I love that we can start off each school day with Bible study and scripture memorization. A few years ago, a mom in our homeschool group introduced me to Bible Study Guide for All Ages. We’ve used it ever since. The teacher’s guide first 104 lessons, while the student activity sheets are available in sets of 26 lessons.
There are four units, total, each with their own teacher’s guide, covering 104 lessons each. We’re just finishing the first Bible Study Guide unit after having used it for about three years, including a little hiatus of a few months. We take a week to cover each lesson, which easily allows one unit to last about three school years or two calendar years.
There are maps, time lines complete with figures, and a CD with Bible songs available, so you can get as elaborate as you like with the study. We just use the teacher’s guide and the student pages.
The student pages are a big part of what made Bible Study Guide so attractive to me. There are three different levels of student pages for each lesson allowing a variety of ages to study the same lesson while completing activity pages appropriate for their individual ability levels. The front of the student sheet contains review questions and a life application section, with the older student’s sheets also containing timeline and map study/review. The back of the page contains a cartoon-strip-style review of each lesson with questions and activities for the student to do with the pictures to review the lesson.
The teacher guide includes visuals, drills, study helps, background information and questions for each unit with review questions built in. I’ll be honest and admit that I don’t use this like I should, but, again, that’s the beauty of Bible Study Guide. You can use it as simply or as elaborately as you like.
The visuals are the kids’ favorite part. There are drawings for each lesson for you to either show your students or draw out.
I draw them out.
No, I am not especially artistic (though, I’ve gotten pretty good at drawing sheep, location signs, and columns), but the kids love this part. They always pay attention on story-telling day. My oldest will often draw out the lesson herself on her own paper.
One of the things that I like best about Bible Study Guide is that you study the lives of the men and women of the Bible by reading entire chapters and books, not just the highlights of the well-known stories.
Our schedule for Bible Study Guide for All Ages goes something like this:
Monday: read this week’s lesson from the Bible and illustrate it on the white board
Tuesday: do side 1 of the student page
Friday: do side 2 (review of the lesson) of the student page
On the days that we don’t do Bible Study Guide, we read and discuss a Keys for Kids devotional. The kids love these stores, too. We also work on Scripture memorization every day using our Scripture Memory Box. I’ve been amazed at the number of scriptures that we’ve memorized, as well as the length of scripture that the kids can memorize. We close each of our Bible study times by listening to each other’s prayer requests (I love hearing what the kids feel led to pray about) and praying.
Our Bible study time makes a great start to the day.
photo by labyrinthx
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks so much for this post. I’ve been trying to figure out how to combine my preschooler, kindergartner, middle schooler and high schooler all into a morning bible study to start our day. I just have to say, Sold!!! I had already planned to start the Scripture Memory system and the older two kids will do daily devotionals on their own, but this product will bring us all together to pray and study. Thanks.
You’re very welcome! I hope you enjoy it as much as we have. I’ll be order Unit 2 for next year since we’ve *finally* finished Unit 1.
It seems like that is the joy of it. There really is no given pace that you have to work at, you can just utilize it and move on. Our church is doing a Daily Bible study. Reading through the bible in one year sounds like a great idea but with four kids it really is not realistic. We are constantly playing catch up, no fun.
Yes, I think that is the joy of it. Like we don’t use all the maps and timelines, but we like the Bible songs CD (well, not for general listening pleasure but they’re catchy little tunes for remembering names and facts).
And, on the days when we don’t use Bible Study Guide, we fall back on the Keys for Kids devotionals, which the kids also really enjoy.
The Scripture Memory Box is pretty much a daily staple for us, so, between the three tools, we get a nice time of Bible study in each day.
Our family is in our 5th year of using this program. We love it! We have completed one book per year (doing 2 lessons a week), so we are in Book 1 again. Our church uses the Bible Study Guide for its Sunday and Wednesday Bible classes, for all ages–3yo to adults. So my children get the lessons at home and at church. We have all greatly increased our Bible knowledge. I cannot recommend this Bible study guide enough!