The Veritas Approach to Bible

How important is it that your children are biblically literate?

The most important thing to teach a child, the Bible, is often the most neglected. We know this from more than 20 years of data. Parents think that children will learn the Bible at church or from hearing it read on occasion. Family devotions and prayer time are good things, but children need more. Children must learn the biblical narrative. They need to know what is where in the Bible. They should know when biblical events happened, too. It should be second nature to them.

How well do your children know the stories of Noah, Nehemiah, Esther, Jacob, Paul, and Peter? Do they know them better than Mickey Mouse or SpongeBob SquarePants? Can they name the Twelve Tribes of Israel? Veritas Bible students can. Imagine a 7-year-old rattling off the Twelve Tribes as easily as naming the four Gospels. When was the Exodus? When did Solomon live? The importance of knowing the biblical stories and when they happened can’t be overstated.

When we started our venture in classical education in 1992, we did it to raise the bar of K–12 education. We did it for our children and for yours. We now have another, more focused concern—biblical illiteracy in Christian families.

The development of our first project, the grammar school history program, was followed by our Bible curriculum. We didn’t want children to see the events of Scripture isolated from history. We wanted knowledge of history and knowledge of the Bible to be integrated. When reading the story of Joseph, students should know that he lived just prior to the Hyksos’ invasion of Egypt. When reading about Jesus’ early life, students should understand the Roman world into which He was born.

The Veritas Bible program integrates with the first two series of Veritas History: Old Testament and Ancient Egypt and New Testament, Greece, and Rome. Children can see how the various timelines fit together. Like Veritas History, Veritas Bible is a five-year program, 2nd–6th grades. Each year covers 32 events, 160 events in all.

Grade	Bible Course	Overlap with History
2nd	Genesis to Joshua	Old Testament and Ancient Egypt
3rd	Judges to Kings	Old Testament and Ancient Egypt
4th	Chronicles to Malachi	Old Testament and Ancient Egypt
5th	The Gospels	New Testament, Greece, and Rome
6th	Acts to Revelation	New Testament, Greece, and Rome

 

In the grammar stage, we help children memorize all this information so they can access it throughout their lives. For each of the 160 events, they memorize a date and a Scripture reference so they can find it in the Bible. Memorization isn’t enough, though. We want to bring the word to life so that children embrace what they are learning. God uses stories to tell us about our history and the world He created. We do the same thing in our Bible program.

Before beginning Veritas Bible’s five-year program, children go through two biblical surveys: the Old Testament in Kindergarten and the New Testament in 1st grade. This abbreviated telling of the story of God’s word is perfect for their age and prepares them for the depth of study to follow.

Join us in rebuilding a biblically literate generation.

The Veritas Approach to Bible

How important is it that your children are biblically literate?

The most important thing to teach a child, the Bible, is often the most neglected. We know this from more than 20 years of data. Parents think that children will learn the Bible at church or from hearing it read on occasion. Family devotions and prayer time are good things, but children need more. Children must learn the biblical narrative. They need to know what is where in the Bible. They should know when biblical events happened, too. It should be second nature to them.

How well do your children know the stories of Noah, Nehemiah, Esther, Jacob, Paul, and Peter? Do they know them better than Mickey Mouse or SpongeBob SquarePants? Can they name the Twelve Tribes of Israel? Veritas Bible students can. Imagine a 7-year-old rattling off the Twelve Tribes as easily as naming the four Gospels. When was the Exodus? When did Solomon live? The importance of knowing the biblical stories and when they happened can’t be overstated.

When we started our venture in classical education in 1992, we did it to raise the bar of K–12 education. We did it for our children and for yours. We now have another, more focused concern—biblical illiteracy in Christian families.

The development of our first project, the grammar school history program, was followed by our Bible curriculum. We didn’t want children to see the events of Scripture isolated from history. We wanted knowledge of history and knowledge of the Bible to be integrated. When reading the story of Joseph, students should know that he lived just prior to the Hyksos’ invasion of Egypt. When reading about Jesus’ early life, students should understand the Roman world into which He was born.

The Veritas Bible program integrates with the first two series of Veritas History: Old Testament and Ancient Egypt and New Testament, Greece, and Rome. Children can see how the various timelines fit together. Like Veritas History, Veritas Bible is a five-year program, 2nd–6th grades. Each year covers 32 events, 160 events in all.

Grade	Bible Course	Overlap with History
2nd	Genesis to Joshua	Old Testament and Ancient Egypt
3rd	Judges to Kings	Old Testament and Ancient Egypt
4th	Chronicles to Malachi	Old Testament and Ancient Egypt
5th	The Gospels	New Testament, Greece, and Rome
6th	Acts to Revelation	New Testament, Greece, and Rome

 

In the grammar stage, we help children memorize all this information so they can access it throughout their lives. For each of the 160 events, they memorize a date and a Scripture reference so they can find it in the Bible. Memorization isn’t enough, though. We want to bring the word to life so that children embrace what they are learning. God uses stories to tell us about our history and the world He created. We do the same thing in our Bible program.

Before beginning Veritas Bible’s five-year program, children go through two biblical surveys: the Old Testament in Kindergarten and the New Testament in 1st grade. This abbreviated telling of the story of God’s word is perfect for their age and prepares them for the depth of study to follow.

Join us in rebuilding a biblically literate generation.

The Veritas Approach to Bible

How important is it that your children are biblically literate?

The most important thing to teach a child, the Bible, is often the most neglected. We know this from more than 20 years of data. Parents think that children will learn the Bible at church or from hearing it read on occasion. Family devotions and prayer time are good things, but children need more. Children must learn the biblical narrative. They need to know what is where in the Bible. They should know when biblical events happened, too. It should be second nature to them.

How well do your children know the stories of Noah, Nehemiah, Esther, Jacob, Paul, and Peter? Do they know them better than Mickey Mouse or SpongeBob SquarePants? Can they name the Twelve Tribes of Israel? Veritas Bible students can. Imagine a 7-year-old rattling off the Twelve Tribes as easily as naming the four Gospels. When was the Exodus? When did Solomon live? The importance of knowing the biblical stories and when they happened can’t be overstated.

When we started our venture in classical education in 1992, we did it to raise the bar of K–12 education. We did it for our children and for yours. We now have another, more focused concern—biblical illiteracy in Christian families.

The development of our first project, the grammar school history program, was followed by our Bible curriculum. We didn’t want children to see the events of Scripture isolated from history. We wanted knowledge of history and knowledge of the Bible to be integrated. When reading the story of Joseph, students should know that he lived just prior to the Hyksos’ invasion of Egypt. When reading about Jesus’ early life, students should understand the Roman world into which He was born.

The Veritas Bible program integrates with the first two series of Veritas History: Old Testament and Ancient Egypt and New Testament, Greece, and Rome. Children can see how the various timelines fit together. Like Veritas History, Veritas Bible is a five-year program, 2nd–6th grades. Each year covers 32 events, 160 events in all.

Grade	Bible Course	Overlap with History
2nd	Genesis to Joshua	Old Testament and Ancient Egypt
3rd	Judges to Kings	Old Testament and Ancient Egypt
4th	Chronicles to Malachi	Old Testament and Ancient Egypt
5th	The Gospels	New Testament, Greece, and Rome
6th	Acts to Revelation	New Testament, Greece, and Rome

 

In the grammar stage, we help children memorize all this information so they can access it throughout their lives. For each of the 160 events, they memorize a date and a Scripture reference so they can find it in the Bible. Memorization isn’t enough, though. We want to bring the word to life so that children embrace what they are learning. God uses stories to tell us about our history and the world He created. We do the same thing in our Bible program.

Before beginning Veritas Bible’s five-year program, children go through two biblical surveys: the Old Testament in Kindergarten and the New Testament in 1st grade. This abbreviated telling of the story of God’s word is perfect for their age and prepares them for the depth of study to follow.

Join us in rebuilding a biblically literate generation.

The Veritas Approach to Bible

How important is it that your children are biblically literate?

The most important thing to teach a child, the Bible, is often the most neglected. We know this from more than 20 years of data. Parents think that children will learn the Bible at church or from hearing it read on occasion. Family devotions and prayer time are good things, but children need more. Children must learn the biblical narrative. They need to know what is where in the Bible. They should know when biblical events happened, too. It should be second nature to them.

How well do your children know the stories of Noah, Nehemiah, Esther, Jacob, Paul, and Peter? Do they know them better than Mickey Mouse or SpongeBob SquarePants? Can they name the Twelve Tribes of Israel? Veritas Bible students can. Imagine a 7-year-old rattling off the Twelve Tribes as easily as naming the four Gospels. When was the Exodus? When did Solomon live? The importance of knowing the biblical stories and when they happened can’t be overstated.

When we started our venture in classical education in 1992, we did it to raise the bar of K–12 education. We did it for our children and for yours. We now have another, more focused concern—biblical illiteracy in Christian families.

The development of our first project, the grammar school history program, was followed by our Bible curriculum. We didn’t want children to see the events of Scripture isolated from history. We wanted knowledge of history and knowledge of the Bible to be integrated. When reading the story of Joseph, students should know that he lived just prior to the Hyksos’ invasion of Egypt. When reading about Jesus’ early life, students should understand the Roman world into which He was born.

The Veritas Bible program integrates with the first two series of Veritas History: Old Testament and Ancient Egypt and New Testament, Greece, and Rome. Children can see how the various timelines fit together. Like Veritas History, Veritas Bible is a five-year program, 2nd–6th grades. Each year covers 32 events, 160 events in all.

Grade	Bible Course	Overlap with History
2nd	Genesis to Joshua	Old Testament and Ancient Egypt
3rd	Judges to Kings	Old Testament and Ancient Egypt
4th	Chronicles to Malachi	Old Testament and Ancient Egypt
5th	The Gospels	New Testament, Greece, and Rome
6th	Acts to Revelation	New Testament, Greece, and Rome

 

In the grammar stage, we help children memorize all this information so they can access it throughout their lives. For each of the 160 events, they memorize a date and a Scripture reference so they can find it in the Bible. Memorization isn’t enough, though. We want to bring the word to life so that children embrace what they are learning. God uses stories to tell us about our history and the world He created. We do the same thing in our Bible program.

Before beginning Veritas Bible’s five-year program, children go through two biblical surveys: the Old Testament in Kindergarten and the New Testament in 1st grade. This abbreviated telling of the story of God’s word is perfect for their age and prepares them for the depth of study to follow.

Join us in rebuilding a biblically literate generation.

What could be better than reading the New Testament in the original language?

While the study of Greek offers this wonderful possibility, it also offers many other benefits to students: it develops grammar abilities, it expands memory skills, and it gives students access to English words that come from Greek. These skills are primary when it comes to students developing into articulate and thoughtful adults.

The grammar skills that Greek provides come from learning a highly formalized language built around explicit grammar forms. Greek is built on inflected forms that use declensions and conjugations. This kind of structured grammar instills a sense of order in language and shows students that there is a rational way to communicate in a language. This foundational concept also applies to English as students see similar concepts and ideas in the grammatical forms of English.

Greek also offers students the ability to develop memory skills. While all students have memory abilities, it is important to continue to sharpen these skills so students can apply their memories to a variety of materials both written and visual. Linguistic memory training is particularly powerful as it enables students to practice remembering words and meanings. This comes through memorizing vocabulary and grammar forms. The ability to remember a variety of words and then select the right word from memory is a key skill that empowers students to speak clearly and persuasively.

The study of Greek also opens the world of English roots to the student. While many words come from Latin cognates, Greek has also made a wide impact on English. Words like eureka, euthanasia, misogyny, hippopotamus, and many others come from Greek. Knowing the original Greek spelling and form enables the student to remember these words, understand what they mean, and employ them in society today. There also countless other biblical words that come from Greek and are used throughout the Christian world: synagogue, logos, baptism, prophet, Philip, angel, etc. The study of Greek opens the world of Scripture and theology to students of all ages.

While language skills start in a child in the grammar stage, language study at all levels is beneficial because it continues to hone grammar and language skills that feed into a student’s logic and rhetoric abilities. Greek, like Latin, is a key language in this area.

This course is recommended for students after taking Latin, but students can also go straight into this course. It is recommended for ages 12 and up.

The Veritas Approach to Literature

Reading great literature is an important part of a child’s education at Veritas. Reading literature that has endured the test of time, the classics, is important for many reasons:

• Books create warm emotional bonds between adults and kids when they read books together.
• Books help kids develop basic language skills and profoundly expand their vocabularies.
• Books are interactive; they demand that kids think. Fiction and nonfiction books widen our consciousness.
• Books develop critical thinking skills.
• Books develop and nourish kids’ imaginations, expanding their worlds.
• Books let kids try on the world before they have to go out into it.
• Books help us to understand ourselves, to find out who we are.
• Books help children and adults to open up, to move beyond self-absorption and connect to other people.
• Books answer questions.
• Books create questions.
• Books provide the opportunity to share cultural experiences.
• Books entertain and offer a great escape.
• Books inspire us to dream.[1]

Children love learning from the rich stories of the past. At Veritas, they will learn to love language and expression, they will understand the art of storytelling. Children who are immersed in good literature as young children develop creative minds and an enjoyment of lifelong reading. Who doesn’t remember Charlotte’s Web, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Tom Sawyer, and The Chronicles of Narnia with great fondness?

Kindergarten and first grade start slowly and build as students mature. By second grade, they’ll read about 10 books a year. Most are children’s classic literature. Veritas’s comprehension guides are used to teach children how to read for comprehension, fluency, learn how to discern the plot, who the characters are, and much more. Most of all, literature courses inspire a love of reading. Fun, hands on projects are used to help inculcate such a love.

The literature program is enhanced by students’ accelerated mastery of language through studies in Latin and Grammar and Writing. These advantages translate into reading books earlier than many of their peers and before many educators think possible.

This benefit is further leveraged as they move beyond grammar school and into studying the Great Books through the Omnibus curriculum.

When you think about it, literature, even for the young student, is much more than just reading.

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” – Dr. Seuss

[1]“Why Do Kids Need Books?” The National Children’s Book and Literacy Alliance, http://thencbla.org/advocacy/why-do-kids-need-books/. Accessed 6 Mar. 2019.

The Veritas Approach to History

A history program was how Veritas began. After reading Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning, our interest in classical education from a Christian worldview was piqued. While building a classical school and looking for curriculum, we realized the value of teaching young children a comprehensive timeline of history. We wanted to connect it to learning the content of the Bible, as well. (Learn more about that at the Bible Course Options pages.)

Children in 2nd grade are ready to start learning a timeline. Before that, some groundwork should be done. In Kindergarten, family histories and holidays can orient children to the basics of a timeline. In 1st grade, students are taught a simplified version of American history to take advantage of their growing understanding of place and time.

Beginning in 2nd grade, students are ready for a formal study of history. We begin in the beginning, from creation. Each year from 2nd to 6th grades, students will study 32 events. In those five years, they’ll have learned 160 events. Our approach has students regularly reviewing what they’ve learned, too. This works remarkably well because, as classical educators point out, it’s how they are wired. At this time in their development, they love learning through memorization.

The five-year history cycle is described in the chart below:

 

Grade	Series
2nd	Old Testament and Ancient Egypt
3rd	New Testament, Greece, and Rome
4th	Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Reformation
5th	Explorers to 1815
6th	1815 to the Present

 

After five years, students know dates and crucial facts about 160 events. Some programs fail to teach more than key events’ dates. Students may learn that the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79 buried Pompeii. Without more details, though, they may not realize its connection to the New Testament. Similarly, students may learn that World War I raged from 1914 to 1918 and World War II from 1939 to 1945. Without more details, students will miss learning basic differences of how the wars were fought (their aircraft and weapons, for example). Missing those kinds of details, students won’t see how the wars’ key features fit into a larger historical context. Laurie and I will never forget visiting the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum when our oldest son was 12. He quickly recognized which aircraft belonged to which war.

While ideal to start at the beginning, it’s not necessary. In a homeschool with two or more children, you might consider teaching everyone at the same level. Integrated learning for art projects, field trips, etc. can be more effective this way. If younger children start after the first year, they can simply circle back to the beginning later. Children who have less than five years to complete the cycle can complete it in a condensed form. They can move through more than one series per year. They spend less time learning details, but they commit the core timeline to memory. We also have an option, called History Transition that condenses all five years into one.

Our approach to history in grammar school has served many students well. Maybe that’s why it’s one of the most awarded programs around.