Positive Action for Christ

Our family recently received a 3rd grade Bible curriculum from Positive Action for Christ, and it is all about "Growing With God." The curriculum is divided into five units.

Unit One: The Bible - Our Manual for Spiritual Growth

Unit Two: The Life of Abraham

Unit Three: The Life of Jacob

Unit Four: The Life of Joseph

Unit Five: The Life of Daniel

Over and over in the teacher's manual I read: The goal of this curriculum is to help "students to learn how to handle God's Word for themselves." For example, one of the activities in the student book asks the children to look up five passages and write down the words that describe the Word of God. As a home educator, I strive to challenge my children to think independently and critically for themselves before discussing and/or writing about what they've learned. I desire for them to read God's Word and understand they can study and apply it to their own lives.

I also appreciate how the goal of their Scripture memory program is to "help students memorize passages of Scripture in context rather than isolated verses taken out of context."

I do understand that this curriculum is primarily used in the Christian school and Sunday school setting, and that is why I don't love everything about the student book. The student books is very "schoolish." Let me explain what I mean by that. A lot of the assignments are simply time filling, busy work activities. The key to any curriculum is application and you must learn before you can discuss and apply what you've learned, and I don't believe puzzles and dot-to-dot activities show meaningful and true learning. Completion of a curriculum also does not equal application. However, I do know that often-times busy work is needed in the school setting, but we find them unnecessary in our home.

The bottom line is I believe this is a Biblically sound curriculum with wonderful goals, but I find some of the activities in the student book to simply be busy work rather than truly thought provoking challenges to encourage the student to dig deeper. However, this can be done as a family through discussion and encouraging one another to apply the lessons to their lives.

Price:

The teacher's manual is priced at $33.95 for a hard copy, and CD-Rom format is $19.95.

The student book is $12.95.

A music CD is also available to go along with this curriculum and is priced at $9.95.

Please click HERE for ordering information.

Many other TOS Crew members received a Bible curriculum from Positive Action for Christ on various grade levels. If you'd like to read more Crew member reviews, please click HERE and go to the blog.

*This curriculum was received free for review purposes only*