Bible-Based History Curriculum and Resources

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Ways of Teaching History With the Bible

Teaching History in a way that incorporates biblical events and/or with a biblical worldview is very common in homeschooling. There are also great curriculums and resources available to help you in that endeavor. There are three basic ways you can teach history using the Bible:

• Just read the Bible and dig into history as you go
• Use a curriculum designed just to follow the biblical timeline
• Use a curriculum that incorporates biblical events

You will find that different curriculum have different ways of teaching the biblical timeline. As Christians, we take how we teach history very seriously and desire that it is from a biblical worldview. It is the story of humanity! We know it is also the story of God and His people. Do your research and read ahead when possible before you fully commit to a curriculum.

Our Bible-Based History Curriculum

We are still pretty early in our homeschool journey, with kids all 7 and under. A year or so ago, we ventured into history as a subject and tried out Story of the World. We quickly decided it was not appropriate the youngest kids yet. Our kids being so young, we decided to delay taking on a full history curriculum this year and instead use the Bible as our history text.

I learned about Bible Road Trip a few years ago and was just waiting for the right time to try it. Bible Road Trip is a 3-year survey of the Bible that can be used by homeschool families or for family devotions and study. We have been using it this year as the backbone of our homeschool and I’m so glad we made that choice!

*** UPDATE: We still use Bible Road Trip as our Bible curriculum and love it! We have recently started with American history using Beautiful Feet Books and could’t be happier!

One of our favorite video series happens to be a great teaching tool for biblical history! Bible Road Trip uses it as well. Check out What’s in the Bible! We own the entire set. 

I have already touched on how we use Bible Road Trip for language arts and math. The main benefit for us with BRT, other than of course studying the Bible, is the history and geography learning opportunities it provides.

Part of the beauty of Bible Road Trip is that you can use any portion of it for something as simple as family devotions, or take on more. We go big or go home 🙂 and do nearly all of it and then some. While we may do something different with it in the future, for now it is the bulk of our core curriculum.

 

Here’s what we do with Bible Road Trip every week: 

• Read a lot of scripture
• Read about cultures, archeology, events, etc. in the Bible
• Learn the books of the Bible and the history behind them
• Memory verses (there’s one for every lesson, but we pick and choose for now)
• Learn about a current world culture and pray for them
• Complete notebooking pages for each chapter

We make the most of our Bible Road Trip experience by adding some activities to fill out our homeschool program. For example:

• Use some of the weekly the readings for family devotions at mealtimes
• Rabbit trail on whatever historical events the kids find particularly interesting
• Do studies of historical characters of the Bible using these Bible character study tools
• Use the resources at SusanEvans.org to make biblical history fun with games, tutorials, videos and more! 
• Set up a timeline book and wall timeline (We are using HISTORY Through the Ages and GrapeVine timelines)
• Make copywork from memory verses or prayer points
• Use notebooking pages for handwriting and spelling practice
• Look up the location of the cultures we are learning about on the map and globe and discuss geographical features

More Great Bible-Based Homeschool Curricula and Resources

As you can see, there are many ways to use the Bible for teaching history!  Here are more great resources to consider.

• Mystery of History – we will eventually be using this as our main history text. Want to try it out first? Download the Kindle version of Volume 1 Quarter 1 for $3.99 (See below)
• Timelines for Mystery of History (among other options) from Homeschool in the Woods
• GrapeVine Timelines – timelines for different topics
• Tapestry of Grace – A popular unit-based classical history curriculum
• Veritas Press History is a great curriculum that has self-paced courses available
• Biblioplan is a four-year Bible-based classical history curriculum
• Notgrass History teaches from a biblical perspective with narratives, documents, and more
• Heart of Dakota and My Father’s World both have Bible-based history elements

 

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