Foundations written by homeschool parents Ruth Chou Simons and Troy Simons is one of my family's favorite devotionals we have done together. The topics are broken up into easy to follow chapters and the conversation questions have been so good and helping us dig into the topic together. We have had wonderful conversations based off the chapters in this book and I would highly recommend this book for any family with children in middle and high school.
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Tiny Theologians is a wonderful tool for homeschool families. It isn't a "curriculum" as much as it is a variety of resources and tools you can use to add to what you are already teaching your children. The quality of the materials are worth the cost. Everything is made of high quality hard paper and printed well. The information is easy to use and simple to implement with your children. There are various flashcards from the names of Jesus, founders of the faith, scripture memory cards and so much more.
Click Here to learn more about Tiny Theologians Anyone who has been in Raising Arrows long knows I am a HUGE fan of Clay and Sally Clarkson. This was the first book I ever read or used of theirs and it still holds a special place in my heart! Our 24 Family Ways is a devotional for families. There are 24 values that you can work through, one value each week. There are stories and coloring pages, questions and memory verses all pertaining to each value. This study takes all the work out of planning family devotionals that are engaging to the entire family. My family has gone through this study once and we will go through it a second time with our littles as they get a bit older. All children in elementary and even middle school would benefit from this study.
Click Here to learn more about Our 24 Family Ways Exploring the Bible by David Murray is a great personal Bible study book for your children ages 6 - 12 years old. The text is written to the child so they can dig into the Word of God for themselves and is really a perfect first introduction to how to study the Bible for kids. This study takes children through daily Bible reading, discussion questions, and places to write prayer requests. There are also optional memory verses you can use too. There are several studies David Murray has written 2 for children this one - Exploring the Bible and Meeting with Jesus. He also just released a family Bible study of Exploring the Bible as well.
Click Here to learn more about Exploring the Bible Simply Charlotte Mason has several Bible Study tools that are great for the homeschool. I'm going to share about 2 of my favorites in this post. Strong in the Word is an absolute favorite of mine as it teaches a Biblical life skill along with studying the Word of God. I have used Strong in the Word with 2 of my 3 bigs and it is a great year long curriculum to use with middle and high schoolers. Strong in the Word studies the life of Peter by studying the books of 1 Peter, 2 Peter, Jude, 1st John, 2nd John, 3rd John, and Revelation. What I love about this study is that it teaches several common ways of studying scripture that your children get to apply as they learn about the life of Peter. It gives a great grasp of Bible study tools and why the various ways of studying scripture are important. Strong in the Word gives your children a biblical life skill for studying The Word of God for the rest of their life. I strongly encourage every middle or high school child to go through this Bible Study. Click Here to learn more about Strong in the Word. Another of my favorite Bible tools from Simply Charlotte Mason is the Scripture Memory Verse Card Box. The memory card system for learning Scripture is simple, repetitive, and takes all the thought work out of what memory verses to pick for your family. My family has been using this system to memorize Scripture for several years now and I love the simply repetitive practice of old memory verses while we work on new ones. I believe that even when I have no children in my home I will still use this method to practice verses for myself. There is a great video explaining the entire system and though it might seem a bit daunting at first if you stick with the plan you will be amazed at how much Scripture your family will hide in their hearts!
Click Here to learn more and watch the video God's Great Covenant is a 2 year curriculum. Year 1 is Old Testament and Year 2 is New Testament. This curriculum is written by Classical Academic Press and it is perfect for children in 3rd - 6th grade. My son loved this curriculum mainly because of the additional resources that went with the curriculum. The maps, time lines, and various other charts made the Bible come alive and we learned a ton together as we did this curriculum. The curriculum is easy to use. The teacher's manual is well written and laid out. There is little to no prep work that needs to be done ahead of time. Another great feature of this curriculum are the audio files included - your struggling reader or your child who learns audibly will love this feature in the curriculum.
Click Here to learn more about God's Great Covenant Journables are one of my favorite tools to use in our homeschool year. The concept is simple. These are blank journals made for specific books of the Bible and the pages are numbered by chapter number and verse number. You simply write the corresponding words of the verse on the blank lines. The lines are big enough that we’ve been able to use these journals with children as young as 4th grade. We used the Proverbs Journables as we studied the book of Proverbs one homeschool year. All the notes the kids were taking they were able to add to the left side of the pages. Each day they were assigned to write a few verses and by the end of the school year they had written the entire book of Proverbs.
I love that our kids have this Proverbs Journable as a keepsake from that school year. The conversations that came as we wrote the word of God in our journals was so sweet. I purchased a Journable for me that year too because I wanted to join in this worthy work. It was time well spent as a family. I’ve also personally used the Journables as our pastor was preaching through the book of Romans. I took my notes from the sermon in the Journable and then worked through writing out the chapters as he taught them each week. There are lots of other great ways these Journables can be used and they are a great tool for the Christian Homeschool family. Check them out by clicking here! Kids of Character is a HUGE tool in the tool belt for parents on building character into the young children in your home! We loved using this resource when our children were young. The scriptures that went with each character trait was so helpful and it gave us targeted character traits to work with our children on. LOVE LOVE LOVE this resource.
I've also found it helpful when a certain character trait isn't being practiced to read up on that character trait for a reminder to the family. There are 45 character traits you can work through as a family. Check out Kids of Character here!!! Apologia? I know, Apologia is known for their science curriculum, but I think they should equally be known for their Bible curriculum too. They have a series of Bible curriculums for 4th - 8th graders (and you can run this with younger kids too!)
The books in this series are: - Who is God - Who am I - Who is my Neighbor - What on Earth can I Do These books are written in a very "Apologia text book" fashion. Very easy to open and use with no prep work before hand. The character building in this curriculum is so wonderful and I can see how my children grew as we went through these books. Check out Apologia here!!! Answers in Genesis has a lot of great Christian homeschool curriculum and I encourage you to check it out for many subjects not just Bible. However, I'm going to be talking with you about Bible today.
The ABC Bible curriculum is technically a Sunday School Curriculum that takes 3 years to complete and goes from Genesis to Revelation. This curriculum is broken down into different ages of kids. I just picked a middle ground age for my kids and stuck with it. Our family learned so much using this curriculum (even Ben and I!) I was blown away with the solid foundation my children learned and the best part is that they retained what they learned. It's been five years since we have used this curriculum and often when we are studying the Bible together this curriculum will get brought up again - which makes the time we invested in using this curriculum so worth it! Check out Answers In Genesis here!!! |