Route 66: Trip Through the 66 Books of the Bible

Roaming around the country to various homeschooling conventions, I've spent my share of time on historic Route 66. However, I've never seen the theme of Route 66 used in such a fun and productive way. Oftentimes Sunday School and Bible classes get in a rut of telling the same basic stories and doing the same activities over and over again. There's no danger of that when using this fun theme, because lessons and activities are provided for every book in the Bible. Students learn about each book (author, setting, etc.), as well as important stories and lessons within them. The book seems intended to be used in a Sunday school setting, with lessons divided into three 12-week units, but it could easily be used for a Bible class with just a student or two, or each activity page could also stand alone and be used to supplement other materials. Each lesson begins with a travel guide for teachers, which includes an overview of the featured book, key verses and stories in the featured book, warm-up questions, and ideas and suggestions to help with lesson planning. The lessons can require fairly small amounts of prep work, or you can go all out with the Route 66 theme; the material is pretty flexible. Three reproducible activity pages are included in each lesson, based on that particular lesson's book of the Bible. Activities can be completed with pencil or markers and include things like crosswords, word searches, hidden pictures, fill in the blanks, short-answer questions, and more. Fuel Up pages have short answer questions challenging students to read specific verses in the Bible to find the answers. Review pages (or Remember Where We've Been? sections) are provided at the end of each unit, which offer cumulative review questions for students to answer alone or in groups. The Route 66 theme helps students feel like they're really going on an adventure as they work their way through the 66 books of the Bible. There are even instructions and reproducible pages for making a Souvenir Scrapbook, which is a creative and fun way to keep track of what they learn. If you're looking for a fun way to educate your child or Sunday School group on each book of the Bible as well as the author, era, purpose, key verse, and the main characters and stories of each book, you should definitely take a look at this book. With all of the different components, your students are sure to get a solid overview of the Bible. By Christian Ditchfield, 192 pgs, pb. ~Rachel