The Word in Motion Bible curriculum for homeschool From Apologia is an essential resource for helping your children understand the Bible in a deep and meaningful way. Read our full review.
I received a free copy of Word in Motion for review purposes and I was compensated for my time. All opinions are my own and I am not required to post a positive review.
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Why We Need a Good Bible Curriculum in Our Homeschool
Our family has struggled to get good Bible instruction for our kids in the past two years. Since we’ve been attending church online and most of the organized activities our kids attend have been cancelled, postponed, or significantly reformatted, we’ve felt an added (internal) pressure to ramp up our own Bible teaching at home.
Not only have we wanted a better, more robust Bible curriculum, but we’ve also wanted one that can help us connect as a family through Bible study without depending on other organizations such as our church or youth groups to do all of the heavy lifting for us.
After trying out the new Apologia Bible curriculum for homeschool–The Word In Motion: Old Testament and The Word in Motion: New Testament–for the first month of the school year, I am confident we’ve found a program that fills our needs.
Check out my video review below, or keep reading.
The Word in Motion Bible Curriculum
We started using The Word in Motion curriculum this year. There are two volumes: The Old Testament and The New Testament.
The curriculum is laid out in a very similar way to other Apologia curricula, such as the Exploring Creation science series, so if you have used any of those programs, these books will feel familiar to you.
As with other Apologia programs, all of your lesson plans and everything you need to use the program is prepared for you and ready to go. There is absolutely no prep work with this Bible curriculum.
The two-volume set comes with a textbook and a notebooking journal for the kids to write in for each of the two volumes (Old and New Testaments).
The schedule runs on a 4-day week, though of course you can adapt it to fit your family’s needs. All of the tasks for the week are clearly laid out in a lesson plan overview.
Although the structure of the lesson plan stays the same every week (and as such, the individual lesson plans for each day are not included in the textbook), you can also print out the exact weekly lesson plan for each week from the Apologia website. (So, for example, instead of your lesson plan saying ‘Read the sidebar’, the specific lesson plan would say, ‘Read the sidebar on Roman Roads).
A Curriculum That Meets the Needs of Different Learning Styles
Another helpful aspect of the program is that it’s been designed to meet the needs of children with different learning styles.
There is a short video lesson each week taught by the author, Rachael Carman. The videos are very engaging and are perfect for kids.
They walk through the story of the Bible in a way that is understandable and enjoyable for kids while also putting it into the context of the Bible as a whole. I’m impressed with the level of detail the author is able to go into without getting us bogged down.
The videos are short and sweet. In each one, she also teaches a hand motion to go along with the story and help kids understand and remember some of the context of their lesson.
In the textbook, we find a retelling of the week’s Bible story, and along with the corresponding verses so we can read the passage directly from the Bible.
Each week features a character profile of one of the people in the Bible written from a first-person perspective. This helps gives kids a greater picture of who the people in the Bible were, and gives us greater insight into their problems, challenges, and faith.
Another powerful feature is the weekly memory verse, taken from the Bible reading. In their notebooking journals, kids can copy out the memory verse in printing or cursive.
Kids who learn best orally will appreciate the weekly discussion questions. These can be discussed together as a family, or kids can respond independently to the questions in their notebooking journals.
I’d planned to just use this curriculum with my teens, but I find we enjoy doing it together as a family too, my younger children included.
Immerse Your Kids in the World of the Bible
Cultural aspects of the time period are covered in The Word in Motion in a way that I haven’t seen in other children’s Bible studies. The kinds of things that, even as adults, we’d have to go looking for in a Bible dictionary or a concordance are all right there at your fingertips.
Finally, there is a prayer to pray together as a family in each lesson and kids also practice writing their own prayers. The notebooking journal also includes additional extension activities kids can do to further explore the world of the Bible and cement their newfound knowledge in their minds.
To learn more about the curriculum including sample lessons and lesson plans, visit Apologia’s website.
Sophie Agbonkhese is a writer, homeschooling mother of four, and a recovering overachiever (who occasionally relapses). She is the founder of My Cup Runs Over, a site dedicated to helping busy women simplify and enrich their lives. When she’s not writing or debugging websites, Sophie spends her time reading, dancing, bullet journaling, reading, gardening, listening to audiobooks, and striving fruitlessly to have a clean house for at least five minutes.