God's Great Covenant- New Testament 1- Review

Monday, April 23, 2012

God's Great Covenant New Testament 1  ($26.95) is the 3rd in a series of Bible Courses offered  for Elementary aged children by Classical Academic Press ( www.classicalacademicpress.com ) Classical Academic Press'  motto is: Classical Subjects Creatively Taught ^tm

I recieved both the Student Guide- an impressive, consumable 351 pages in a 8 1/2 x 11 paperback book written by Claire A Larsen, and the Teacher's Guide. Throughout both, most scriptures are taken from the New International Version, but occasionally the New King James Version is also used. This particular book is targeted for 4th grade and up. Here is a link to a sample- if you care to see what is included.

This course consists of 4 units: Jesus, the Son of Man, Has Come… To Live Among His People, Jesus, God's Servant Has Come… To Proclaim the Good News, Jesus, the Messiah, Has Come… To Teach About God's Kingdom, Jesus, the Son of God, Has Come… To Conquer Sin and Death for a full school year's worth of material.

Each unit is further divided into chapters, for a total of 36 chapters. Each chapter is made up of the actual lesson, memory material, activities and a quiz and should take only a week to complete. 

At first, I wasn't sure if the Student Guide ($29.95) would be necessary, but  it does provide a lot of additional cultural  information, a place to keep notes and answers to all the questions asked in the student's  lessons . So, it is useful to have both the Student's guide and Teacher's guide- especially if you will be using this course with multiple children. However, if you work through the material directly with your students you might not find the  Teacher's Guide necessary- as it is basically a copy of the student guide and you likely won't need the answers if you work through the course with your student(s). Alternately, you might wish to purchase the Audio Files ($9.95) to this course. The text can be read to your student through this downloadable MP3 format and would be particularly helpful for auditory learners or struggling readers.

We initially used God's Great Covenant in our daily reading time. It might just be the first chapters, but I had a hard time keeping the interest of my 7 and 8 yo. So, my 14 yo -who was my only student who didn't have a Bible curriculum to work on- was given this book so he could work on it alone. Personally, I didn't feel  this was below my 14 yo because it is not written in a tone that speaks down to the children it is geared for. The character of Simon is written for a younger student, but my son didn't say he thought it was below him. 

This is a great program for multi-ages or a family devotional book. I could imagine this course would be excellent for a traditional classroom or even a Sunday School.  It really didn't fit what we were currently doing and I am not sure if we will finish the course. I can't quite put my finger on why, though. I think it is just a matter of timing and not a great fit for us at this time. It is a very thorough curriculum that is put together very well and I don't  have any complaints about the book. I like the various activities and depth of this course. We typically memorize scriptures out of the  New American Standard Version and I personally prefer King James Version, but those aren't things that would keep us from using this course either. We will probably revisit this course in the future and see if the fit is better at that time.

Disclaimer: I was given this product for free as part of The Old Schoolhouse Review Crew in exchange for my honest opinion.

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