Movies has been improved to make finding movies for a study easier, by underlining the pertinent historical information in each review.

Makes Learning With the Movies Easier
In addition to grouping videos by topic of time period, Learning With The Movies’ index lists all movie titles, and there is an appendix giving information on where to find the videos/DVDs locally and online, as well as how to begin to build a video library. When you are ready to move beyond books in your homeschool, save yourself time, money and grief by investing in Learning With The Movies.

Have you ever wished that you could really show your child what life was like in the Middle Ages, during the American West or during World War II? Well, there is a way!

Learning With the Movies, is an effort to serve the home schooling, as well as classroom communities and any families who wish to "learn with the movies;" to make learning come alive through the use of drama and film

Beth Holland is a former actress and singer, holding degrees in Voice Performance, Acting and later, a faculty member in the Department of Drama and Theatre at her alma mater, the University of Georgia.

There is no doubt that Hollywood has certain biases which are portrayed in film. However, there are films that are worthwhile to view which can offer us a way to look into the life and times of historical figures and events. Though not always successful, Hollywood takes great pains to make a film accurate in every possible detail. In a historic film, the clothing, customs, manners, weapons, table implements, jewelry, travel, etc., will be as historically accurate as they can make it. Therefore, Beth has used film as a culmination to many a study. This allows her children/students to SEE the period/person/scientific discovery about which they have studied as accurately as possible in the present time in which we live.

This book is written in the form of a film/video guide, but with some major differences: Beth has a Christian perspective and has reviewed these films with children's viewing in mind and has used these view-points in her reviews.

The categories are divided into time periods and subjects to accompany the need to find a film pertaining to a chosen area of study. If a home schooler or classroom teacher were looking for a film with catapults, seige towers and boiling oil to show Middle Ages warfare, would they know that a suitable film for children exists? It's easily found in Learning With the Movies under the Middle Ages section. What if they were looking for a film on chemotherapy, would they know to find the film Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet? Would they even know where to start? Learning With the Movies has this film listed in "Medicine" with a write-up telling who Dr,. Ehrlich was and why he was of note.

A general movie guide is fine if you know what you are looking for, (if you want to read the write up for a movie coming on TV) but if you want a film to fit what you are doing, then you need a guide that gives you the area first, and then from that you can choose what suits you and your family. Learning With the Movies was written for this purpose, to narrow the search for "a needle in a haystack" for those who haven't a huge exposure or background with this information.

It is the author's hope that Learning With the Movies will be a great service to those who want to "learn with the movies" and that you, your children and even classrooms will enjoy seeing history, science, music, art, biographies, etc., come alive. This is not a license to just view movies for school, but a beneficial tool to pull it all together in a fun, family way.

Beth has also included some good, clean family movies as well as those for "academic" reasons. It is her desire to make her family the place her children want to be and wish to bring their friends. Therefore, on occasion, they have a "family night" of movie, popcorn, spend the night guests and fun. Hopefully, these will aid you to have some family nights of your own.

The author hopes this will be a new way to make education real, enjoyable, and memorable to your children. We all know the old saying, "A picture is worth a thousand words." Beth hopes these pictures will make the subject matter you are studying real and alive to your children/students, even if it's as far back as the beginning of time!