A Bible Study for all age? Yes and we love it

Studying God's Word as a family is a huge thing for this Mom, but sometimes finding something that fits that bill is tough, thankfully we received a review item recently that fit the bill perfectly, Bible Study Guide For All Ages.
We received two different levels to review, Beginner and Intermediate. Along with these student pages we also received the following items: Beginner Time Line,  Children's Song CD,  and Bible Book Summary Cards to use with the program.
We decided to go with the Beginner for Nathan as a way to work on some issues we were having with following directions and his need to continue to work on his fine motor skills related to coloring. I am glad I made this decision as the stories are the same in each level just adding more concepts and memory work as the levels progress.

Bible Study Guide For All Ages is a multi -level Bible study program that takes all levels through the Bible at the same pace. The same stories are told at each level which helps with continuity. The boys could have discussions about their lessons even though they were studying at their own levels.
Beginner is intended for ages 3 through Kindergarten
Primary is intended for grades 1 and 2
Intermediate is intended for grades 3 and 4
Advanced is intended for grades 5 and 6

Although  the Beginner set is really intended for younger children I was still very happy with the results with Nathan. We did the lessons together with both boys so the story was more important than what was on the page in front of him. I also left out the detail of what the recommended age was when we opened the box.

The student pages we received contained 25 lessons which retails for $5.95.
The Timeline Cards and Children's Song CD we received coordinate with the level  in the student pages but also engaged both boys even though they were working at different levels.

The songs on the Children's CD were all short but easy to learn and fun to sing along with. Surprisingly my boys actually began singing the songs without the CD as we worked through a few lessons. While they haven't "learned" all the songs yet, they have listened to both CDs repeatedly, almost to the point that I have to put a time limit on these CDs. The 2 disc set retails for $19.95 which is a value considering the number of songs in the set (90 songs)


The Timeline cards which retail for $24.95 contains 34 full color 8 1/2 x 11 picture cards that simplify the Biblical Timeline for younger students and include keywords to help them remember the various stories. We decided to put our cards into a binder and slipped each card into a sheet protector giving us the option on making extra notes with a dry erase pen if we thought of questions or ideas related to the story.


The intermediate Student pages also include 26 lessons and retail for $5.95 a set follow the same stories with just more detail and longer reading/ listening passages. The questions in each lesson are at a 3rd / 4th grade level but still manageable to youngers that may be listening. The coloring is more detailed but also gives room for some creativity. Cameron enjoyed searching the Bible passages for the answers to the questions of his pages and seemed to connect with the stories as well as the Bible Summary Cards.
The Bible Summary card set contains one card for each book of the Bible in full color 8 1/2 x 11 size. Again we slid these into sheet protectors and a binder to keep them together and easy to use. Having these in protectors also allowed Cameron to write favorite verse from each book on the sheet protector with Wipe Off Crayons or pencils.

 Overall we have really enjoyed this program especially as a summer Bible Study program for the family. It was easy to pull out a lesson sheet for each of the boys and have them work on their page while Mommy read the story after lunch as a low key yet meaningful activity.
I did find out from several of my local friends that this program has been used in a couple of the local churches as well as homeschool families. I love hearing how other families have incorporated this program and the various add on pieces. As a homeschool Mom , I often find myself tweaking a program and then wondering how others are using the same program in their situation.  The Schoolhouse Review Crew reviewed a variety of the Bible Study Guide for All Ages products and share their experiences, you can click on the button below to read their thoughts.

Christianity Cove Tween a Rock and a Hard Place plus the Lord's Prayer

We received two different products from Christianity Cove  for review with the boys. Christianity Cove provides Sunday School lessons filled with games, activities and real life lessons for a variety of ages.
The first product we received for review Tween a Rock and a Hard Place , is designed for 9-12 year olds and helps parents and Church teachers discuss some of the tough topics with tweens. I love the thought on the webpage "Jesus isn't intimidated by tweens and neither should you be". Since I don't have a problem talking to by boys (ages 7 and 10) about issues I was hoping for something a little bit more that I got. While we did find some good discussions born from the e-book we received. I really felt there could have been more to the program. Unfortunately, I can't offer suggestions for what needs to be different as I have simply fallen back on the basics of the Bible to find answers to the majority of questions and issues that have arisen with the boys. While my boys aren't perfect in their behaviour, we have found that a dialogue and a reminder of behavior works the best for the issues. I know that may seem like I live in a bubble and believe me I don't. I have told the boys stories that are real and straightforward about the hard stuff in life.  If you are having trouble talking with your tween (by the way , that label is one that has never sat well with me, I wish I could come up with something different.) about the tougher issues of the world this can be a useful tool for language and activities to open doors. The e-book retails for $29 on the website.

The second book we reviewed, Lord's Prayer Lesson Pack retails for $19.99 and is filled with 14 activities to help your children understand the Lord's Prayer. We used this both our boys although I can see using it with slightly younger students and even older students (age 5-15 I suppose).  We did find several of the activities and discussions useful with the boys although they seems to really do well with copy work and breaking it down line by line.
I taught Sunday School to a variety of ages (3-14) for 4 years where I was always looking for inexpensive activities to teach the foundations of faith and this would have been very useful in that setting. The crafts and activities would really fit well into a Sunday School program. Looking back through my files I actually found some of Mary-Kate Warner's materials  that I used in Sunday School. I could also see these activities be handy in a larger family but with only 2 boys, it took some tweaking to make the activities really work , and as I was tweaking I realized I could show the boys the importance of prayer without the activities but with simple words and reading the surrounding text from the Bible. Again, I'm not saying this isn't a good program, but for us it didn't work out. Both my boys know the Lord's Prayer from simple practise and use each week, saying it in Sunday School and thinking about the meaning as we say it.
Christianity Cove has a variety of programs available online, if you teach Sunday School you are bound to find something useful on their site. The crew reviewed several of her programs and share their thoughts.

Sunday Scripture 1/13

This week as a I was sitting in church I heard the same lesson I had been reading all week, but today this verse stood out more than it had before.

Psalms 119:1, 2

 Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord.

 Blessed are they that keep his testimonies, and that seek him with the whole heart.

I pray we all have a blessed week

Scripture Sunday : April 1st

I started this on my personal blog and decided to share here on our homeschool blog as well. My goal is to share a Scripture each Sunday with our readers.

I will be using the Golden Text for the Weekly Bible Lesson  the verse I post will be the verse that the boys used for copywork the previous Monday.
This week’s Golden  Text 
….the Lord will lighten my darkness.
II Samuel 22:29b
Such a simple verse, but the hope for my boys as they learn this verse is to see that even in our darkness the glory of the Lord will light our path.

DigiScrap and other Themes for the day

So I love Digital Scrapbooking, but I have been a traditional scrapper for a long time (almost 25 years) and have acquired a lot of scrap supplies... Today I decided to think outside the box a little and am going through my supplies and scanning pieces I really like (premade borders, stickers, papers, etc..) that I know I can use in my digiscrappin'. Some days you gotta love technology...

This weekend I hosted a crop locally and while the girls were busy on their projects, I worked on sorted and "journaling" photos in my Memory Manager Software. I have just about 10,000 photos stored in the program in various folders (people, events, holidays, places, and photo shoots to name a few) and was able to go for approximately 1600 unsorted to just about 500. So I am making progress getting my photos sorted... It makes it alot easier when I am working on a project and can't remember the date or the details of the event. I can go to MM and look up the photo. I can also share my photos and use them in my digital scrapbooking software...
I was also able to combine 2 photos into 1. I will be doing that more often and hope to share a combined photo I am working on with you later this week.

On the Sunday School front, I have to say I am loving watching these kids grow. We are on a rotation for teachers; at the end of the month I check with my 4 teachers and assign a week to teach the older kids, then depending on how many kids we have we can split the class and someone else takes the 2's & 3's... I am praying our young adult/ teen group grows as well, I would love to see a class for the teens at some point. Hopefully before the summer, I see such a need for a positive place for the teens to learn and grow in Christ.

I will be posting some more of my scripture cards this week. I am finishing up a set and hope to have them online by Wednesday.

I'll check back later...

Variety of Things...

Let me see... I have lots on my mind so I figure this blog will cover it all...

This morning at church I sang the special.. Thankfully my husband worked with me yesterday evening rehearsing to prepare, and he made me a wonderful cd split track so I had a little help in my moniter speaker to keep me on key. All in all I think it went pretty well, even Mike made mention of the performance quality versus the actually sound... Guess I turned on the performer in me... Oh , I did "You raise me Up" by Selah... if you don't know the song you should search it out... I really like the words and the message... I also added a reading to the instrumental interlude... Psalm 36: 5-7 (NIV)...

An answered prayer today!!! for the first time , we actually had 2 Sunday School classes and it looks like we will have 2 classes for a while... Might eventually end up with 3. It doesn't seem like a lot but for our little church , it is huge... So the younger class (2-4 years old) and the older class (5 and up...). What a blessing! I will be working on curriculm for the little ones this week (I have the curriculm selected for the the 5 and up as well as the next month's assignments for the teachers...) I'm so excited about this... I can hardly stand it...

Tomorrow the pastor's wife and I are meeting about Vacation Bible school, so I will have a better idea of direction as well as a theme for the event...

Bible study: I have been attending a women's bible study on Thursday evenings and this week's message really struck a cord with me... Go check out Lifeway.com/bethmoore We are using the Fruit of the Spirit study... Anyway, I was working on week 3 day 1 and 2 and am amazed at the little things we women do that can really mess with our relationships especially our marriage... Don't hold yourself back from your husband! share your love and emotions as well as the intimacy with him every chance you get... Don't use excuses, you know what I'm talking about...

Let me think.... on the child front... Thank goodness for the coupons in the paper... Cameron saw the Chuck E Cheese's coupons and wanted to know what he could do to earn another trip to CC's... Well , Mom was on the ball and replied... "Pick up all your toys and don't argue about it..." I try and keep it simple... if you get your toys all cleaned up this week , I'll take you to CC's after school... plain and simple..

Date Night: if you don't do this , I highly recommend it... Mike and I had date night last night... We watched "One Night with the King" (excellent movie by the way) and had a wonderful dinner... Also found a Merlot we both like... Eola Hills has a wonderful Merlot (2005 I believe was the bottle we opened) and I'm not usually a fan on red wines.

So that just about covers this week... Hopefully I'll get a chance to post a couple more "pages" this week for you..