Mood:  a-ok

I love teaching the Bible. I love teaching it to my own children. I love teaching it to the kids that come to Good News Mission. I just love teaching the Bible. That’s why I was so excited to find out that, as a reviewer on the TOS Homeschool Crew, I was going to receive the Positive Action for Christ second grade Bible curriculum, Finding God’s Promises.

I always love reviewing Bible curriculum because each company has their own way of doing things and their own way of setting things up. As a Bible teacher I love to take the best things from different curriculum to improve my teaching. There are many companies where I have not enjoyed using their material, and there are several companies that I have thought were great, but the kids weren’t as enthusiastic about them. This company was a winner.  Joshua and I both really enjoyed using it.

Positive Action’s Bible curriculum actually goes from K-5 all the way to 6^th grade. What I really like about their curriculum is that it is very age appropriate – activities focus on developing a child not only Biblically, but also academically. For example, one lesson’s Developmental Activities included “Comparing Jesus to a sacrificial lamb” and also “Matching phrases to complete sentences”. Another great aspect of the curriculum is that each lesson focuses on a character trait. And the focus isn’t just head knowledge, but action as well. It’s nice that a student knows how to act, but encouraging that action and guiding that student in that action is another thing. Finding God’s Promises does that.

I also enjoyed the fact that the easy to use teacher’s guide includes everything that you need all laid out in a very simple way. Each one of the 34 lessons begins with a list of new Bible Vocabulary words for that lesson, the “Target Truths” that the lesson attempts to get across to the student, the “Teaching Strategy” section, which is basically the overview of the lesson, and then launches right into the lesson. Each lesson includes the scripture for that lesson, ideas to help you explain the lesson along with discussion suggestions, and a character trait section complete with a story and activities. Each lesson also included suggested songs and memory verses.

But, as much as I enjoy the extra “perks” of a Bible curriculum like the ones mentioned above, what’s really important is the Bible content. Positive Actions does not disappoint in that area either. The content is excellent while the activities in the full color student workbook are very well done, kept Joshua’s interest and really reinforced what was taught in the lesson. The character trait stories also stayed true to the goal of the lesson and were Biblically sound. One word of advice, though. Although I found the lessons in this series to be Biblically, it is always good to check the Doctrinal Statement of any company that you are buying Bible curriculum from to make sure that they are compatible with what you believe.

As mentioned before, each year in this series is divided into 34 weeks with an extra review week if you desire. It has lesson plans for a 5-Day Week, a 4-Day Week or a 3-Day Week. It needs to be understood, though, that this curriculum was originally written to be used in a Christian school classroom setting. Homeschoolers tend to be able to do things faster because of the smaller group, sometimes one on one ratio. I found that if Joshua and I could complete some days in 15 minutes or less depending on how much we discussed the activity. I’m sure there are some homeschool families that could probably complete a whole lesson in setting depending on the attention span of their children, how in depth they would like to go with their family, and how much time they spend on the verse and songs.  Still, all in all, it is an excellent curriculum and very well done.

Each year’s teacher’s manual is available in hard copy form for $33.95 or on a CD for $19.95. The student manuals are $12.95 each or $10.95 when you purchase five or more. Positive Action also sells Hymn and Chorus CD’s which include all of the music used that year for $9.95. If you would like to purchase any of the materials or find out more about this company just click here or on any one of the hi-lighted links above. Many of the other TOS Homeschool Crew folks reviewed different levels of this series and you can find out what they have to say by clicking here. Happy homeschooling!

As a Member of the TOS Homeschool Crew I was sent a free copy of Positive Action’s 2^nd Grade Bible Curriculum (Teacher and Student Manual) in order to try out and review on my blog.

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