Weave Your Word in Me- Bible Study for TWEENS Review

Bible and Bible study are a big part of our lives.  From the time the kids are little, we read the Bible to them, we study it together as a family nightly, and we encourage them to study and have personal Bible time on their own.  It's the "on their own" part that we find to be the hardest transition.  It is rather easy to impart Bible knowledge to someone when they are young, but to get them to dive into it on their own, well, that can be a challenge.  Especially at the picky age of TWEENS!

When I was introduced to the new Bible Study made especially for the Tween ages from Kid Niche Christian Books called Weave Your Word in Me-- Part 1, I was quite curious.  We have found studies in the past for older children that we are happy with, but that hard to reach tween age is different!  Yay for Homeschool Review Crew and the chance to review this new program!

Weave Your Word in Me, by Susan Case Bonner, is a 36 lesson Bible Study written around the Lord's Prayer and is meant for 4th-6th grade students.  It comes with a full color title page, and hole punched pages ready to be put into a three ring binder.  The Bible study guide can be purchased in 6 different translations and an answer key is located at the end of the study pages for easy and quick reference.

The study is further broken down into two parts- Part 1 (the one we reviewed) which covers God the Father and God the Son, and Part 2 which covers What God Wants and God the Holy Spirit. The table of contents is color coded and includes the theme for each unit, references which verse of the prayer, My Whole Self Before You is being studied.  The prayer, which is included in the first pages for you is a rhythmical prayer modeled after the Lord's Prayer.

Each individual lesson is 1-3 pages in length and includes colorful pictures to hold a young person's interest without crossing the line into being babyish.  The verse of the poem being studied is written in color in a box on the side of each page to help them remember what it is they are focusing their learning on.

Lessons begin with Bible reading and fill in the blank answers and other activities from the reading, as well as more in depth questions to get your child thinking. The lesson ends with a prayer that has blanks in it for your child to complete and then they can read as their own personal prayer to God.

In addition, there is an extra activity guide on the web site that has even more things to do.  From personal stories from the author to web links, to activities like stained glasses painting, this section will thrill the hands on children in your life or the ones that just want to dig in a little further.

What do we think?
Quite simply, I like it- a lot!  This is a beautiful product, well designed and well organized.  It is visually pleasing which I think is one easy way to either win over, or lose, a tween. While the information being studied is by no means simple, it is presented in a student-friendly way and does not require so much work they will consider it drudgery.

I love that the study focuses on God's Word, requiring the child look up various passages to be able to fill in the blanks, but also asks more in-depth questions like "what do you think?"  Other question forms include matching, true/false and putting events in the correct order.

I would have to say my favorite part of the study is actually the prayer at the end of each lesson.  At this particular age of tweens, they are just beginning to become more shy with their peers and even family, and more careful with their words, for fear of how they will sound or be perceived.  Teaching prayer is one of the times that we have seen this in particular in our house, and teaching a child HOW to pray can be tricky.  Providing a basic framework for each prayer and allowing a child to fill in with their particulars I think is an ingenious way to model what prayer looks like in a gentle, non-threatening way.

So, you may say, you do not have a tween currently, Michele! You are right!  Being the Product Manager of the Homeschool Review Crew has its privileges and I am thrilled that we could be blessed by a copy of this study regardless.  That being said, CJ and I, age 10 (him, not me!) did do a few weeks of this study together to check it out.  He is a Bible whiz and loves to look up verses, so we walked through a few lessons together.  Here is what I found-

With a little help, he could most certainly keep up, but he wasn't at the deep self-examination stage yet.  He did say he liked how it looked and what was being studied and liked having a study that seemed more “grown up “ from his current ones.  

I think in a few years, when we have hit that tween stage, he will be more than ready to conquer this study on his own!

And after all, isn't that what we want?  To be able to transition from parent-led study to child-led study?  I think Weave Your Word in Me-- Part 1 is perfect for that!