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.
LearnBop offers personalized math support for grades 3-12. It gives your child an adaptive learning experience to meet her right where she is and includes instructional videos and built in step-by-step help for every problem to teach her how to solve them, rather than just testing her knowledge. 🙂
When Artist first logged in, she got to set up her own profile and choose a “character.” One of the options was fashion designer which is perfect since that’s what she wants to be when she grows up (while also being a rock star and living on a farm). LearnBop then customized her experience with a special background and a specific “Math Power.” I love the way they emphasized the fact that she really does need to master math skills for what she wants to do in life, as opposed to it just being a subject she’s forced to do for school. 🙂
I also love that LearnBop is filled with positive reinforcement. Artist earns achievements pretty much every day, as they’re given for things like watching the instructional videos before starting, and completing at least 10 “Bops” (problems). The achievements even point out what positive character trait was required to earn the achievement such as patience, persistence, and focus. And there are lots of fun inspirational quotes with whimsical pictures! Yay! 🙂
Another of my favorite LearnBop features is the parent dashboard. It provides ALL THE INFORMATION about Artist’s progress. There’s a general overview of what unit she’s on, what step in that unit, and what percentage mastery she has on that step. I can also click into any step and see how many problems she’s solved in it, how many she got correct on the first try, and a graph showing her progression. From there, I can click into any individual problem and see her work on it including how long she spent, how many attempts she made, and each step she went through if she used the step-by-step help. 
Right now Boo loves to sit next to me and tell me what to build in 
And I really love how many skills my girls are practicing all the time when we play. From problem solving how to keep from falling to your death when exploring underground caverns, or how to create a way to reach your destination, or…well, there’s LOTS of problem solving required, actually. There are also lots of opportunities for kids to work on attention and memory. For example, there are quests that require you to collect numerous items then go back and turn them in, and when you want new armor you have to determine which materials are required to craft it, gather them, and then do the actual crafting.
In order to keep track of all the supplies you gather and whatnot you have to be super organized…sometimes annoyingly so for a type B personality like myself, so yes, I’ve been working on improving my organizational skills.
I’ve shared before about my oldest daughter’s sensory struggles, but I’ve not really mentioned the sensory integration difficulties my second oldest, Boo, has been contending with. All the ways it affects her daily life (and my sanity/coffee addiction – well maybe just the sanity) is a post for another day.
My main hope in using Forbrain was that it could help Boo with learning to read, because at six and a half years old she’s still struggling to even recognize all the letters in the alphabet – she knows most, but the tricky ones like b, d, m and w still stump her. I’m sure this is partly because she’s a super imaginative free-spirit and right now would much rather turn the letter S she’s supposed to be writing into a picture of a ballerina, or better yet just run around in the backyard catching grasshoppers, than learn to read.
I started having her spent part of the time that she wears the headset each day “reading” a book that she has memorized, like Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? and encouraging her to focus on trying to say the words clearly and correctly. We actually had a breakthrough the other day when she was wearing the headset. She was saying “chrildren” so I broke it down into syllables. She was great with “chil” and “dren” separately, but kept saying “chrildren” when she put them together. It was pretty much the exact scene from Friends where Phoebe tries to teach Joey French. But then, all of a sudden, she got it right! She can now say “children” and it’s fantastic! 😀
I plan to keep having Boo use the headset every day. I’m betting that she’ll continue to speak more and more clearly and confidently. Hopefully before long she’ll no longer feel like she doesn’t want to play with the other girls in the neighborhood because some of them called her a baby, I’m guessing at least in part because of the way she talks. 🙁 (Which, by the way, made me want to punch those girls in the throat! I didn’t, of course, but I wanted to.)