Bible Curriculum – My review of VertiasBible.com

My girls have been studying the bible with our one-year family subscription to VertiasBible.com from Veritas Press. VeritasBible.com is a self-paced Bible curriculum for kids that teaches through videos, songs, quizzes and more.

 The available sections to study are Genesis to Joshua, Judges to Kings, and the Gospels. Chronicles to Malachi and Job, and Acts to Revelation are coming soon. Each section covers 32 major Biblical events and has memory tools for names, dates and places, and activities in art, music, and geography.

Artist (age 9) and Boo (age 6) decided to go through the Gospels together. The course is very in-depth. They’ve completed 7 lessons that began with Zacharias’s visit from Gabriel telling him he was going to have a son, and went through May going to visit Elizabeth.

Each lesson is broken down into 18 parts, and the 7 lessons they’ve completed thus far make up 6% of the Gospels section of the program.

The main way new information is shared is through videos of people who are supposed to be from Bible times talking about the events and introducing clips of the section of scripture being read, or review activities, etc. There are also sometimes maps to click on that give additional information about relevant places and timelines that talk about important dates. In the latest lesson they showed works of art that focused on the section of the Bible they were studying.

Boo likes the videos and songs and almost always asks to do more after they finish a lesson. I love that she is entertained by the program and has fun learning the Bible. 🙂 Unfortunately she can’t read yet so there’s no way for her to go through the lessons alone as you frequently have to stop and answer questions or do activities that require being able to read fluently.

Artist is unfortunately not actually a big fan of the lessons. She says the videos seem cheesy and she doesn’t like the song they have to listen to in every lesson stating the 32 major events in the Gospels.

It seems like, so far, the little video dialogue sections are great for younger kids, while the maps, timelines, and other sections are geared toward older kids. I’m not sure what version of the Bible is used for the scripture passages, but they  use words like “shall” which was sometimes confusing to Boo who is used to NLT and other modern translations. The quizzes also require remembering all the little facts, like which town Elizabeth lived in, what the scripture reference is for Zacharias learning of Johns birth, and the date of that event. Even Artist, who is 9, kept getting stuck on some of the quiz questions, or review activities that required things like matching events with the date they occurred, putting towns like Bethany, Capernaum, and Cana in the right spots on a map, or matching verses in the New Testament with what Old Testament prophecy they fulfilled. Unfortunately that meant they had to work at a slower pace than they otherwise would have because they had to wait for me to be able to sit and go through the lessons with them so I could help, and even then I sometimes had to make multiple attempts in order to get the questions right. Oops.  It was nice to spend quality time together studying the Bible, though. I know Boo really liked when she was able to sit in my lap and get the added bonus of some extra Mommy time while she did the lessons. 🙂

The program didn’t end up being a great fit for something my girls could do for fun on their own like I’d hoped, but I would recommend it if you’re looking for an in-depth Bible program to go through with  your kids, especially if your older kids aren’t as opposed to content that appeals to younger kids as my Artist is (I’m pretty sure she thinks she’s 9 going on 18 😉 ).

Be sure to hop over to the Schoolhouse Review Crew link up to find out what other reviewers have to say about the online Bible curriculum from Veritas Press.