Tag Archives: bible history

Ancient History Curriculum from a Biblical Standpoint.

This book started it.

I tried to get my boys into it when we studied Ancient History 5 or so years ago but they were too young.

This time at 11&12 I feel like so many doors have opened!

They can comprehend so much, that I struggle with not overwhelming them with material to cover.

The Genius of Ancient Man

This book is a great place to start for some christian apologetics and maybe help an older child see history through a biblical point of view.

If you believe God created man intelligent than all of history makes more sense.

Noah’s Ark, Stonehenge, The Tower of Babel, Indus Valley, all of these things point to ancient man being intelligent.

You  will also notice a giant boom of civilizations after the Tower of Babel. Which would make sense if everyone suddenly spoke different languages.

The author wrote a study guide to go with this book and the boys loved it!

Up until this year I have mostly just had the boys reading a lot for history and science, this year I have been having them actually delve deeper and research.

We have had Life in the Great Ice Age for a while and I learned so much from it.

This year I decided to get the boys the study guide to go with it though to see if they could get even more from it.

This would be a great place to start for Elementary Age.

I found this amazing curriculum from Master Books around the same time!

Biblical Archaeology

It definitely pushes them a bit since they are in 7th grade and it was designed for more 9th-12th but they are learning so much!

I love that it helps them see how the bible fits into history.

All of these resources introduce the idea that maybe the excepted timeline for the pharaohs is off.

If you can open yourself to that possibility then you start finding a lot of evidence to the Exodus.

You can read more about it on Answers in Genesis site, here.

I never really understood how important those detailed lists of “begats” were before.

God gave us a timeline.

At the same time we are listening to this amazing audio adventure series called Jonathan Park.

I have been using this series for a while to help teach scientific creationism but these two new adventures happen to be teaching about the same time period we are learning about!

The Dreamers Tomb touches on the evidence for Joseph and Call of the Exodus talks about Moses and the Exodus.

I always come away from listening with new information to look up.

I love that this series pushes me to understand the bible even more.

I had bought the movie “Patterns of Evidence” a while ago and really enjoyed it. It talks all about the evidence for the bible in the egyptian timeline.

Then when we started this study I bought “Patterns of Evidence for Young Explorers.

Both were a great way to get the wheels turning on timelines and the bible but now I have found that they have a curriculum to go with both of them!

We are currently not doing this curriculum due to how much my boys are already doing but I printed the sample to look at and would love to try it.

Patterns of Evidence for Young Explorers Curriculum for Elementary Age and Patterns of Evidence Quest Curriculum for High school.

You can also find it on the Answers in Genesis, site.

I might be a bit addicted to this time period now.

I am currently trying to convince my boys that we should just keep studying Biblical Archaeology for several years…

My 12yr old is not convinced.

Yet.

I will keep working on him though…

Check out my video on these resources.

Cleopatra, Julius Caeser, and the Birth of Jesus

cleopatra

Cleopatra can be a hard subject to broach with kids.

You wouldn’t want to be Cleopatra!” was a big hit, just like the others in this series.

The other book on Cleopatra was filled with information but was too dry to interest them right now so I did not push it.

My boys really like the “Who Was…” series so they both read “Who Was Julius Caeser?” without any prompting from me.

My oldest had also read “The Eagles have Flown” by Joanne S. Williamson and really liked it.

It is about a servant in Brutus’ household during the time of Julius Caseser and introduces a lot of important historical figures of that time.

We also watched “Cleopatra’s Alexandria on Amazon Prime.

The Bronze Bow.” by Elizabeth George Speare follows a Jewish boy in the time of Christ.

I had both boys read it and the both seemed to get a lot out of it.

I only became interested in history after I read some really good historical fiction so I try to have the boys read a lot of historical fiction to go with what we are learning about.

dangerinthesilentnight

Danger on a Silent Nightby the Imagination Station is an easier read that is a great intro into the birth of Christ.

We used a Bible Atlas to see what Israel looked like during that time.

We also read the biblical account of the birth of Christ during this study.

As well as reading this two online bios on Herod, here and here.

I was pretty excited to have our study land right before Christmas break!

 

Do you like historical fiction?

Samson, Eli, Samuel, David, Saul and Iron

david

For most of our bible history we are using this well used Action Bible.

The boys know that we do not always agree with their interpretation though.

They add stuff that is not in a KJV, I guess to make the story more interesting?

For our study of David I also had the boys read “Showdown with the Shepherd”.

I really enjoy the Imagination Station books and so does my 6yr old.

questions

I tried out a way of learning history that I want to use later on.

bible

The boys learn by answering questions to do with that time period.

I saw a curriculum that taught with this method and thought it was awesome!

I of course can’t remember the name of it now.

If you know could you let me know?

That would be great!

questions

I wrote down one bible verse that they had to look up to finish and the rest could be answered with the action bible.

It took a little bit of time but it was quicker than trying to read all about David.

I knew they probably already knew the information anyway.

My oldest proved that by answering most of these from memory.

document

We finished up our metal study with another science experiment.

document2

This one involved pouring bleach and vinegar in with steel wool.

We used distilled water this time so we would have a better control.

Our last rust experiments seemed to prove our water needs filtered…

quick

The reaction was so fast!

rust

We ended up going to visit family for the last week of our study of metal so I do not have pictures for that week.

The boys did get to see metal melted down for making bullets though!

I am counting that as part of their study.

UPDATE!

My mother in-law took pics!

a1932511_10205107685801758_994197327011432352_o

I left the above experiment sitting on our table while we were gone.

I was hoping to document when it rusted completely.

My youngest ended up knocking the cups over, spilling them all over the table and the groceries so that idea was scrapped.

Maybe next time.

Do you have a favorite historical bible novel for kids?