Disclaimer: I received a FREE copy of this product through the HOMESCHOOL REVIEW CREW in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way.
I want my kids to own their faith, and desire for each of them to have their own relationship with Christ. So when I have the opportunity to review products that can help them walk closer to God, I really enjoy it. My fourth grader has been using 4th Grade – Building Life Castles from Positive Action Bible Curriculum. The company also has other grade levels of God-focused Bible curriculum available.
What Is This Product?
I received a Teacher’s Manual, and a Student Manual. Both were physical copies. The Teacher’s Manual arrived in a sturdy 3-ring binder. I appreciated how well it held up to use. It also made things fairly easy to find once we got it set up. With the teaching material, were three dividers. Figuring out where to place these took some flipping through pages, but eventually I figured it out. Then, it was ready to use.
In the binder, you’ll find everything you need to deliver the lesson and grade the material. I appreciate how user friendly it was. Here’s a peek at two pages. One shows a lesson, and the other the answer key.
The Student Manual was a workbook. It was colorful and fun to flip through. My daughter Ellie really liked it. Instead of just being all fill in the blank or any other one type of question, there was a nice variety. There were checkboxes, vocabulary boxes, short answer questions and more.
Here’s a page she was working on from the workbook about the birth of Jesus.
How We Used This Product
I worked through this Bible curriculum with my daughter, Ellie. Though she’s going into fifth grade this year so she isn’t a fourth grader anymore, I still thought it would be a good fit for her. It was.
We worked through a lesson a week for the past several weeks. Each lesson is broken into multiple parts. They’re labeled with letters, so you might have 3-A, 3-B, and 3-C.
We typically did an entire lesson in one sitting. But, some weeks we ran out of time so we broke it up. I appreciate how flexible this can be. I know some kids would get overwhelmed trying to do that much at once, but Ellie seemed to enjoy it.
There aren’t a ton of parts for each lesson, so it typically took less than an hour to complete. This included time looking up verses and discussing what we were learning.
Since we did more at one time, I had Ellie skip some of the written parts. We would do them orally instead. It really just depended on how the discussion was going. Some days, I didn’t want to break that up with having her write. So, we just kept talking right through the questions.
What Did This Curriculum Cover?
This Bible curriculum walks students through the deity of Jesus. It looks at His life on earth, and his earthly ministry. Students learn about His parables and His miracles. They study sin and salvation, and discuss what it means to show spiritual fruit.
Throughout it all, there are character trait activities at the end of each lesson. These are often a hands-on, or active task that help students to apply what they’ve been learning. They help them to become more Christlike.
What Did We Think?
My daughter and I both appreciated this Bible curriculum. It was presented well, and was user friendly to walk through. However, it wasn’t babyish. It was definitely age appropriate for my ten year old. She liked the vocabulary words, and thinks they’ll help her better understand sermons when Pastor preaches.
I liked how the teacher manual had copies of the student manual for each lesson. That way we could each sit with our book in front of us and I didn’t have to try to lean over her. The answers were included as well, so it was really simple to use.
Some of the character trait activities are designed for large groups, so you may need to skip or make changes to those.
There was a lot of writing, which most fourth graders are probably used to. However, we don’t do a lot of writing at this age, so that was a bit of an adjustment. We did some parts of it orally just as a personal preference.
All together, this was a solid curriculum that I didn’t have a problem using with my daughter. It was set up so you could use any version of the Bible to answer the questions, which I appreciate. That way you can use it with whatever your family is using and it will compliment it not compete.
If you’re looking for a Bible curriculum, I definitely recommend this one.
