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What about Bible curriculum?
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My husband has the family devotions, either reading from a particular book of the Bible or working through Teaching Minds Training Hearts by Starr Meade. But he travels often or has to leave the house by 6am. I still like to start our day in God’s Word and struggle to know what to use, so I often just read the Proverb for the day. I want to leave Teaching Minds for him. I feel like I need something more planned and enriching than just relying on my “take” of each Proverb.
By the time I was 12 years old, I was having my own personal Bible devotions. I was never taught to do that (in fact my parents never read the Bible to us—they just didn’t know to do it), but I was experiencing lots of trials for a little girl and clung to my Bible. My children, in contrast, have been raised seeing us have personal devotions, and having family devotions, though I’ve never seen them read the Bible for themselves—voluntarily.
I have a strong desire to simplify and streamline our homeschooling (as you’ve read in my other posts), and make learning less contrived. At the same time, I want the Bible to be more than just a “subject” we teach. I have looked at lots of Bible curriculum, but most look very “workbooky” (we’re used to Charlotte Mason homeschooling). I want them to apply God’s Word and to learn things that enrich our Bible reading. Does anything like that exist? Even if it has a few fill in the blank exercises, I would like to learn along with my children and dig a little deeper into Scripture.
What do you all use? Do you use any of SCM’s resources as a family? What other resources do you use in your family for Bible? I’m thinking in particular of reaching my 13 and 11 yr olds.
Many Blessings,
Betty
My two older kids read their through-the-bible-in-a-year bibles each morning. They are both doing different translations, but all memory work it with KJV. They then write a narration based on that. Usually, they are very short, but it shows if they understood it or not. I don’t like to interpret too much for them personally because I want to leave that to the Holy Spirit, but this is likely because I felt I was often led astray by well-intentioned professors at my Christian college. In addition to that I never studied the Bible much outside of school because, in my mind, it was a burden of work to be completed.
Next year I am going to have my oldest use a KJV daily bible. At that point I plan to take a daily dictation from that as well, along with map work and narrations. I truly don’t want to require too much as I don’t want the Word to seem like work that they may choose to avoid later. My personal philosophy is that I want the daily study of the Word to be so engrained in their being that they feel lost without it and do not feel it to be a burden.
I really like the book available here: Discovering Doctrine. I plan to use this along side their daily reading starting in 7th grade. I love the idea behind it.
My oldest daughter is using the Proverbs study from SCM and is really loving it. My next 2 are using “An Honorable Boy” and “A Virtuous Girl” from Queens Homeschool and they are great. Our church is using “An Excellent Spirit” for our Family School,so I know it could easily be adapted to being used together for family devotions if you wanted something like that while your husband was away.
All of these use a CM approach.
Robin
Betty,
I don’t know the ages of your children, but some things we have enjoyed together are: The Miller series (ie. Wisdom and the Millers, Storytime w/ the Millers, etc.), Little Visits with God, The Child’s Book of Character Building, the Vos Story Bible, a well illustrated story Bible (I forget what ours is called, but it has great pictures, too), missionary prayer letters from missionaries we know.
Also, my 8 yo daughter began personal devotions by doing them at the same time as me. I gave her a prayer/Bible journal and she sometimes writes a copywork verse, sometimes a prayer request – no requirement from me. She worked through reading What Would Jesus Do? (children’s version) during 2nd grade and enjoyed that. For 3rd grade, she will use the Building on the Rock series http://www.timberdoodle.com/Building_on_the_Rock_Set_of_5_p/870-rock.htm and her ESV Bible to look up the corresponding verses and YWAM publishing missionary biographies; she will continue to use her prayer/Bible journal as before. By 4th grade, her reading will probably allow her to do some direct from scripture study on her own.
The best Bible study I’ve seen is Building on Firm Foundations from New Tribes Mission. It has both adult and children forms and is used the world over. You can see it at New Tribes website. We will most likely do this in our co-op next year.
Hope those ideas may help.
Christie
How funny Christie, I have many of the books you recommended. Yes, we’ve used them and they are good!
I started thinking during my own devotion time with the Lord this morning. Usually I read a Psalm, a Proverb, an OT chapter and a NT chapter. But most of the time I don’t make it past Psalms or Proverbs. There will be a verse that just grabs me and I HAVE to mull it over in my journal. But for years I’ve been told that this is not “true” Bible study. There is great blessing to be had from reading the whole Bible and I’ve done the Bible in a year a couple of times, but the goal is so different–it’s more to “conquer” the Bible rather than trying to get it to conquer you. Isn’t Psalms part of the whole Bible and just as inspired as the rest? I do try to keep working my way through, it’s just taking me 4 years instead of 1.
I really like SCM’s Proverb study. I think this is what I’m going to do and also to try to instill some journaling habits.
What do you think?
I just bought the Proverbs study for my almost 12 year old. 🙂 It looks like it is exactly what I need for him. Thanks Sonya!
Hi I just bought the Wisdom for Life Proverbs study also for my almost 12 year old, it looks great! I think i will do it also!
Thanks Sonya!
Betty,
I agree whole-heartedly with your conquering statement re. reading the Bible in a year. I’m sure that isn’t everyone’s experience with that method, but my brain needs to mull things over for a bit longer, too.
I haven’t used the Proverbs study yet, but it looks terrific. We may try that nest year.
Best wishes in your study and the other ladies, too.
Christie
I’m so glad you all are finding the Proverbs study helpful! Betty, you could easily do that type of study in conjunction with what you’re already doing, reading a Proverb chapter each day. Just pick a topic (speech, friends, money, etc.) and have the kids listen for verses that apply to the selected topic. Then record your findings so you will eventually have a complete summary of all that Proverbs says about that topic. After a while, when you’ve gotten through all the chapters looking for that one topic, select a different topic and go again.
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