Our Curriculum, One Subject at a Time: Bible

I want to start a series about what we use for each class in our HOMEschool and of course I will start with the most important class of all. Bible.

“In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government ought to be instructed.”
~Noah Webster quote

Okay.


List of Resources:

a. KJV Bible
b. Journibles The 17:18 Series: Proverbs
c. Balancing the Sword Vol. I & Vol. II
d. A Beka: 8th grade Bible: Paul's Missionary Journeys (1/2 semester) and then Joshua/Judges (1/2 semester)

visuals/aids:

e. The Student Bible Atlas
f. Blue Letter Bible (Concordance, Audios, Quick Verse look-up tool)




1. We start off each morning with a prayer and pray for a missionary per day.

2. The boys then do penmanship with their Journibles: Proverbs book. (They are on Chapter 2 now)

3. After that, I read for about 15 mins. of A Beka: Paul's Missionaries

4. Finally, we look in our Vol. I of Balancing the Sword. We currently are in Proverbs first, then probably go to Joshua, then Judges to coincide with our A Beka.

*I do not write in our Vol. I for the Balancing the Sword, but the boys write down in their own journals with the questions/answers. Of course we first read the chapter and then we discuss the questions...




Balancing the Sword Review:

Introduction:
a. General Abbreviations
b. Ancient Metrology and Modern day Equivalents (interesting)
c. Summary Verses

The book (Volume I) consists of 589 pages
ISBN: 0-9772646-0-2
Author: Allen B. Wolfe, Balancing the Sword, Vol. I
(Tampa, FL: Allen B. Wolfe, 2005).

Closing Documents:

a. Genesis-Revelation
b. Answer Key (amen!)
c. Biographical Sketches
d. Index of People Quoted
e. Bibliography of Quotes
f. Bibliography of Images


I love the quotes and the bottom of almost every page, the format is easy to read and use, there are cross references (to dig deeper in the scriptures), and we do like the figures/drawings scattered throughout the text.

He mentions that this is only a study tool and in no way replaces the reading of the Word-and I agree. It is great in making us read the Chapter (we do one chapter per day, plus the questions in the volume) in order to prepare us for the questions (and thank God there is an answer key (for us teachers).

We probably won't finish Volume I this year...but looking forward to that day that we do and then we will start over from a different angle with Volume II.


I first encountered Balancing of the Sword when I came across this website: Bible Bee. I immediately knew that we could use this for our bible curriculum and I also bought the Musical Scripture CDs (a couple of them) for enhancement learning.


Well, there you have it...our Bible class. It usually only takes us about 30-45 mins per day. It's one of our longer class, but our most important.

Happy HOMEschooling!