I love all things multi-level teaching, meaning subjects that I can teach everyone the same thing, at the same time. Bible is one of those subjects where I try to keep everyone on the topic or study.
I had not heard of Bible Study For All Ages, until the opportunity to review for them came about from the TOS Crew.
The Bible Study For All Ages is a curriculum that has families {or Sunday school classes} studying the same part of the Bible at the same time, but on their own levels. This curriculum takes you and your family through several parts of the Old and New Testaments each year.
There are 416 Bible Lessons that take you through an in depth study of the Bible.
We were given the following materials for this review:
Let me give you an example of how the lessons are laid out. Let's take a look at lesson 14, we are studying Genesis 49-50, which is the account of Joseph. We have been studying Joseph since lesson 1, which started at Genesis 37.
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| Here is a sample of one of the Beginner Student Pages. |
Here is the layout for the Beginner Student Pages and how it works for us.
Learn the Basics
- We review our timeline cards, which we have hanging on a large kitchen doorway.
These have been really helpful to us. The kids love to take turns reviewing the cards.
Sing & Remember
- In this portion we told to review books of the Bible we are memorizing (Matthew - Galatians)
- We sing He's Got the Whole World in His Hands, which is on our Children's Songs CD
- We also do about 4 or 5 review questions.
The kids love to do the review questions, they especially LOVE THE SONGS! They now know all of the names of the sons of Jacob thanks to a song we've been singing!
Get Active
- This section give ideas to get up and do something. This one has you blindfolding one child and talk about who takes care of us.
Discover the Bible
- Here is where are read over the scripture for the day. Most days it is a one chapter in the Bible, today there are two.
- There are several pictures that show what happens in the scriptures we just read. Each picture has an explanation and something to do. For instance, one of the pictures talks about Jacob wanting to be buried in a cave, so the child is asked to color the cave brown.
This is the main part of our study. We read through the scriptures, discuss and follow along with the activities they has us do. I fell like this part is really helpful.
Apply It!
- This part has a picture to color and application questions.
At the end of our study we talk about the picture and go over the review questions together.
Now for the
Advanced Student Pages, these pages are set up a little differently. Here is how we use them...
Remember It?
- This is the portion with review questions. They are a little more difficult than the Beginner Student Pages. Today the review is in the form of a matching/fill in the blank activity.
My girls do these on their own. I do the review questions for the Beginner Pages aloud with everyone.
Memory Workout
- Here the kids are asked to review the New Testament Books and the Genesis Bible Book Summary.
We do the Bible Summary Card reviews together. These are 8x11 flash cards that summarize the books of the Bible with one or more pictures. On the opposite side of the picture there is a description that summarizes the book of the Bible that the card represents.
Guess What...
- These are mostly Bible facts like what a cup bearer and baker were to the Pharaoh.
My girls usually read these on their own and share their new fond information with the rest of us.
Discover the Bible
- Just like with the younger pages, this is where we read the scripture and go through the pictures and questions.
We do this part together as a family. The Advanced Questions are more challenging than the ones on the Beginner Pages. My girls have been fine following along with us for the scripture reading and then doing the questions on their own, asking me for help when needed.
Timeline or Map
- The timeline has several questions that the kids get to answer from reading a biblical timeline on their student page.
- The timeline portion alternates with mapping skills. Which include labeling areas that were discussed in our Bible readings.
My girls do this on their own as well, of course I am available if they have a question.
Get Active
- This is basically the same activity as the one on the Beginner Page, except this one goes more in depth with the application on blind faith.
We generally don't get to these.
Apply It!
- This is the application part of the study. Today's lesson includes re-reading a scripture, answering several questions related to our scripture and a prayer suggestion.
You guessed it, they answer these on their own as well{smile}
Conclusion
I like the over all idea of this program, a lot! But I found it was hard to get into a "groove" with the different student pages. It was a little frustrating at first, to be honest. I felt like everyone was all over the place and Bible was taking a really looong time.
The way that I tweaked this to work for us was that I stopped reading the scriptures twice. At first I read the scripture while the boys colored the application picture. THEN, I would re-read the scriptures as we did the Discover the Bible portion of the study.
I decided to pick and choose what was most important to me and focus on those things. So we do the songs, timeline and review questions from the Beginner Student Pages. Then we do the Discover the Bible portion, this is the scripture reading and discussion part. Then we finish with the application.
At first I was trying to go over all the parts of both levels together, this did not work for us. I am really glad that I found a way to make this work, because I love many things about this study.
All of the different components in this Bible Study really set it apart from the rest. The constant review through questions, songs, timeline and summary cards help the children to remember what they learned even two weeks prior. I am amazed at what the kids have learned and retained about Joseph by using this study. I believe my 5 year old could tell you Joseph's whole life story!
Another thing I want to mention, I liked that they did not include scripture on the
student pages. I know that may sound strange, but I think it makes it
much easier to use your own Bible version
The student page booklets each have 26 lessons, priced at $5.95 per booklet. To complete the whole program you would need 16 booklets per student. First, you need to choose the products that would best suit your family, depending on grade and reading levels.
I would love to continue with this program, but I am not sure it would not be affordable for us. I am figuring that it would cost a total of $380.00 for all four children to complete the whole study.
If this was more affordable for me, like say if I could purchase the all the lessons together as a pdf download at a discounted rate, this would be what we used for Bible.
You can see what other TOS Crew Members have to say about Bible Study for All Ages by clicking HERE!
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