Bible

Since we are a Christian homeschool, we do teach Bible in our school day.  I love having the freedom to teach my children about our faith.  When choosing curriculum though, I don't necessarily choose it for Biblical content, but for academic content.  Now I do use Christian curriculum, but don't get tied up in which translation of the Bible is used or how many Bible lessons in each subject.  I don't think my kiddos are going to be hermits who sit under a rock for the rest of their lives quoting the King James Bible.

I do love that their Apologia science makes them look at information on the internet about teachings on evolution and compare them to the Bible and make their own conclusion.  I love that sometimes in Life of Fred, Fred mentions something from the Bible and in Learning Language Arts through Literature, they have a hymn and Psalm in each year's poetry unit.  I also enjoy that Life of Fred talks about Socrates and Learning Language Arts Through Literature has them reading Shakespeare.  

Until 9th grade, I have not purchased an individual Bible curriculum.  And actually we are using Notgrass history which has Bible curriculum built in and parallels it with history.  We instead have read Bible storybooks and then started reading the Bible out loud.  I had this chart in a Sunday School curriculum extras book published by Gospel Light.  There have been several goodies that I've taken to use for homeschool.  We started a reading plan and are on our 4th year.  At the end of this school year we will have read the entire Bible out loud by reading about 2 chapters every school day.  I've colored in the books we have completed.

I really enjoy this method of Bible teaching for my kiddos.  They read out of their own Bibles and sometimes off an electronic Bible.  My son prefers NASB and daughter NLT.  It can be hard to follow along, but I think that is good practice as well.  Sometimes if something doesn't make sense, we switch translations and read the confusing part out of the other translation.  If my kids have a question or comment, we discuss it right then.  Sometimes I know an answer, sometimes I look it up and sometimes I just tell them that I don't know.  I didn't want some curriculum telling my kids what the Bible means by this or that.  It is exciting to hear them discover these things on their own and in that, I'm learning more about the Bible that I love so much!

There are stories I heard as a child from the Bible and had a certain impression about them because of the way I was taught and now that I've read on my own I see sometimes, that is not what was really meant in those passages.  Here is an example.  As a child, I always thought that the fish swallowed Jonah to punish him for running away.  Now as I read it on my own and read the prayer that Jonah prayed, I see it differently.  The storm was a punishment and Jonah was thrown out of the boat as a punishment.  Jonah was drowning and was getting tangled in seaweed and the great fish was sent by God to RESCUE Jonah, not punish him!  Wow!  That is an incredible difference!

Now I don't claim that I have complete understanding of the Bible because I've read it through 10 or so times, but each time I read it I learn more.  Sometimes I need to read a commentary to get it.  Sometimes I just have to trust God about it and not attain complete knowledge.  I guess I just want my kids to learn to read it for themselves.

This is just my way of doing things and I know that there are other parents who love their curriculum and how it gives the children groundwork for their Christian heritage.  We have done read-alouds that help with that as well.  They also learn some of that in Sunday School.  We are not neglectingit completely.  I just find more value in knowing the Word for what it says, period.

One last thing.  I think that reading out loud is a good practice for the kids.  I read aloud to them a lot when they were younger and wish we had time for me to keep doing that.  With the kids in different grade levels and using different curricula at this point, I believe the Bible is a great way for them to read out loud every school day.  I've stepped up the expectation this year as well.  I want them to read to me with expression and keep me from falling asleep or getting so bored that I want to check my phone or email while they're reading.  In the past I had only done that with poetry or individual assignments.  Not every passage of the Bible is easy to be expressive in while reading, but I think it is good to push them further each year.

I'm not sure where we are starting next year with more Bible reading, but I think it would be great if my kids read through the Bible out loud 2 complete times before they graduate high school!