For anyone who is looking for a program that helps you teach all the academics (minus math) while still keeping God's word as your focus, Student of the Word does it.

I'm a home educating mom of four. This year I have children in Gr 7, 4, 1, and a 4 year old. We've basically been home educating since my oldest was ready to learn. Over the years I've learned many things. The most important being "all the academics are important but we cannot allow them to crowd out our study of God's Word and who He wants us and our children to become." Prior to using Student of the Word (SOW), we would set our goals to include the Lord in our day but it seemed too easy to allow the "busyness" of our everyday life steer us away. Then my sister came across SOW a couple years ago and it has been such a blessing to us ever since. It's wonderful to not just be "doing school" anymore. We are now combining the things that God says are important (godly character, biblical history, understanding what He is saying to us through the Bible) with the things people say are important (English, math, science, etc..).

This will be our third year and there are still days when I am tempted to fall back into the old "get your math, English and spelling done and call it a day". The neat thing about SOW is that even when we do do this we're still including God's Word in our day since our English and Spelling assignments focus on the key scriptures for the week. God is so good to have directed us to a curriculum that makes it easier for my husband and I to raise up godly children.

Something else I've realized is that by using God's Word as our main textbook, we show our children how important studying the Bible is. It is not just something we should stick into our day only when we have time. What an important thing for them to learn at a young age; this will benefit them for a life time. Thank you Lord for giving this curriculum to David and Merle and for them being willing to share it with the rest of us.

Joy P. Ontario, Canada

This past Fall, I was really pleased with how the kids responded to studying the Bible. We raced through most of Esther in one sitting and they laughed at the end, when the tables turn, and Haman has to carry out his own plan on Mordecai. A book like that is easy to remember since it reads like the plot to a really great movie, but Ezekiel has much more to chew and swallow. We studied it in depth which I cannot ever remember doing in my lifetime. I had read it many times, but studying it with the kids gave a it whole lot more scope than a simple reading ever could. I know we could study this any time, using any Bible study, but having it be tied in with school work is a blessing because it gets done.

One of the hardest things for our homeschool is getting all the reading done. Making the kids do it, or doing it myself takes time that I don't always think I have, but I've had much encouragement from the other SOWers in the area. I am willing to admit too, that a few reluctant readers in the family are good for the teacher because it means she has to PARTICIPATE in the study herself. I guess this curriculum was just meant to be a family affair.

Yolanda H. Ontario, Canada