The heaviest burden on the heart of any Christian parent, is that mandate to teach our children the truth of the Word of God, and instill a love for our LORD in their hearts. This job is given to all Christian parents, not only those who have chosen to educate their children in their home.
I have had a great desire to give my children a Bible education like I had, and to make it even more personal and practical. Because of this, I have been very picky and nowhere have I found a product that fulfilled all of my wishes. Until now. This has been the biggest blessing of our school year, and I am praising the LORD for showing us this program!
Everything I was looking for is here in Positive Action For Christ's elementary Bible study program. Sound theology. All the Bible stories, well known as well as obscure. Practical personal development, based on the passages. Basic Bible knowledge, such as chapters, verses, and how to find them. A knowledge of the great hymns. And it even has a great feature that I didn't expect- colorful workbooks!
Since we have started using Positive Action for Christ it has become the favorite part of our homeschool day. Not just for me, but for my children as well. To be completely honest (and I always try to be completely honest in these reviews) I cannot recommend this program highly enough. My husband even asked, upon hearing my talk about it, if we could buy all 12 years right now!
There are 35 lessons in each yearly program, and each lesson is to be used for one week. The teachers manual contains everything you need to teach to program and is non-consumable. It comes in a three ring binder and is packaged amazingly well. Each year's curriculum is $33.95, plus $12.95 for the student workbooks. Since you can re-use the teachers manual for later kiddos, it gets cheaper as you go! The elementary program is grade-specific, and they build on each other. You can see the scope and sequence on the Positive Action for Christ website.
The teachers manual has helpful information for homeschoolers and Sunday School Teachers, including how to use the program for several ages at once. They recommend picking a grade in the middle of your children, so it will be usable for all. The concepts are easily taught to children that are a little older or younger, the only problems might be in the workbooks- writing is required in the first grade level that we received. That's not a problem for Bop, but CJ is four and he gets frustrated by too much writing. Even taking that into consideration, I think he could handle the workbook without too much trouble.
I really appreciate the level of personal application that this program contains, even in the first-grade book. So many Bible programs are nothing more then watered down Bible stories, with little relevance to the actual passages, and even less personal value. You will not find that here! I was very impressed when our very first lesson, about the first verses of Genesis, discussed Jesus being the Light of the world. It even has a short story talking about how we can show the light of Jesus to others! All in the very first lesson about Creation.
You will find the memory verse for the week and the song selections at the beginning of each lesson. The children learn one hymn and two "choruses" every two months. This really gives time to learn all the verses of the hymns, but I may add in a few and shorten that time. It just depends on how well they pick them up. The Bible verses are cyclical, so each verse is covered at least twice during the elementary program. I really like this feature.
The workbooks are very high quality, bright full-color on heavy pages. I think you could easily do the program without them, especially if you have a workbook-resistant child. But it does add something to the program, and Bop just loves it. I think we will be doing first grade again next year, so it will be easier for CJ to keep up with as the levels get harder. We will certainly be using this program in the years to come! It may be a little more expensive then some programs, but what subject is more important in your schooling?
There have been only two very minor changes I have made in this program so far. The teachers manual has recommended plans for using each lesson in a homeschool setting. They have lesson plans for 3-day, 4-day and 5-day weeks. I found them highly confusing, and when I went to the actual lessons it was very simple to just plan out each day according to the reading for that week. I decided the lesson plans that they had just complicated it.
The only other change I made, was the choice to leave out the section on personal salvation. That was totally a personal choice based on the maturity and spiritual levels of my children. And to be fair, that section does have a footnote to let you know that you may want to skip it until your child is older.
I really recommend this program for every Christian family- it would be a wonderful, fun tool for family devotions. The lessons, when divided up into four or five days a weeks, don't take very long to cover so would be perfect to do while sitting at the supper table. I think this is a great Sunday School program as well, since so many of those have been turned into nothing more then water-down playtime. In case you can't tell, this is a subject I am pretty passionate about, and I am absolutely thrilled with Positive Action for Christ!
Read more reviews for Positive Action For Christ at The Old Schoolhouse Crew blog, including reviews for other levels.
I received this product free of charge
as a member of The Old Schoolhouse Review Crew,
for review purposes. I promise to be honest
and fair in my reviews, and I received no
other compensation in exchange for my review.
You can visit The Old Schoolhouse Crew blog
to read more reviews on this product.
