Alive In Spirit

For the last several weeks I have been using and reviewing the Judah Bible curriculum with my kids. First of all maybe I should let you know what the Judah Bible curriculum is all about. The curriculum was developed in order to instill a comprehensive understanding of the Bible and to develop Godly character so that you can apply God’s word to your daily life. It follows the Principle Approach of education.

What exactly is the Principle Approach?

Basically the philosophy of he Principle Approach is a way of teaching and learning that puts the Word of God at the heart of every subject and teaches the student how to think and learn. This is what the main goal of our homeschooling is all about for our family. As Christians, we believe that the Word of God is our main focus and we want our kids to be educated on how to think and learn for themselves to be better prepared for life on their own as adults. To learn more about the philosophy of Judah Bible curriculum you can view information on their website here.

First of all let me tell you what you receive

Whether you choose the print version with CDs or the downloadable online version, you will get the Judah Bible Curriculum K-12 Manual, the Elementary Notebook Ideas booklet and Eight-lecture Teacher Training Seminar on CDs or in mp3 format.

Of course the main text is the Bible itself and the manual along with the lectures are what you use to implement this curriculum.

If you go to Scope and Sequence page on their website here. you can view the scope and sequence and see not only the schedule of what passages you will study but also the main themes you will study at each grade level. Through each year you will cover the following main themes from K – 7th grade then again from  7th – 12th grade.:

• Creation
• The Plan of Redemption Begins
• Kingdom of Israel
• Kingdom of God
• Early Church

What I didn’t know prior to reviewing this curriculum is that it is not a lesson based curriculum but more of a teacher training program.  As the teacher you need to go listen to the lectures in order to learn about the principles and the methods as well as the content that you will be teaching your kids in this program.  You also are to create a notebook as you will have your kids do while they they study God’s word using the outline provided within the Judah Bible curriculum.  You can see where this is not a hands off type of curriculum but one in which the teacher will need to do a significant amount of work to learn and prepare in advance prior to teaching your kids.  It is one in which the teacher must first learn the material for herself then come up with ways to present it as well as what you will have your kids do within their notebooks.  You are provided with some basic ideas and suggestions along with providing you with a key worksheet where you and you children fill in the  key individuals, key events, key institutions, and key documents for each theme.

I admit I struggled with this program in the beginning because I was not expecting it to be mostly a teacher training program so I was looking  for something that wasn’t there in the first place.  I was looking for how to implement the program rather than how to learn the concepts and material myself in order to teach my kids the Bible.  I already essentially have been doing that so I spent a lot of time before I understood that was what the Judah Bible curriculum was all about.  Yes it is a good approach to learning the Bible and if you do not already do this in your family it is a good resource for beginning that in your home.   Since our family already has a view that Christianity is a lifestyle and that the Bible is our main focus for our lives, that makes the Judah Bible curriculum not so much something new to us.  You can see why I struggled with this program up front.  It was because we already were doing basically what the Judah Bible curriculum was trying to teach us to do.

What you do get is a good outline of what to study and when along with some ideas of how to teach and study the Bible.

You can view a powerpoint presentation to learn more HERE on their website as well as view the other information to give you a good understanding of the Judah Bible curriculum in order to decide whether this is something for you and your family.

You can purchase the Judah Bible curriculum from their website for $44 as an online/download version or get the print version with the audio CDs for $74.

I suggest you check out what some of my fellow Crew members had to say about the Judah Bible curriculum on our TOS Crew blog to get a well-rounded view of this product.

Disclaimer: I was provided a free copy of the online/download version of the Judah Bible curriculum in order to provide my honest review of it for my readers  as a member of the TOS Homeschool Crew   All opinions are my own.