First of all, let me say that I am NO artist. I've been doing stick figures most all my life. Even my trees look sickly. Second of all, my creativity is often under question when it comes to teaching my kids. I really prefer them to be independent learners because of the age gaps. And thirdly, my kids rarely get excited about anything to do with school and ask to do it. So needless to say, I started this program carefully!
Out of the all the wonderful options available through this company, I chose the Old Testament Catechism. It's a basic overview of 225 questions covering the entire Old Testament that is free of doctrine. It has questions like:How did God view all that He created?
What happened to Job in one day?
Name Jacob's wives.
What furniture was in the Holy of Holies?
How many kings did Daniel serve?
What three things do we know from the Old Testament about the Messiah?
All three of my kids (ages 13, 10, and 8) fell in love with the book immediately. They enjoy helping each other review questions while I prepare papers for the day. They simply got the paper they needed and their colored pencils when I was ready to teach and went to town drawing and learning. Hard to remember details are made simple with this book. My husband always tells me if you see something, write something, and hear something; you're more likely to remember it. Well my kids are seeing the drawings come alive as they write them after they have discussed answers with me. Their memory on concepts is greatly increased.
I guess my favorite part of this whole lesson so far has been near the beginning. My little "nuts" and I discussed God. There were only two simple questions on this particular day and two scriptures. The questions were: Who was in the beginning? and What did God do in the beginning? The scripture was Genesis 1:1 and John 1:1, both of which the kids could quote. The discussion that day got deep even with little minds present (mine, of course). We began to talk about what and who God was in our lives and why it was important for us to establish that before anything else. My kids amaze me at every turn with their profound answers. They end up teaching me so much. So when they drew their purple triangles to represent God that day, other aspects became very real as well.
The teacher ebook in this series is only $19.95 and the student ebook is the same price. Print books are also sold with the teacher book being $24.95 and the student book being $19.95. I have found that ebooks are much easier to deal with since I have three kids to teach (and there is the luxury of no shipping costs with ebooks!). This is just one of Grapevine's multi-level courses, so all kids can jump right in and have a blast. You just print the copies you need when you need them and there is no waste. Of course, my kids love doing things their own way, but then most homeschooled kids do, right?
Grapevine also has other levels for specific ages and shorter studies those who want to either go deeper in a subject or just spend a short amount of time getting to know the program. I was just browsing their list and came across a study in Esther, Biblical Feasts and Holy Days, Birth of Jesus, and New Testament Timeline.
When I signed up on the e-mail list, I began to get FREE mini-lessons each week from the other studies. This is terrific and allows you to get a glimpse into the study it comes from to see if you would be interested. Again, these are NO COST samples. Can't really go wrong with that! Besides, what homeschooler doesn't love the word "free"?
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