TOS Crew: Judah Bible

We were recently given the opportunity to review the Judah Bible Curriculum through the TOS Crew.  The Judah Bible Curriculum is a Principle Approach curriculum that uses the Bible as it's textbook. 

The Principle Approach is a philosophy of education whose content and methods are designed to build character in teacher and student capable of sustaining liberty.

The goal of the Judah Bible Curriculum is to produce a comprehensive knowledge of the Bible, while building strong Godly character.  It is suitable for all grade levels, therefore making it great for the whole family! 

There are several things that drew me to the Judah Bible Curriculum:

• The Bible is the textbook.  I just love that it is completely Bible based since faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
• I love that the whole family can be on the same page, literally. 
• This curriculum is a guide.  I like that it guides and doesn't spoon feed information, instead it teaches you how to study the Bible yourself. 
• It involves notebooking!  Need I say more on this?
• You go through the main themes of the Bible yearly.  The student learns God's purpose in history, studying the hand of God in the lives of men and nations through the Bible.
• Students learn the relationship between individual character and national liberty.
• The student learns the relationship between the sovereignty of God and the personal responsibility of the individual

As I mentioned, I really like that the Judah Bible Curriculum takes you through the Bible each year.  This curriculum breaks the Bible into 5 Themes:

• Theme 1: Creation (Genesis 1-11)
• Theme 2: The Plan of Redemption Begins (Genesis 12 -- Ruth)
• Theme 3: The Kingdom of Israel (1Samuel -- Malachi
• Theme 4: The Kingdom of God (Matthew -- John)
• Theme 5: The Early Church (Act -- Revelation)

Each of these 5 Themes are then further broken down into Keys and are studied by individuals, events, institutions and documents instead of verse by verse, chapter by chapter.  The curriculum follows a six year cycle and then repeats.  You can view the Scope and Sequence here.

Some of the examples of the Keys studied for the Creation Theme are:

• Key Individuals - Adam & Eve, Cain & Abel, Noah
• Key Events - Creation, Fall, Flood, Tower of Babel
• Key Institutions - Pre Fall Society, Pre Flood Society, Pre Tower Society
• Key Documents - Garden Command, Curse, Noahic Covenant

The Judah Bible Curriculum also utilizes the Notebook Approach.  This fits are family just right, seems we have a notebook for EVERYTHING and Bible is no different. 

They suggest that each student have a 3 ring notebooks along with 5 dividers (one per theme).  Each week the student will add one or two items into his/her notebook.  They suggest that you allow your child write, draw and map to describe the weekly theme.  They also suggest that you use their Weekly Key Sheets, which are included with the curriculum.  It is suggested that students add to their notebook each year. 

The Judah Bible Curriculum is a wonderful addition to any homeschool or family Bible study.  It is very affordable and will last for years.  It is available by hard copy for $74.00, shipping included.  You receive:

1) Judah Bible Curriculum K-12 Manual;
2) Elementary Notebook Ideas booklet;
3) Eight-lecture Teacher Training Seminar on CDs.

You can also order it by digial download for $44.00, a 40% savings from the hard cover copy.  With the download you get:
 
1) Judah Bible Curriculum K-12 Manual, e-book format to download;
2) Elementary Notebook Ideas booklet to view online or download;
3) Eight-lecture Teacher Training Seminar. listen online or download.

I do recommend the Judah Bible Curriculum.  I love that it's one purchase and your set for a really looong time.  I received the digital download, which was perfectly fine but I think if I was going to make a purchase I would suggest the hard copy.  I just like the thought of having a hard copy in my hand when it comes to sitting down to read Bible.  Whether you decide on the hard copy or the digital download,they are both very affordable considering the time you will be able to use this curriculum!

Now that you've read what I think about the Judah Bible Curriculum, check out what others on the TOS Crew think about it.

Disclaimer: As a member of the TOS Crew, I received a digital download of the Judah Bible Curriculum, at no cost to me, in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are mine.

Bringing Books to Life - Books in the Kitchen!

Trying to decide what I wanted to write about for the TOS Crew's 5 Days of  Series was pretty easy.  We love to read! Reading to my kids, it is my favorite part of our day.  So, for the next five days I will be writing about Bringing Books to Life. 

To start with, I thought it would be fun  to come up with some fun ways to incorporate food and cooking into the books we've read.  Everyone likes to eat, right?  I know my kids like to eat and they ALWAYS want to be in the kitchen, so these are mostly ideas to do WITH the kids in the kitchen after you've read a book. 

Most of our family read alouds seem to fall in the historical fiction category.  These books are very easy to cook or bake something to tie into the time period.  For instance, if you've just finished reading Detectives in Togas a Roman Feast would be the ideal way to tie food into the book.  We just finished reading The Door in the Wall so a Medieval Feast is in our near future.  Next year we read about Pilgrims and the Mayflower we will eat some the things they ate.

You can bake a cake to represent your book.  Our library actually has a contest every year called Devour a Book.  You can make a cake that looks like the cover of your book or just a cake that represents it. 

If your book takes place in another country eat the food that they eat!  My girls just finished up Treasures of the Snow with their book club.  Since it takes place in Switzerland, for the last meeting they had Swiss chocolate and Swiss cheese fondue, among other things.  They loved this!

Picture books are fun to cook or bake from, here are a few ideas:
Green Eggs and Ham - make green eggs and ham! (as much as I am opposed to food coloring I would splurge for this one)
Blueberries for Sal - make blueberry syrup, pancakes, muffins or cobbler
Diary of a Worm - make a dirt cake
The Snowy Day or any other snow related book - make a marshmallow snowman
Cloudy with a Change of Meatballs - make homemade meatballs and have spaghetti and meatballs for dinner.
One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish - eat goldfish snacks.  Let the kids help you make fish sticks for lunch or fish fillets for dinner.
How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World - make APPLE PIE!

You get the picture, there are lots of things that you can do to tie food into a book.  Be creative and involve your kids!

I am by no means saying that things should be done daily or even weekly.  They should not be an added burden, just something fun to throw in when you can.  We don't always get to this kind of thing with everything else, but we really enjoy it when we do.

5 days, 65 bloggers, 325 blog posts!  Check out what others on the TOS Crew are writing about for the 5 Days of Series here.

What do you do to Bring Books to Life?

Chicken Pot Pie Cupcakes

Yes, you read correctly, Chicken Pot Pie Cupcakes!  or you could just call them Mini Chicken Pot Pies.  Whatever you decide to call them you absolutely M-U-S-T make these little babies and eat up!They are scrum-diddly-umtious!!  Not sure if that's a word or not but it seems to fit. 

Here's whatcha need:

2 cans of Refrigerated Biscuits
2 cups of cooked and diced chicken (breast or thighs)
2 cans of Cream of Chicken Soup
2 cups Shredded Cheddar Cheese
2 cups of Frozen Mixed Veggies
1/2 tsp Onion Powder
1/2 tsp Garlic Salt
1 Tbsp Rosemary
1 Tbsp Thyme

Preheat to 350 degrees. 

Lightly grease muffin tin/s.  Flatten biscuit in your hand and then place inside of the muffin tin, press down in the bottom and up the sides.  Make like a little bowl inside the muffin tin and set aside.

Mix all other ingredients.  Scoop mixture into the well of bisuits. Bake until biscuits are a light golden brown, about 15 minutes or so. 

ENJOY!

Weekly Wrap Up - The week we studied Knights

This past week we finally learned about castles, cathedrals, knights and the code of chivalry.  We have been meaning to read about them for the last two weeks but for one reason or another we had not gotten to them. 

  

We read a great little picture about knights called Knights in Shinning Armor by Gail Gibbons.  The kids really enjoyed it.  I thought it gave a pretty detailed picture of the life of a knight.  During the reading of the book all the got dubbed a knight and had the title Sir added to their names.  They must have really enjoyed this because they continued it even when the neighbor kids came over the play later in the day. 

After reading the book the kids decided to make their own swords and shields from all of the Stampin' Up! card stock rotting away in my craft room : )

Today they are going to mount their horse (bikes) and practice jousting with lances (pool noodles of course!).  They really looking forward to this, I am just going to be praying that they are no casualties. 

This week we also read in Story of the World 2 about the code of chivalry, which I thought was pretty interesting.  Then in Medieval World, we read more on castles and cathedrals.  We had read a little about castles last week and we were blessed with some huge boxes which the kids used to build a castle, draw bridge and all.  Thanks again Erica!

This is kinda the only shield that survived the battle long enough to have it's picture taken.

As we read this week, the kids colored print outs from a medieval times coloring book for their history notebook.  We also did oral narration and discussion. 
The kids watched the cartoon Robin Hood.  We discussed the stealing that Robin and his men did and whether it was pleasing to the Lord.  I was happy to hear them say that even though giving to the poor is a good thing, stealing it not.  Yay! 

We also got back into our Apologia Astronomy book, we finished up lesson 1 and did most of lesson 2.  We just started this not to long ago and I plan to continue this in the summer.  If you have ever done the Apologia Astronomy, then you know that lesson one has you use balloons to make the planets to hang from your ceiling.  Yeah, that didn't work out so well for us - me lovely kids used up all the balloons for a water fight so I resorted to paper planets.  Such is life I guess.

The girls had their last book club on Wednesday evening, they just finished reading Treasures of the Snow.  Their WONDERFUL book club teacher invited a couple from our church that had lived in Switzerland AND knew Patricia St. John (the author).  From what I hear, they also knew
Corrie Ten Boom, a favorite of my girls, so that was an added bonus. 

Last but definitely not least, we started a new read a loud called Mr. Pipes.  I am diggin' this book!  We are reading the first one in the series (there are 4).  It is a historical fiction, with a good story line, that teaches about hymns and where they originated.  It is put out by Christian Liberty Press.  So far so good!

We also managed to accomplish math, phonics and grammar!  Praise God for a productive week.

Grammar Songs We Sing!

Did you know that there is a song for everything!  Well, almost everything. 

 

Computer Girl and I were learning about helping verbs and came across these two songs that we found helpful....

• The Helping Verbs Song
• The Helping Verb Blues
 

 

Some other helpful Grammar Songs we found are...

• Schoolhouse Rock: Grammar - Unpack Your Adjectives
• Verb Song
• Adjective Song
• Schoolhouse Rock - Lolly Lolly Lolly Get Your Adverbs Here
• Schoolhouse Rock - Nouns
• Schoolhouse Rock - Prepositions
• Preposition Song - to the Tune of Yankee Doodle

 

Do you have any songs that you recommend to help with memorizing?