Tuesday 2 October 2012

Bible Road Trip-3 year free curriculum

Last summer, Danika Cooley wrote about a new 3 year Bible Road Trip which she was planning. I was interested as I wanted to use something systematic for Bible Study with the children at the beginning of their home education day. We've started to use the Road Trip although have really only dipped our toes into its resources.

The Road Trip is written four different levels using a Classical Education model so there are sections for Lower Grammar, Upper Grammar, Dialectic and Rhetoric. A new post comes out each week with a printable curriculum for each age. Each age group includes sections on reading the Word, memorising, notebooking, praying for a specific country or group and has an "Explore Further" part with suggestions for further reading or DVDs and craft.

How has this worked for us?

This has been good but a bit overwhelming. It is great to have something systematic but in some weeks the older age groups have an enormous amount to read. So, we've stuck to the Lower Grammar level. It feels as though we have only just dipped into a small proportion of what is available.

Similarly, the volume of memory work for the older groups, alongside, for us memory work from Sunday School, has proved a bit too much. so again we are using the Lower Grammar Level.

We've substituted some of the suggested resources with those already on our shelves and have used our preferred version of the Bible, Authorised Version instead of the NIV.

What has worked well?

  • It is good to go through the Bible from cover to cover.
  • The encouragement to pray for other parts of the world.
  • The crafting through the Word section has been useful. We haven't done everything in it but there have been pyramid models and pictures of Joseph's dreams and  we have been inspired to work on family trees of the Patriarchs.
  • The encouragement to memorise Scripture regularly. It would be good to manage more but currently a verse per week is what works for us.
All in all, I'm planning to carry on with the Road Trip and hopefully, use more of it as time goes on.




3 comments:

  1. Thank you so much for the review of Bible Road Trip! I appreciate it! We are doing the Upper Grammar level in our family, and it certainly does take some time each week. I'm so glad you've been able to customize the plan to your resources and family. That is exactly how I had hoped the curriculum would work. :)

    ~ Danika Cooley
    http://BibleRoadTrip.org

    ReplyDelete
  2. Are you still doing Bible Road Trip? How have you found it long term?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Sharon, we used the Bible Road Trip for almost two years but haven't used it recently. The main reason why we stopped using it was that the children had memory work from Sunday School. The volume of memory work, if we had done both, was just too much. Other than that, I liked the programme and have wondered, on and off, about using it again. It does require time for craft as well as for the actual Bible study which is something to remember when planning. Hope this helps.

      Delete