The Fruit of Her Hands: Judah Bible Curriculum

I am always excited when any kind of Bible curriculum comes along that I get to review for the TOS Homeschool crew. For the last several weeks we have been trying the Judah Bible Curriculum which included a 100 page pdf manual, a notebook ideas book and 8 mp3 teacher training lectures.

Principle Approach curriculum for Bible class.
Develop a comprehensive knowledge of the Bible.
Build strong, Godly character in your children.
Study the Bible together.
Study the hand of God in the lives of individuals and nations.
For homeschool, Christian school, Sunday school.
Teach your children living Biblical principles to guide their lives.
Apply God’s word personally in every area of life.
The Bible is the textbook.

Judah Bible Curriculum has a page with extensive information about their philosophy of education. A brief synopsis is this: We want the Bible to be the center of our education, having a Christian school is not enough. All education produces character which influences government. The curriculum is based on the fact that God is sovereign and that he rules the individual internally by love.

The Bible is divided into 5 themes that are taught each year.

In the first semester, the first three themes are from the Old Testament:

Theme 1 CREATION
Theme 2 THE PLAN OF REDEMPTION BEGINS
Theme 3 KINGDOM OF ISRAEL

The second semester covers the remaining two New Testament themes:

Theme 4 KINGDOM OF GOD
Theme 5 EARLY CHURCH

You can read about the themes here.

Each THEME is broken down into Bible Keys. In each of the five time periods, students will study a few of the key individuals, key events, key institutions, and key documents for that period with a view towards identifying the hand of God, the character of God, and the place of that Key in His purpose for history. They blank key sheets are printable and are placed into the student notebook. The student notebook is NOT just busywork. It is designed to be something of value that the student will later be able to each from.

1) Judah Bible Curriculum K-12 Manual, e-book format to download;
2) Elementary Notebook Ideas booklet to view online or download;
3) Eight-lecture Teacher Training Seminar. listen online or download.

Watch this video to get an idea of what the audios sound like:

My opinion: I really wanted to like this curriculum but I have struggled greatly with implementing it. I printed the entire guide and had it bound and listened to the audios but had a very difficult time figuring out how to use the key sheets with my older students. For younger students, you are given the theme and ideas for how to begin, however, there are no worksheets or activities. You have to come up with those yourself. I did make up some notebooking pages for the creation theme to use with my kids and you can download them free here.

I really like the idea of building notebooks. I also liked listening to the audios although they clearly would be better if they were videos. Sometimes the speaker is referring to visual aids which are included in the back of the pdf book but I didn't know that when I was first listening to them.

I think this curriculum would be great for someone who likes the principle approach or notebooking and really wants to spend a lot of time preparing Bible lessons. You need to really dig in for a while to be able to use this. It's non-consumable and is intended to be used year after year (on a 6 year schedule) so it is very affordable. I really think this could be a valuable way to study to the Bible so I am going to keep at it.

You can download the Judah Bible Curriculum for $44 or if you prefer a hard copy version that is available for $69 plus $5 shipping and handling.

Read the JBC statement of faith and a chart of the scope and sequence.