It’s the time of year when homeschooling moms evaluate the past school year and begin making plans for the next academic year. I enjoy cracking open the new material in August; beginning something new is always exciting! At the same time, I love coming to the end of our books as our school year closes. It is fun to go back and look at all that the kids and I have worked on and learned.
One of our main reasons for homeschooling is our desire to spend ample amounts of time in God’s word with our children. In addition to family devotionals, Bible is one of the subjects in our school. This past year, we used Leading Little Ones to God by Marian M. Schoolland.
We really enjoyed this book!!
I’ve been thinking about what to use for the next year. As a family, we are attempting to read the Bible all the way through, so I’ve ordered this 
for when we get to Exodus. I’ve read wonderful recommendations for this series of children’s commentaries. If any of you readers use them, please let me know how you like them.
The other book I am considering, for more of an academic pursuit is this one: 
The kids worked through parts of this book with their Sunday School class this past year. They learned so much! One evening we were discussing salvation and what one must do to be a disciple of Christ. I was expecting them to say something very Baptist, like “You have to pray and ask Jesus to come into your heart.” (At least, that’s the way I believed for so long that I have thought it was the right answer. The only problem with that is that you won’t find that kind of answer in the Bible.) What did the kids say? (By “kids,” I mean Hannah and Benjamin.) “Repent, believe, and obey Jesus.” So, then the discussion turned to repentance and what that means.
Anyway, I wanted to know how they knew that particular answer.
“Mrs. Jungels asks, ‘How do we become Christians?’ and we say, ‘Repent, believe, and obey Jesus.’”
It turns out she uses the above children’s catechism book to teach them each week. The children have memorized questions, answers, and the verses to support those answers.
I think books like this are wonderful! Some may think they are dry and that children will be bored, but I have learned that there are few things children enjoy more than memorizing and reciting. My kids LOOOOOVE to memorize and then show it off for me and their daddy.
The Questions and Answers book is on my short list of books to consider for our Bible curriculum next school year. This past year, we chose one verse from Leading Little Ones to God to memorize each week. It made it even more fun for the kids when Karl and I attempted to memorize along with them. I’m not making this stuff up. We’d go around the table and recite our verse for the week one at a time. It was really fun and a great challenge, not to mention a good discussion starter for the dinner table. I think it also teaches the kids that the Bible is for grown ups, too. It’s not just a book of children’s stories.
So, click on those covers!! They are all 20% off right now at the Westminster Bookstore, and shipping is $5 no matter what size your order. (And your clicking gets me closer to a gift certificate. Hey!! You’ll be helping me get our curriculum for next year!)
I want to know what you use in your homeschool for Bible. Please share in the comments!
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Leslie Wiggins 
14 responses to “Bible Study with Children”
We are using the Herin is Love series and LOVE them! All the reviews are not exagerated. Do go back and start with Genesis if you can – it is so rich and deep. I have been amazed and filled with new wonder. The gospel is there throughout and Jesus is clearly displayed. We plan on going through the whole series.The material is dense. I am finding with my 6 and 4 year old that I need to break most of the lessons up over a few days. They love them and retain so much of the details. One note of warning – the material is not dumbed down or G rated. The book is faithful to the Biblical narrative and doesn’t gloss over some of the more scandalous stories.
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I just noticed my blog is listed on your sidebar – THANK YOU! I am honoured!
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We’re just finishing up Genesis together, and I really had to tip-toe through what happened with Dinah. Did you explain all of that to your children? How did you handle it?
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Hi, Leslie! I clicked on your books and made an order. Hope that helps toward your gift certificate, and thanks for sharing. I’ve been meaning to get the Leading Little Ones….and Big Book of Questions…., so now they are on their way here. We don’t homeschool, but we are wanting to be much more purposeful in teaching the Bible to our kids, so these will be great tools to add to what we’re doing.
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We haven’t gotten to Dinah’s story yet, but with the Angel’s in Sodom & Gommorah I just said they wanted to do things with them that they shouldn’t. Thankfully my kids accepted that and didn’t ask what those things were! I skimmed over Lot’s daughters…and when we covered circumscision I just said it was spare skin that only boys were born with, I didn’t say where and again they didn’t ask!!However, they did ask if Dad was and then later told our retired neighbour about it. =)That is how I handled those ones, though it would probably have been more challenging if my kids questioned things more.
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We have done “Leading Little Ones to God” too, and we’ve done two of Sinclair Ferguson’s books. Love it!
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We are bothing thinking alike. I posted yesterday the new book we are using for family devotions. It is by Starr Meade “Training Hearts Teaching Minds. We also read through the Vos Story bible as a family. My 7 year old loves to do activity pages. So I bought Christian Liberty Press Book C which is the Old Testament. In the fall I am going to use this as her personal devotions. She will read the scripture and we will talk about it and then she can do some of the activites that go with it. It is not super intense my hope is it will be a gentle way to start the habit of personal devotions.
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Mrs. M–adding an activity book or at least a coloring page is a good idea. My kids would like that, too! Thanks.The topic of training children to have daily devotions is an important one to consider…stay tuned!
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I’m all ears….or eyes! :o)
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I too have heard reall good things about the Herin is Love series and am planning to use them next year.
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We are past the homeschooling small children years, but hope to be involved in the lives of grandchildren one day! I miss those moments of discovery with my children.My husband and I are going through Training Hearts/Teaching Minds! Never too old to learn the catechisms! (This book is one of SEVERAL that we’re going through together…)Press on!
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just curious about why you no longer adhere to the baptist understanding of asking Christ into your heart.i’m not baptist, but my kids have put their faith in Christ and asked Him into their hearts—and i’m perfectly fine with that response.is it just that you were looking for a more precise rendering of the idea of salvation? or do you make a distinction between salvation & discipleship? just curious…although i know this is slightly off topic…feel free to disregard! 🙂
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Elizabeth–I was just surprised by their answer…that is was precise and biblical rather than the usual baptist answer, “just ask Jesus to come into your heart.” I’m not necessarily knocking baptists, it’s just all I’ve ever known and that’s usually how salvation is presented.”do you make a distinction between salvation & discipleship?”No, I don’t believe you can have one without the other.Melanie–that’s pretty much how we worked through Sodom and Gomorrah, too. We didn’t get into the details.
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I am currently using the Herein is Love series and love them. We are now in Leviticus. Genesis was my favorite though.
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