I am considering using Bible Study Guide for All Ages for my kids this upcoming year. I’m not sure what I need and how I can combine all 3 kids. I will have a K, 3rd & 5th grader and ideally we would do bible together. Any experienced users know what I need to get and how I can combine them? I keep looking at their site, but for some reason I can’t get a clear “here’s what you do” description.
Thanks!
Hi! We have been using BSG for 2 years now and we LOVE it! You can definitely all do Bible together. The most important thing is that whatever level you pick to always make sure you order the same student pages for everyone, that way you’ll all be learning the same thing at the same time. What I mean is this… For your children’s ages I would go with one beginner and two intermediate. If you purchase 1 pack of beginner student pages and 2 packs of intermediate student pages --all lessons 1-25–you’ll all be learning the same thing at the same time. Does that make sense? And the only thing you need other than the student pages is a timeline. You’ll only need one. They also have a cd that goes with, but it’s not my fav–we don’t use it. My girls know more about the Bible than most adults and so will yours after using this program. It’s AMAZING!!! Enjoy😊
I haven’t used the teachers guide. I haven’t needed it so far.
Hi! We have used this program the last three years and we are pleased with it! When we first began, I had a 3rd grader, Kindergartener, and preK-er. We started at the beginning with lessons 1-26 and have continued to work our way through. Initially, my oldest used the intermediate lessons (3rd-4th grade level), for which I did not buy the teacher’s guide. My younger two used the primary lessons (1st and 2nd grade level), for which I did buy the teacher’s guide. You must buy the teacher’s guide for the primary level, otherwise, you cannot complete the lessons. It’s the only level where the teacher’s guide is required, however, I have continued to buy the teacher’s guides (for my two younger kids’ level because they are the ones that need the most help) after we were no longer using the primary level because there is helpful information in them. Plus, it’s a timesaver for me. If you are on a tight budget, though, it is absolutely doable to not use the teacher’s guides for all levels except the primary one.
As far as what else I bought, I bought the CDs and the summary cards. I did not buy the timeline because I don’t have a place to put it, but I can see from the teacher’s guides how it goes into even more depth than the one on the paper. However, we’ve been completely fine not having it. If it’s in the budget, I say definitely buy the summary cards. The CDs are fun but the singers have a southern accent and that might bother some people. We are southern so it sounded perfectly fine to us. In fact, you can learn a whole lot from the CDs. We never listened to them during lesson time, instead preferring to just listen to them in the car whenever we felt like it. It didn’t take long to have every single one of the 90 songs memorized.
What’s great about this program is that we can all be learning about the same bible lesson, but the work the kids complete is on their level. The higher the level, the more in-depth the questions, timeline, memory work, etc. will be on their paper.
Each lesson is broken up into sections…a “remember it” section which is review of previous lessons, a “memory workout” section, a timeline/map section, a “get active” section, the lesson section, and the “apply it” section. I pretty much follow the lesson in the order recommended nowadays, but I used to go in a different order that made more sense to us at that time. It’s very flexible. Everyone works on the remember it section at the same time. Same section, possible different questions based on the level. Then we move onto the next section and so on. Whenever a child is ready to move up a level, you do not need to go back to the beginning lessons.
Obviously, I don’t know anything about your children, but if they are your average children at that age, then it looks like you have three different levels to buy for. If you put the K child in the primary level (and that would be my suggestion…being able to read is not necessary for this level), then you’d definitely want to get those teacher’s guides. Of course, depending on the levels of your children, you may actually be able to put them all in one level. If your K child is really bright, then you could put him/her in the intermediate level with the 3rd grader and if your 5th grader struggles a bit, he/she could also be with the 3rd grader. Does that make sense? Just buy the level for each child that will work best for him.
There are great samples online. What I did was print out the sample lesson for each level (it’s all the same lesson in Matthew I think) along with the teacher’s guide samples, and did a practice lesson at home to see how it would work for us. It’s much easier to understand when you can see all the lessons in front of you and having your children do them together.
Anyway, if you have any other questions, just let me know! I think you are making a great choice in a bible study program. It’s extremely thorough and you will be amazed how much your children will learn what is actually in the bible. I really appreciate that it doesn’t include man’s opinion at all…just what the bible actually says.
Thank you for a very thorough explanation of Bible Study Guide! I plan on using this in another year or so and your post was very helpful!
Could you give me a sense of how much time your spend on it as a family each session?
We do a lesson a day 4 days a week. Each lesson takes us anywhere from 20-40 minutes depending on how much of the bible is covered in that lesson. I read straight from the bible because most of the time the questions come directly from it, and the bible story books just don’t go into enough depth. Most lessons cover a chapter in the bible, however, there are some that cover 2 or even 3. When we first started out, I did half a lesson a day totaling 2 1/2 lessons completed a week. It’s really flexible enough that you can make it take as long or as short as you want. Hope this helps!