Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Grapevine Studies

Grapevine Studies Biblical Curriculum
Esther ebook
Biblical Feasts & Holy Days ebook

(Hardcopies are also available)

We had the opportunity to review and try Esther and Biblical Feasts and Holy Days ebooks. They each are multi-level. We used it with a 4 year old, 8 year old, & 13 year old. Each of the ebooks have a teacher's edition and a student edition. Esther has 7 lessons. Teacher's edition is $10.95 for the ebook. Biblical Feasts and Holy Days has 13 lessons. Teacher's edition is $12.95 and the student edition is $14.95, these are for ebooks. You can use one lesson each day or one lesson a week. It is versatile, that is what I like about this curriculum; if you want to study a bit more it is simple to stretch the lessons over several days. Grapevine Studies' primary author, Dianna, is a homeschooling mom of four graduates.
Grapevine Studies Biblical curriculum is based mainly on using stick figure drawing in order for the children to retain Bible stories and passages better. I am not a very good artist and I was a little worried I would have to come up with the pictures for my children to copy. Well, I was concerned for nothing; the teacher's edition not only comes with the scripture references and paraphrased narrative to read to your child, but with samples of each of the stick drawn pictures they need to draw.
My 8 year old liked this curriculum the most. He likes to draw. He also wanted to draw his stick figures the way he wanted to and not copy what was pictured. My 13 year old also enjoyed this curriculum. He enjoys art and drawing. He wanted to just copy the sample. My 4 year old daughter followed along and did her best to draw her own portrayal of the pictures. Grapevine is great for children to use their creativity.
Each of the lessons have several verses or chapters to read aloud or paraphrase to your child. If you are uncomfortable teaching the Bible their is narrative you can say to your child so you do not need to be a scholar of the Bible to teach your children.
Okay, so you are probably wondering tell me more, right? Well, this is how we did it. I printed the lessons for each of my children so they would each have their own copy. Each lesson is broken down into small bites. I read the actual verse for that section out of the Bible, then I read the paraphrased narrative. We had some discussion so that each of my kiddos understood. Then they drew their stick figure picture. You can then go on to the next section of the lesson or be done for the day and do the next section the next day. It is really workable no matter how much attention your child has at one time. I would say each section of the lessons takes about 10 minutes or less depending on how much you spend on it. I do think it is a bit expensive though for what you get. I wish that the ebooks came with both teacher and student books. Of course it is still a good program for ages 5-13.
Drawing, listening, and reading gives children all of the learning styles together. They are listening to you read, they read the scriptures or the section headings under each picture, and using their hands to draw. My children and I learned a lot about the scripture stories. I am amazed at how the story of Esther came alive to us, we were able to simply picture it in our minds.
Grapevine Studies has Old Testament and other Biblical curriculum as well as the ones we were able to review. Right now they are giving all of my blog readers (that is YOU) 30% off of all of their books for one month.
Here is what you need to know:

Go to the website~ http://www.grapevinestudies.com/
Use the coupon code~ crews

A big thank you goes to Grapevine Studies!

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