Classical Academic Press God's Great Covenant

"Classical Subjects Creatively Taught"

Studying the Bible is not only a big part of our homeschool, but it is also a big part of our lives. We have family devotions every day & I taught my kids to have their own private time reading their Bible as soon as they could read. For family devotions we have read straight through the Bible, studied topics, people, or individual books, but for school it is nice to have a curriculum. The last couple of months we have been using God's Great Covenant from Classical Academic Press.

We have enjoyed other curricula from Classical Academic Press in our school and God's Great Covenant is just as good. We received the Student Workbook, the Teacher's Edition, and the MP3 files. It is recommended for children in grades 3-6, and I have been using with all three of my girls ages 8, 10, & 11.

God's Great Covenant Old Testament 2 Student Workbook is $22.95 and contains 298 pages. It covers the books of 1 Samuel to Malachi, and is divided up into 5 Units. 

• Unit I: The Early Kingdom...The God Who Anoints
• Unit II: The Glorious Kingdom...The God Who Blesses
• Unit III: The Divided Kingdom...The God Who Reigns
• Unit V: The Remnant Kingdom...The God Who Judges
• Unit IV: The Exiled Nation... The God Who Restores

Each Unit is divided up into 6 or 7 chapters, and is set up the same way throughout the book. The suggested schedule has each chapter lasting a week while spending about 20 minutes a day. In each chapter we are given the Lesson Scope, Theme, Memory Verse, Key Facts, Things to Remember, Message From the King, a Story, and Worksheets. In the back of the book there is a glossary, maps, quizzes, memory verses, and more. A download of the Table of Contents and the first Unit are available free of charge.

God's Great Covenant Old Testament 2 Teacher's Edition is a softbound book containing 298 pages and is $24.95. It is set up exactly like the student workbook. Each page contains all the text from the student book,  but with Parent and Teacher notes included on the side margin. You can download the Table of Contents and the first Unit free. 

God's Great Covenant Old Testament 2 Audio Files are available as an MP3 download for $9.95. There is 3 hours of Bible Stories read by Christopher Perrin. This is the exact story that is included in the curriculum, and you can listen to a sample of chapter one. 

I used this with all three of my girls together. They like to snuggle on the couch while I read the bible story or the selected bible passages, and while discussing the theme, memory verse, and key facts. Then they would complete the worksheets on their own. Some days the girls liked to take turns answering the questions out loud, but there is such a wide variety of worksheet formats that they liked filling most of them in. The worksheets included fill in the blank, crossword puzzles, matching quotes, scrambled words, and more.

Throughout the book is a fictional character named Tobias. He is included to capture the attention of the children & he does. My girls, especially Alaina, love the little guy, and all the other cartoon characters and pictures. 
The bible stories are written directly to the student and make a wonderful read aloud. So far we haven't found anything to be contrary to the Bible. I really like how the suggested schedule has you read the story the first day & the Bible passages the second day, because I want to teach my girls to check the bible to make sure what they read and hear is true to the Word of God. 
I really like the Key Facts. They are listed in a chart and contain Bible references to look them up when there is a specific one. The chart makes it so easy to go back and study.  I love the Teacher's Edition to this curriculum. It is so nice to be able to see the exact page that the girls are looking at. I like that they can follow along in their book while I read the story or if we take turns it is easy to switch. The student page in the teacher book is smaller with notes to the teacher on the side. Each note is numbered with a corresponding number on the student page, so you know exactly when to talk about it. Some pages contain blank lines to add your own notes. 
Christopher Perrin was a very good choice to read the stories for the audio files. He has a great voice, and is very pleasant to listen to. The MP3's contain only the story section from the book and can be listened to straight through like any audio CD. We did not use the audio files every day during school, because we like to discuss things while we read, but we enjoyed them for entertainment. We love to listen to recorded stories & audio dramas while we clean house or during trips in the car and this makes an excellent addition to our library. 

  "Classical Subjects Creatively Taught" is Classical Academic Press Motto. It describes the essence of what they publish.  Disclaimer: As a member of the TOS Review Crew I received God's Great Covenant free of charge to use with my children in exchange for my honest review. I received no other compensation.