Veritas Bible Review

I have really struggled with finding a Bible curriculum that works really well for us.  We have tried many different kinds but I just couldn’t find the right fit.  I wanted something that didn’t require a lot of prep work on my part.  I wanted it to be more in the form of a story, rather than a study since my kids are still young. And a huge bonus would be if Hailey (going into 5th grade) and Hunter (going into kindergarten) could use the same program.

Then I was given the opportunity to review VeritasBible.com from Veritas Press.  This was one Bible curriculum I had not looked into yet.  We have reviewed Veritas Press in the past, and it was a big hit with Hailey, so I was really hopeful as we gave this Bible curriculum a try.

We were given a one year family subscription to VeritasBible.com, which is an online Bible curriculum.  There are three courses to choose from if you get the one year family subscription: Genesis to Joshua, Judges to Kings, and The Gospels.  Each of those courses covers 32 different Biblical events.  Each of the Biblical events has three lessons which include things like music to help memorize the different events in order, games, activities, and other tools to help remember names and dates of different events, plus more!  At the end of the three lessons there is a short quiz.  Once the lessons and the quiz are completed your child can move on to the next Biblical event.  With the family subscription you can have more than one child using the course.  Each child will have his/her own sign in and can move along at his/her own pace.

So, how did we use VeritasBible.com?  I decided to start with Genesis to Joshua (although we could have started with Judges to Kings or The Gospels if I had decided to do that).

As soon as Hailey (age 9) started her lesson, Hunter (age 4), and Harper (22 months) joined her right away.

Bible stories are told using Abigail and her brother Asher along with a silly cat named Teb.

They were very interested in the lessons!

There are several funny interactions between Asher and Abigail, and they keep the children engaged.

This screen shows that Hailey had completed all of the lessons about The Flood.  The first three blue flags were her lessons and the last flag was her quiz for that section.

There are many games and activities added in during the lessons to keep the kids engaged.  Hailey made this rainbow while learning about Noah and the flood.

This screen shows lessons that have not been completed yet.  The first circle, that is white, is the lesson that needs to be completed.  The lessons have to be completed in order and your child has to answer questions correctly in order to move on to the next lesson.

There are a lot of fun games in the middle of the lessons.  In this particular game Hailey had to answer questions correctly and then she would get access to the drawers so that she could decorate a cake.

So far we have completed 25% of Genesis to Joshua.  We have covered the following Biblical events:

Creation
The Fall in the Garden
Cain and Abel
Enoch and Methuselah
The Flood
God’s Covenant with Noah
Tower of Babel
Call of Abram

And we still have lots more to go!

At first I had set up Hunter with his own account, but some of the games were too hard for him to do.  He is still working on using a laptop and being able to click and drag.  So, I had Hailey and Hunter do the lessons together, which worked really well.  Harper enjoyed sitting in on the lessons too, especially during the music. We all (me included) learned a lot from VeritasBible.com. I remember sitting in church one week listening to the message and thinking- hey, I learned about that this week during Bible! 🙂

Hailey really enjoyed using VeritasBible.com.  She said she liked it a lot.  One thing she said she did not like was that some of the games were kind of hard and took a long time to complete.  I definitely agree with her opinion.  The only thing I did not like was that some days the lessons could take 40-50 minutes depending on how many games there were and how hard they were.  Other days, on the quiz days, it would only take about 10 minutes at the most to complete the lesson.  That would definitely not prevent us from using VeritasBible.com though- we really loved the program.  It is exactly what I was looking for and had not been able to find anywhere else.  We will continue using it next year as our Bible curriculum and I highly recommend it!!

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Grapevine Studies Review

We start each homeschool day with Bible as our first subject. I have really wanted to be able to combine Hailey and Hunter for Bible to save myself a little time. But, with their age difference (5 years) it is hard to find something that really works well for both of them. Then I tried Grapevine Studies, where I am able to do one lesson with both of them.  There are, of course, different requirements for children of various ages, but it can be used with a wide range of ages.

We were given the chance to review the Birth of Jesus: Multi-Level which is geared for children ages 7 and up, as well as the Traceable for Multi-Level which is geared for ages 3-6.  I received a digital download of the teacher book, the multi-level student book, and the multi-level student traceable book.

The Birth of Jesus Studies covers the time leading up to the birth of Jesus, the birth of Jesus, and the Wise Men, Shepherds, and angels. We decided to do one lesson per day, which comes out to 24 lessons.  If you were using this as a curriculum for your Sunday school class, it can also be done as 5 weekly lessons.

This is a sample page from the 64 page teacher book.  I did not print it out, but rather used my laptop as my guide when teaching. Each lesson gives a read aloud from the Bible to do.  Then there are some notes about what to discuss with the students.  There are drawings to show the teacher what to draw on the white board for the students to copy onto their page.  There are different activities for the kids to do depending on their capabilities.  There are words to look up in a Bible Dictionary, there are memory verses, and review questions and answers.

This is an example of the Traceable student version of the Birth of Jesus.   I used this with Hunter (age 3).  Hailey’s pages were exactly the same but without the gray scale drawings to be traced.  Both the traceable and the regular version have 48 pages each.  For each day I printed out a copy for each of them to have to do their work on.

So, how did we use The Birth of Jesus Studies?

Each day we went over the Bible story, verses, and discussion.  Then the kids would do their stick figure drawings about the story.  This seemed to really help them to remember what we had been learning about.  It is great for them to be able to look back over their past work, see the pictures, and remember what they learned.

The first day we used Grapevine I did have to use a little bribery to get Hunter to participate.  But, after the first day I never had to bribe him again- he came right away when I said it was time for Bible.  Some days even Buzz & Woody, and Mr. Incredible and Dash came to hear the Bible story 🙂

Both Hailey and Hunter did really well with listening to the verses and drawing their pictures.  Hunter became quite fascinated with Herod and that he wanted to kill baby Jesus.  He talked about it over and over again, and was rather relieved to find out that Herod died.  Since the lesson on Herod, anytime we discuss something from the Bible he wants to know if Herod was involved haha

This is a sample of a page of Hailey’s work, her stick figure drawings are about when Mary found out she was going to have a baby.

Here is a sample of Hunter’s work, the gray scale drawings there for him to trace.  There are also lesson review questions which Hailey and Hunter were both able to answer, as well as a suggested memory verse.

We had a lot of fun using Grapevine Studies!  Drawing the stick figures really helps the kids to remember what the lessons were about.  I would definitely recommend Grapevine to anyone looking for a good Bible curriculum.

Want to see more about Grapevine?  Check these out:

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Third Grade Update

Wondering what we’ve doing in third grade lately?  Here’s a little look:

Language Arts:

We are still using Daily 6-Trait Writing.  Hailey is working on organizing thoughts, and how to group similar ideas and details together.

Bible:

I ordered the next Old Testament Overview from Grapevine because Hailey has enjoyed it so much.  We are now working on Part 2- Joseph to the Promised Land.

Geography:

We use Daily Geography Practice.  It is supposed to be done every day, but we only do it once a week and get everything done in one day because it’s pretty simple.  It’s been great for learning how to read maps, but we definitely need to add some more.

Health:

Hailey learned in health how nutrients travel through your body.  We used red water and a celery stick to show how nutrients can travel.

The leaves turned all red even though they were never in the water.

Science:

Hailey has been learning about the scientific method, why science is important, and why we do experiments.  I’m using this Intro to Science Unit.

Hailey has been practicing using the scientific method by doing some experiments.  In this experiment she put 4 different colored M&Ms into a bowl of lukewarm water.

Then we observed:

It’s nice to do some fun, simple experiments while learning the scientific method!

So, there is a little look at just a few of the things Hailey has been working on.  I need to remember to take more pictures of what Hailey is working on so I can do third grade posts more often.

Preschool Week in Review

I am so far behind in my preschool posts that I see the calendar in my pictures with September 16th on it!  But we are going to take a little break from preschool for now.  Almost every day Hunter says that school is boring and he wants to just play.  So, we are going to take a few weeks off from preschool and see if he changes his mind.  Last year he loved doing school, but this year he wants to play with his trains all day.  So, that is fine and I will wait until he wants to do school again.

But, for now- here are a few of things we did.

Our letter was A.

We read this book and listened to the CD that goes with it.  The CD is really cute!

 Hunter colored a letter A paper.

 We are going to make an alphabet book full of crafts, with one for each letter.  For A, we made A is for Apple.

 We added the letter A to our Chicka Chicka Boom Boom tree.  Then Hunter swatted the letter A.

 Hunter has a little book that is the same as the big book of The Adventures of Abby Alligator.  He colored his copy of the book.

Bible:

 Our Bible story was about Adam and Eve, so I used the printables I found here.  I lamintated them and put magnets on the back so we can use them on our white board.

Math and Manipulatives:

 

Hunter doing his fishing puzzle.

 Trying out a new manipulative- Wedgits.

 We did math using Farmland math and Hunter really enjoys it!

Hopefully our preschool posts will be back soon.  For now, be sure to stop back to see the crafts we are planning to do and see what Hailey is busy doing in 3rd grade.

 Check out what the other tots and preschoolers have been up to over the last week at 1+1+1=1 and Homeschool Creations.