Memoria Press 6th Grade Literature Review

Our family was blessed to be chosen to review the sixth grade literature curriculum from Memoria Press. Our oldest daughter has been reading her way through the classics this year so I was very interested to see what this literature curriculum had to offer. Memoria Press was very generous and provided us with their entire sixth grade curriculum! We received four unit packets. Each contained a teachers manual and student study guide.

I allowed our daughter to chose which unit packet she wanted to start with and she chose The Door In The Wall. I assigned three reading assignments per week in an effort to work with her existing school schedule. She was able to read the assigned chapters on her own and then came to work with me to answer the questions in the student study guide.

All of the student assignments follow the same format:

Reading notes - this section discusses any words or people that were important to the reading section.

Vocabulary - A vocabulary word is used in a sentence and the student has to write the meaning of the word.

Comprehension questions - Questions based on the reading. Students must write complete sentences to answer the questions asked.

Quotations - One quote from the reading. The student has to know who said the passage, who they were speaking to, and what the quote means.

Discussion questions - These are questions to answer out loud and discuss in depth.

Enrichment- This section has activities, copy work, research activities, art work, etc.

I loved that the teachers manual has the answers to all of the questions. Some teachers manuals just assume that you have read the book recently enough to remember the answers to the questions being asked. I don't know about you but I don't think I could answer a discussion question based on a book I had not read since I was in high school. We are not going to mention how long ago THAT was! Having the answers in the teachers manual makes life so much easier! We are able to quickly review the answers and complete the days assignments.

This curriculum is no joke. The book was fairly easy for our 11yr old daughter to read and understand the overall concepts. The vocabulary, comprehension, and discussion questions however definitely made her stretch mentally and learn new things. There are mid-terms and final exams provided that review a great deal of the material that has been covered throughout the student assignments. These are not easy tests or assignments.

The Memoria Press website states that they feel "Reading is not a passive activity for pleasure. Reading requires an active, discriminating mind that is challenged to think, compare, and contrast." I would have to say they have definitely followed this train of thought while creating this curriculum.

I would definitely recommend this curriculum to those looking for an in-depth classical approach to literature. We have enjoyed using these materials from Memoria Press and look forward to completing their sixth grade literature program.

Want to know about the other literature grade level packets offered by Memoria Press? Come on over to the schoolhouse review crew link up find out! Memoria Press offered our fellow reviews packets for first through eight grade!  Come on over and check them all out!

Logic of English Review

Our family has been struggling to find an English curriculum that works well for our children.  When we were given a chance to review Logic of English's  second edition of Essentials I jumped at the chance.

We have been homeschooling for a number of years now and have yet to find an English curriculum that worked for our children. After doing some research I found the Logic of English curriculum to be intriguing. We were given the complete Essentials 2nd edition curriculum to review!

We chose to use this English curriculum with our 9 year old daughter. She was the one in the most need of a new English curriculum thanks to her dyslexia issues. Nothing we were doing was working and we were all overwhelmed and exhausted. A clean start with an all in one curriculum was just what we needed.

I have to say that I love this curriculum! Previously we had been using several separate curriculums to complete all of our needs. One book for vocabulary, one for spelling, one for reading, one for grammar, and one for writing. Exhausted yet? We were!

The Logic of English Essentials curriculum covers all of these topics in ONE BOOK! Even better? The book covers three different levels in each lesson. While we were only using this book for one child at this time I love knowing I can teach one lesson for several children at different levels. While homeschooling six children this is BIG!

This curriculum is broken down into a 5 day a week schedule.

Day 1: Essential Concepts. Phonograms, Exploring Sounds, Spelling Rules.

Day 2: Building Words. Spelling Journal, Spelling Analysis (using spelling list A, B, or C).

Day 3: Words in Context. Spelling Game, Grammar, Dictation.

Day 4: Words in Action. Vocabulary, Dictation, Composition. Optional: Essentials Reader.

Day 5: Check Your Understanding. Formative assessment.

The lessons are heavily scripted and very easy to teach. Each lesson focuses on a specific concept.  Such as  /ai/  and /ay/ make the same sound but /ai/ is used in the middle of the word while /ay/ at the end. Honestly these are things that never occurred to me but make explaining how to spell words so much easier.

Instead of saying "no it is spelled this way" with no reasoning behind the correction and simply expecting the child to memorize the correct spelling I now have the rule to fall back on.  I can say "We use a ck to spell the /k/ sound at the end of the word because there is a short vowel right before the /k/ sound".  By understanding why we use certain letters in certain sequences we can better understand how to spell all sorts of words.

I love that we cover the actual reasoning behind these rules as part of the Logic of English curriculum. Understanding the "why" behind these things is extremely important especially when things like spelling and reading are not coming easily to a child.  Our family plans to continue to use the Logic of English curriculum with all of our children in the fall. I wish that someone had recommended this curriculum to us a long time ago.

Want to know what the other Schoolhouse Review Crew members thought of this curriculum? Click HERE or on the banner below to find out!

Keep going mama!

Learning difficulties are hard. The amount of time that goes in to helping little ones learn new things is already staggering. Add in the extra time needed for a child with a learning issue and it can get overwhelming.

When you are in the thick of battle it seems that it will never end.

There will always be another phonics lesson or math drill.

The same word will be misspelled 30 times and you will gently correct it every.single.time.

There will be tears.  Yours late at night and hers during the lessons.

It is HARD!

It however is worth every single minute. Every single drill. Every single gentle correction.

What you are doing matters! You are making a difference and your time spent one on one with your child while they struggle to learn is worth every second.

They are learning. I know some days you doubt it but they are learning!

One day you will look up from your work and see your child cheerfully volunteering to read a book to her siblings.

The child that you spent three years teaching to read will happily pick up a book and not only read it but read it out loud to others. She will know that she can read the book and if she has a problem with a word she simply has to ask.

I know the road is long and filled with countless speed bumps but it is one that is worth traveling.

Keep going mama! You got this!

Our Saudi Arabian Unit

A few weeks ago I blogged about being worn out on the craft front and unable to pull it together for a weekly unit craft for Kenya.

When we moved on to our unit for Saudi Arabia I didn't manage to get myself together all that much.

I managed to put a drill bit into my hand while doing some woodworking in the garage. After spending a great deal of time in the ER with all 6 kids getting my hand sewn back together I was a bit out of sync with school work and chores.

Working with one hand sucks. Working on crafts with 6 kids with one hand just wasn't gonna happen.

It took me over a week to get caught up on the cleaning, laundry, school work, cooking, etc.

I sound whiny.

I probably am being whiny.

We all survived. My hand got stiched back together and we completed all of our school work for the unit.

We did however LOVE our reading for this unit. We chose to read I Am Malala. Our girls had been doing quite a bit of complaining about why they had to do their school work. They felt that they did not need an education and that they were wasting their time on their lessons. After reading I Am Malala they did a complete 180 degree turn. Suddenly they stopped complaining and actually completed their work when asked. We went a few steps further and found some interviews with Malala and watched some of her movie He Named Me Malala.

We really enjoyed this unit even without the crafts and special meals. We would love to hear what you did while studying Saudi Arabia!

Our Easter Chickens

Our Easter chickens have arrived!

Our family has chosen to rent baby chicks from a local farm for two weeks.

Who knew renting chickens was a thing?

Our family couldn't be more thrilled to have these cute little balls of fluff in our home for the next two weeks. They are changing on a daily basis at this point and the children are fascinated by it. It is amazing how quickly they grow at this point!

We are working on earning our Chicken Badge for Frontier Girls and having fun at the same time!

The cat is fascinated as well....for a very different reason....

The tween years......

I have heard quite a bit about the "tween years" from friend and acquaintances over the years. I am sure you can imagine the vein of the conversations. With five daughters in our household people have been quick to talk about how difficult our lives are going to be once they all start going through the angst of teenage life.

I am not sure what I expected. I guess I expected there to be some sort of warm up period to the process.

You know a slow progression with lots of warning of what was coming.

Maybe there was and I was so oblivious I missed it all.

One day I said good night to our sweet and happy to please oldest daughter. The next day I woke up to this crabby "tween" that had taken her place.

Seriously.

Over night.

What?!

Why did no one tell me this happens in a split second?  I am pretty sure I would have taken notice of that fact if it had been mentioned.

Heck for all I know this IS the warm up phase and it is going to get worse!

I guess I shouldn't be complaining. After all this is completely age appropriate behavior and pretty mild at that. I can stand some eye rolls and the "You are so stupid" sneer every once in a while.

I am pretty sure I did the same to my parents at this age. Although behind their backs....cause I didn't want to die.

As the mother of an autistic child I walk a line between being both irritated and relived by age appropriate behavior.

On one hand I am certain that if she gives me one more eye roll and sigh I will scream. On the other hand in the back of my mind I am doing a little dance and celebrating that she totally nailed the disgruntled tween irritation.

With each new developmental phase, especially when there are serious hormonal shifts, there is the possibility of some new issue arising. You never know what, or if, it will happen. Just that it is possible. Talk about walking on egg shells and stressing out in the dead of night.  So when we enter a new phase and I see typical age appropriate behavior I do a little dance for her.

Teenage life sucks. It sucks for everyone all the way around. It however is a phase of life that I am glad I get to go through with her. I am excited to see the young lady she is turning into. I wouldn't want to miss even one eye roll or sneer.

Okay....maybe that is overstating it a bit. I could miss a few of the sneers....yeah....that would be okay.

Wilderness Survival Class

We have begun working our way through our farmschool experience for the spring/summer. Since we plan to do quite a bit of camping and hiking this summer we chose to begin with our wilderness survival class.

We began by loading up a sample survival kit. I intentionally kept our sample survival kit very limited and sparse. 

I included:

 1 water bottle without filtration kit

 A small snack of fruit

 Survival whistle with compass, flint, signal mirror, and area for keeping matches dry

 Mini flashlight

 First aid kit

  

I wanted our survival kit to be light on materials so that the girls would notice what they needed to add to their own kits.

Before we headed into the woods I also printed out the 7 priorities of wilderness survival, the Boy Scout Hiking Merit badge booklet, a  poison plant brochure, and pictures of the common predators/dangerous animals in our area.

I also told a friend to bring over her girls to join us. My friend needed a break and we hardly even notice a few extra kids at this point!

After we had all of our items gathered up we headed out into the woods!

We began by discussing the most important thing to remember when lost in the woods.

STAY CALM AND STAY PUT! 

I had only managed to get a few sentences into this priority when my friends little girl started screaming and running around calling for help. She apparently was not a fan of the tick she found crawling on her leg. Talk about an amusing teachable moment!

Some of the other items we covered included building a shelter without tools or supplies. The kids found this to be a very trying experience. I think I have proven my point that a small tarp, an emergency blanket, and some emergency rope would be a great addition to their personal survival packs.

We also discussed how to use all of the items in the first aid kit. This included learning to diagnose and prevent many different hiking specific injuries. I do not feel they learned enough to earn a first aid badge I do however feel they understand how to handle bee stings, sprains, small cuts, etc. I wanted the kids to understand that even a small injury could be deadly when lost in the wilderness. It is extremely important to take care of your body while in the woods!

Of course a wilderness survival class would not be complete without building a stretcher from sticks found in the woods and a roll of duck tape! It took us a few tries to get it right but it was definitely a fun experience! I think they have all decided that a roll of duck tape would also be a great addition to their packs!

Of course we also discussed how to behave around wild animals (leave them alone!) and what dangerous plants are present in our area. I made sure to make very clear that we do NOT forage for foods to eat while lost in the woods. Our bodies can survive for several days without food, but eating a poisonous plant would be a very detrimental. 

We then covered drinking water safety. 

Rainwater = yes  

Stream water= No

We discussed water filtration kits that can be easily carried in our packs as well as options to boil the water from streams if we have access to a fire and metal containers.  A water filtration and drinking containers are a must for our packs!

While we were on the topic of fires we worked on learning fire safety. The children learned how to pick a good location,  clear an area and prepare it for a fire, gather rocks for a stone circle, how to lay a fire using dry leaves and small twigs in a teepee design, and how to put out a fire when we were through.   We then discussed the three different ways to start a fire: Matches, lighter, and flint. We did not actually start a fire on the day of our training due to high winds. We definitely did not want to start a forest fire!

Lastly we discussed how to signal for help while lost. We learned that calling for help is not the most effective way of signaling for help.

When search crews are searching for a missing person they are calling out the persons name. That makes it extremely difficult for them to hear the lost person calling back. We learned 4 ways that were more effective for signaling rescue personnel.  These included a whistle, signaling mirror, flash light, and smoke from a fire (if applicable).

Overall we spent 4 hours working on our wilderness survival class. We learned a great deal and found several things we wanted to add to our personal survival kits. We are all excited to start working on our hiking skills!

Our Reivew of Demme Learning's Math-U-See!

Our family was thrilled to be chosen to review Demme Learning's  Math-U-See Digital packs!

We have been struggling to find a math curriculum that would work for our nine year old daughter. She is rocking her way through ADHD, dyslexia, dyscalcula, and dysgraphia. As you can imagine finding a math curriculum that works for her has been challenging. When we were offered a year long subscription to Demme Learning's Math-U-See digital content we were thrilled to give it a try!

We had never used Math-U-See before so the wonderful people at Demme Learning were extremely generous and provided us with a full set of their gamma products along with the digital content. I was like a kid in a candy store!

We found it very easy to set up the digital learning packs on our window based laptop. After placing my order on their website I immediately received an email with the instructions on how to access the digital packs. The steps were very easy to follow and we were quickly ready to begin working on our first level!

We started at level one and got down to business. At the beginning of each lesson we pulled up the digital lesson resources and our daughter watched the streaming lecture on her own while I worked with her siblings on their "mom and me" work.

Can I just say how much I love that the lecture is digital and not reliant on a physical CD? I don't know about you but I am a bit scattered these days. With six children currently doing some level of homeschool I can get a bit disorganized and scattered with our resources. Having to change out CD's multiple times a day was a giant pain in the rump. I was constantly worried they would get lost or scratched. Especially if we were attempting to do our school work outside of the house, such as at swim lessons! With the lecture and other resources online we were able to have all of the lessons at our finger tips without the hassle of having to find and keep up with a physical CD.

The lecture wasn't the only thing included in the digital pack however! There are so many resources included that I had to get a screenshot to share!

As you can see on the right hand side of the page there are some great resources also included in the digital pack! I think the coolest thing included was the digital manipulatives!

Along the same lines as the physical CD's it can be hard to keep up with the physical manipulatives. Especially when you have so many little fingers interested in playing with the blocks while big sister is trying to do her work. Or when you are trying to do your school work at the pool while the younger ones are doing their swimming lessons! I can't imagine trying to pack the large box of physical manipulatives along with us to the pool or out into the back yard where we routinely do school work during the nicer months of the year.

Since the digital content is available for ALL of the levels offered by Demme Learning I can see the digital manipulatives being a big deal for older kids who do not want to be seen "playing with blocks" by their friends!

By having the option for digital manipulatives we were able to truly do our school work anywhere we wanted to! The digital manipulatives were easy for our 9 year old to use and helped her understand the questions found within her math lesson for the day.

Also included in the digital pack were instructional PDFs, student solutions, and tons of other extras!

So would we recommend Demme Learning's Math-U-See digital packs to our fellow homeschool families? That is a giant affirmative! We loved this product! Our 9yr old who HATES math says that this curriculum is fun to complete and begs to do extra lessons each day! I was shocked!

Want to know what the other Schoolhouse Review Crew members thought of this product? Click HERE or on the banner below to find out!

Farmschooling

Last summer we had an amazing opportunity to move home to the family farm for 6 mths while my husband was deployed. Our children loved living on the farm and farmschooling and I loved getting back to my roots. We came back to Jersey last fall to welcome daddy back home and return to our lives as normal. We however have found we really miss farmschooling!

At this point in our lives it is not possible to have the full blown farm we want. We simply move to often to make that type of long term commitment to one location. We are however blessed to live on a small "urban farm" in the middle of a state forest.  Our current rental was previously used as an "urban farm" and still has the infrastructure in place. The fences and barn are in place and ready to go for any small animals we want to add to our lives. We have been toying with the idea of adding some of the farm lifestyle back in to our lives. While it is tempting to get some chickens and goats we know it is not in the cards for us at this moment in time.

With that in mind we recently began looking into the homeschool classes offered at a local educational farm. We love the idea behind their lessons and the experiences for the kids. We however did not love the price.

One class per week, for 8 weeks, would be $500 if all six of our children were to participate. There would also be an hour and a half  round trip commute each week.

While my husband and I were looking over the syllabus he asked if this was something I could teach on my own.

Um.......yeah! I could!

I spent some time researching what we would like to cover and started coming up with ideas for our family to complete. I also worked through our Frontier Girl badge list in an effort to cover a new badge for each area of concentration.

Want to see what we came up with?

Here are some of my notes!

*Wilderness Survival
      Build a shelter
      Identify dangerous plants and animals
      First Aid
      Pocket knife safety badge

*Vegetable Gardening
       Plant seeds
       Tend to their garden
        Identify common pests and know how to combat them
        Build compost bin
        Visit local produce farm

*Mushroom farming
        Learn about types of mushrooms
        Identify edible versus poison species
       Chose spores and set up terrarium 
        Make a meal with your mushrooms

*Herbal Gardening
        Plant an herb garden
        Learn which herbs are used for medicines
        Learn how herbs can be used in pest control
        Make a craft using herbs

*Chickens
         Identify 5 different types
         Know what a male, female, and babies are called
         Learn about nutritional requirements
         Make a 3D diorama of how they should be housed
         Raise baby chick for 2 weeks (rent a chick program)

*Wildlife tracking
         Learn to identify 5 different types of tracks found in backyards
         What do these animals eat?
         How to keep wildlife from damaging gardens


I am looking forward to getting started on this list! I also am looking forward to sharing our experiences (and challenges) with you as we work on our projects!

Here we go!

        
        



     

Our Adventures with swimming.

Some family are football families. Others are soccer families. Still others are track and field families. Our family is a swimming family!

We however did not start out that way. We attempted to teach our oldest two daughters to swim while they were young but did not get far. Our oldest daughter is autistic and was born terrified of water. With her issues it became too difficult to work with both girls at the same time. As the years passed we made zero progress on the swimming front.  With the older children unable to swim our younger ones never got the chance to learn either. My husband and father were both starting to fret that they would never learn how to swim.

We began our journey towards swimming two years ago when we started homeschooling. We found that the local community college had homeschool swim classes available during school hours as well as summer camp options. It seemed to be a perfect fit for our family.

We showed up with our terrified non-swimmers on the first day and prayed that this would go smoothly. We were EXTREMELY blessed that the college had a paraprofessional on staff to work with special needs children. She had the patience of a saint working with our oldest two girls (our youngest four were still too young for group lessons). With every lesson they made steady progress and slowly increased their stamina and confidence. 

I was shocked when, after 16 weeks and an intensive summer camp workshop, the teacher recommended our oldest daughter for the local Special Olympics swim team! I almost fell over when the coach called and said she had a spot on the team!

It was so amazing that after 9 years of being terrified of water our daughter qualified for a swim team. Granted she had only mastered one stroke and had very little stamina in the water. She however happily got into the water now and was no longer scared of swimming! She was so excited to be chosen to join a swimming team. I think it boosted her confidence to new levels and encouraged her to continue to work hard in the pool.

It is amazing to see the difference 2 years of lessons and patience can make. Our oldest daughter is now 11 yrs old and swimming the 25 meter freestyle in 23 seconds and the 25 meter breast stroke in 20 seconds. She is working on building up her stamina and has begun swimming the 50 meter freestyle and breast stroke in practice.

Our 9 yr old and 6 yr old twins are swimming like little fish and doing amazing in their lessons as well. Our 9 yr old is learning all of the strokes and building up her endurance. Recently one of our twins progressed to swimming without a floatation belt! I will admit I almost had a heart attack watching her swim in 10ft deep water without a floatation item. There are life guards and teachers surrounding the pool so she was completely safe....I am sure you can imagine my anxiety however!

Our second autistic child was also born terrified of water. We did not realize just how terrified until we signed him up for a group lesson with his 6yr old sisters. He made it through a few lessons before they asked me to change him to a mommy and me lesson. He was just too scared and taking up too much of the instructors time. He needed the one on one hands on approach and the only one who could do that was mama.

Our first lesson went very slowly. It took the entire 30min lesson just to get him into the water for the final song. By lesson two he came into the water voluntarily and we even got him to release his death grip on my neck and move to just holding on to my hands. I am excited to see what the remaining lessons bring! Maybe another Special Olympics swimmer?! Who knows!

This experience has definitely reinforced the fact that children are a long term act of patience. Somethings are not going to come easily. They are going to take time, years of practice, and a great deal of patience.

They are tiny little seedlings that need an inordinate amount of  tending and love. With the right tending they will however bear fruit over time.  They will get there Mama! Hang tough and know that those endless practices and repetitions will not last forever. You may even find yourself wanting them back.......

Our Review of Here to Help Learning's Writing Program

Our family was chosen to review Here to Help Learning's homeschool writing program! Want to know what we thought of it? I can't wait to tell you all about it!

Our family was given a one year subscription to the Here to Help Learning website. I received the email with our activation code very quickly and was excited to get started with their writing program. I had no problem accessing the site, or viewing the videos, on our windows based laptop. I found the site easy to navigate and very user friendly.

Our oldest daughter is 11 years old and rocking an autism diagnosis. We have had some trouble finding a writing curriculum that works for her. Most tend to be too easy or assume a skill level she doesn't have. We were floundering in the breach trying to find something that started "at the beginning" but that wasn't addressed to 6 year olds. We were very pleasantly surprised with this curriculum!

Our online subscription allowed us unlimited access to all 6 available "Flights":

Flight 1 Paragraph Writing
Flight 2 Paragraph Writing
Flight 3 Paragraph Writing
Flight 1 Essay Writing
Flight 2 Essay Writing
Flight 3 Essay Writing

We chose to start with Flight 1. While our daughter is capable of writing two or three page papers she hyperventilates when asked to break her paper down into paragraphs. We are not able to add in a new concept like using paragraphs on the fly. This is something we need to stop and address step by step and practice repeatedly before she calms down and understands that it is something she can easily use.

We first had to decide how many lessons to do per week and then set up her writing binder. We chose to do three lessons per week. I found this to be the "sweet spot" for our family. At the beginning of the week I print the writing worksheets for the week. I add the worksheets to her writing binder and I am done with all prep work.

I love that there is a "print worksheets" button on each lesson. No going through and having to print each worksheet individually. I know it sounds like a little thing but when you are printing multiple things at the beginning of the week and trying to get everything settled it is wonderful to have a one stop shop for printing everything you need for a particular subject.

I was also thrilled to learn that the writing instruction is done via video! Each day that she is assigned a writing lesson she sits down at the computer and watches to the video instruction. She pauses the video on her own to complete the worksheets and writing assignments. I then review her work and read through her homework assignments with her. After I am sure she understands the homework I am completely hands off until the next day. 

As a middle school student I find it vastly important that she be able to properly manage her time and assignments.  With high school fast approaching we feel this is the time in her education when she needs to begin taking ownership over her assigments. We love the independence of this curriculum and homework assignments. They are short enough to not be overly daunting but thorough enough to cover the material that needs to be addressed.

If a fully independent curriculum isn't your cup of tea at this point don't worry! When printing out the worksheets for the lessons you also get a scripted lesson plan as well! You can go through each assignment with your child and work hands on with them for each step.

We are happily working through flight one! I can't wait to see how the curriculum progresses through to essay writing!

Be sure to check out Here to Help Learning's FREE Quick Reference Language Charts as well! I love having a reference guide all put together and ready to go in her binder!

We would definitely recommend Here to Help Learning's writing curriculum!

Want to know what the other Schoolhouse Review Crew members thought of this curriculum? Click HERE or on the banner below to find out!

Our Review of Zonderkidz Faith Builders Bible!

Our family was chosen to review a  Zonderkidz Bible! We were given a copy of their Faith Builders Bible to use within our family. I can not even begin to tell you how excited our children were when they realized they got to play with Legos as part of their Bible studies.

Our children love to play with Legos so we were thrilled to receive this Bible in the mail. The Faith

Builders Bible by Zonderkidz is a hardcover New International Reader's Version of the Holy Bible.

We use a Bible 5 days a week as part of our homeschool curriculum. The kids were so excited to switch to our new Bible as part of their daily school work. Bonus points that they got to play with Legos during school hours!

I found our old lego collection out in the garage and brought them into the school room. We store our legos in a plastic three drawer storage container. This made it simple to pull out one drawer per child and place them on the table. This cut down on the squabbles and drama over who needed which piece.

There are several colorful pages scattered throughout the Bible with specific verses and lego creations. The children can make these specific creations or use their imagination to create their own creations. We found this to be a very fun way to learn the parables found within our daily readings of Matthew. The kids were able to work on their Biblical lego creations after reading their Bible chapter and verses for the day.

I love the variety of creation ideas found within this Bible. There were super simple projects and really complex ones. There was definitely a little something for every skill and interest level. We were not quite this advanced in our creations. We were what you would call a bit more abstract in our works.

Our family found the Bible easy to use and understand. It was extremely helpful that the words were printed a bit larger than your average Bible. This was important for our family as one of our daughters is dyslexic and finds small text to be too difficult to read. It is important to our family that all of our children can read the Bible on their own. The girls had no trouble finding the chapters and verses they were looking for and then reading their assignments.

Our four year old son is obsessed with this Bible. He loves to look through the pages and "read" the Bible before bed. There were many nights when I would check on him after bedtime to find him snuggled in bed with this Bible looking through the pages and "reading".

I love the selection of Bibles available for children through Zonderkidz. It is so important to gain children's interest while learning about God.. If children find the word of God to be dry and boring they are less likely to continue their faith based journey on their own. We want our children to study the Bible because they WANT to learn about God and be closer to Him. Not because "Mom said so".  Starting their faith journey though such fun and interactive Bibles is definitely a great way to begin the process. We strongly recommend the Faith Builders Bible for your young lego enthusiasts!

Want to know what the other Schoolhouse review crew members thought of the Zonderkidz Faith Builders Bible? Click HERE or on the banner below to find out!