If you’ve been looking for a great way to teach Bible study to your children, Bible Study Guide for All Ages is a great program to choose. Bible Study Guide for All Ages makes learning about the Bible fun and easy. This program is sure to capture the attention of any age.
For this review, we chose the Primary plan. This plan is created for children in 1st-2nd grades and is a great plan for children who know a little about the Bible but are ready to advance into a deeper level of learning. Our Bible Study Guide for All Ages kit came with the Primary Level Teacher Guide, Color Bible Book Summary Cards, enough Primary Student pages for all the kids, and an accompanying Children’s Songs CD.
Along with the contents of the kit, each student will need a Bible of their own to use. This will be used for finding Biblical text throughout the lessons. Finding the Bible verses with help or on their own, allows students to learn the much needed skill of using their Bible and reading on their own.
Crayons, pencils and other writing utensils are also necessary for this program. We personally love anything we can color, draw and design so we broke out crayons and colored pencils for this program. I love anything that encourages the kids uniqueness in artistic ways.
The one thing we did not receive, that was not 100% necessary but would have been a nice addition to our kit, was the Unlabeled Wall Map and Time Line with Label book. This timeline is used throughout the program and mentioned in our lessons but it wasn’t something we had to have in order to complete any lesson. The bonus of it though, is that it would have allowed us to track Biblical events and figures in a hands-on way. I’m sure I could easily create my own or just a notebook type Timeline and captured the same effect for our family and we may do that in the future.
The Bible Study Guide for All Ages Primary Level Teacher’s Guide is wire-bound which allows the guide to lie flat for lessons. In it, you will find directions to every lesson and task for this level of the program. The book begins with Teacher Instructions, explaining how this program works and how to use it in your classroom. I found it very easy to understand and make work for us at home, though it can also be used in a Sunday School classroom if you’d prefer.
Lessons can be completed once a day or spread to a few days in a week, depending upon the child. Generally, only one lesson a week would be completed though you can complete more if you wish. This program is designed much like a Sunday School Bible Study which would only be used once a week on Sunday’s.
Lessons are fairly short and should take only an hour or so to complete, if that. Each lesson has an objective to teach the child some important lesson of the Bible. In the beginning of each lesson in the guide there is also a list for the lessons needed materials. These are things you will gather to be able to complete the lesson with the child(ren).
Lessons always begin with a review of the previous lesson. This allows the child to show what they know and what they remember from the previous lesson. This also allows the teacher to gauge the child’s learning and reteach areas that may have been missed in the previous lesson.
The second part of the lesson is the Memory Work. This is generally where important Bible facts and songs are introduced. Bible verses are also reviewed during this section. Anything that a student needs to memorize for the lesson is introduced here.
The third section is the Things to Know section. This is the real introduction to the week’s lesson and where the backbone of the lesson is found. Things to Know sets the background for the main lesson to come.
The next step is to Get Active! This is the give and take of the lesson, where the teacher questions the students and challenges their thinking to get them thinking lessons through. This section if scripted well for the teacher and easily followed, though students answers will always differ from the suggested ones in the book. This section also sets the stage for the story of the lesson.
Finally, we reach the Bible Text. This is the story portion that brings the Bible story into relation of all we have learned so far. Stories vary in length and are always followed by review questions to keep students challenged and thinking during lessons. As you read through this section, students can follow along with their comic book images in their student text workbook. This helps bring the story to life for the student learning.
Following the text section, students learn where it happened on the Map. This is included in their student text but you can elaborate by using a wall map or a timeline. This allows the child to see for themselves where this part of the story happened and relate it to today instead of just a story from a book. It helps to bring the lesson and story to life for the child.
The last step of the lesson is to Apply It! Show what you both have learned, parent and student. Talk about the lesson, why it’s important, how you can prevent yourself from doing something you shouldn’t or encourage others to do what they should. Each lesson’s Apply It! is different but every one has an important lesson to be taught.
The Student lesson pages are extra long and come in black and white. This allows the child to be creative in coloring the pages. It also helps cut down printing costs. The pages are full of character, using comic book type imagery to keep children engaged.
The Bible Book Summary Cards are fully colored and work to bring life to this program. The back of each card provides information that goes along with each lesson. It also includes questions for the teacher to ask the student. The great part is that all of this is on the back of the card, so as the teacher holds it up for the student to view, the teacher can be reading this part of the lesson without the student realizing there is anything there.
Children’s Songs CD is also included with this program. This 2 CD set includes 90 songs for your students to use along with the lessons. These also help bring the stories to life and get your child off the couch and into the lesson. These aren’t the usual, every day Bible songs either but they are catchy tunes that your family will be singing again and again.
We used this program as directed, following through the lessons together. It was simple enough to do and the kids enjoyed the time spent with one another on it. Winston especially enjoyed the comic book characters and the easy reading, which helped encourage him with his reading skills. Emmalee read much of the lesson to us, which allowed me a break from doing all the reading myself. The lessons were just the right amount of study and time for Laycie too. They were not overwhelming and were just the right amount of detail for each one of us.
Bible Study Guide for All Ages: Primary Level is available to purchase online for $9.95 for the 1-26 lesson Teacher’s Guide and $5.95 for the 1-26 Student Lesson pages. Lessons are broken down into sections of 26 lessons at a time. There are a total of 208 lessons available for the Primary Level of this program.
The Bible Book Summary Cards are also available for purchase. These come in Full Color 8.5″x11″ cards or Color-It-Yourself 11″x14″ posters. Both come with 66 cards to use with the program and are both priced at $24.95 each.
The Children’s Songs CD set is a 2 disk set containing 90 children’s Bible songs. The cost for it is $19.95.
For more reviews of Bible Study Guide for All Ages, please click on the banner below!
