Veritas Press ~ VeritasBible.com Family Subscription (Review)

My (almost) Nine-year old has really been enjoying our latest review item, a one year  VeritasBible.com Family Subscription from Veritas Press. VeritasBible.com is interesting, and I have discovered it is also quite memorable, which is always a good thing when speaking about a Bible Study resource. And while I'm not fond of superlatives like "The Most Exciting..." I can say that this may one be one of the most exciting ways to learn the Bible.

PROS and How it Works
VeritasBible.com is a mostly independent learning Bible Curriculum, which means that once the student is logged in, they should be able to continue with little input from mom or dad. There are currently three courses to choose from (With more on the way):

• Genesis to Joshua
• Judges to Kings
• The Gospels

I let my son choose where he wanted to spend his time, for the most part, and
he chose The Gospels (we had checked out Judges to Kings during a free 14 day trial period prior to our review, but since the progress wasn't saved from that time, and he didn't want to do it again right away, he decided to check out something new).

Each course covers 32 major events over the grouping of books. The events each have approximately 4 lessons, indicated by circles on a progress map, a portion of which can be seen on the right. The flags with stars include lessons with graded quizzes for the event, the smaller flags are regular lessons, and the circles with no flags are lessons that haven't been completed.

The lessons include a live action sort of "narration" portion that introduces the lesson and segues between the other sections of the lesson, which may include maps, reviews, "Bible Cards," Review quizzes and games, and the Gospel Song. There is a little set of three bars in the upper left corner that will bring you to a list of the activities in each lesson as shown in the screenshots above.

Here are some more screenshots from one of the units, showing some of the activities:

The Gospels begins with the following events:
Zechariah learns of John's Birth
Gabriel Tells Mary of the Incarnation
Birth of John the Baptist
Birth of Christ
Simeon Meets the Christ
The Visit of the Magi
and it continues....

If your child learns the whole Gospel Song, they will have all learned all 32 events in this course. Pretty nifty that!

CONS and Suggestions
By and large, we have been very happy with this Bible course, in spite of a few snags (mostly tech-related ~ browsers that weren't happy and an older computer that had issues at times with the graphics ~ see below).

Egads! What is that???  

I expect NO ONE ELSE will end up with a screen that looks like this:

It would seem my computer has age/memory/graphics issues in certain browsers...

I would have taken a screenshot of the game loaded correctly with clear graphics in another browser (Fun times with older computers), but we ran into another glitch that wouldn't let me jump to that part of the lesson again ~ it seems that previous sections in various lessons are randomly locked (or not) when complete, which seems odd to me. However, let me assure you that the game does NOT have all those weird black blocky lines, etc... it's a clear scene with various obstacles (Rocks, animals, tents, trees, wells, etc)

While the glitchy-ness appears to be more an issue with my particular computer and/or internet set-up, it does seem that there may be a few bugs to work out regarding re-locked lessons. And a side-note, in case you do run into a problem ~ with all the upgrading of hardware, software, and operating systems that our computers require, one of the easiest fixes may be to restart your browser and/or possibly your computer. :)

OK, enough about my ancient computer, as your circumstances may be very different...

I do feel the need to say that I wasn't overly impressed with some of the specifics used to "review" the prophets~ I felt there may have been something more significant to point out about Isaiah besides the fact that he prophesied naked for three years... (Really? hmmm...) and although Hosea's unfaithful wife is a main theme, surely there may have been something else to choose as a descriptor? However, that was just one slide/quiz so not a game-changer.

A suggestion as VeritasBible.com continues to be tweaked would be the ability for the parent to drop their student in to *any* lesson, instead of being tied to the path. That would give us the ability to tie Bible in to unit studies or Sunday School lesson reinforcement. There also isn't currently a "Scope and Sequence to the course, but I understand that it follows the Veritas Press Bible Flashcards that are available to purchase separately.

One more constructive suggestion would be to have a parent dashboard that would show progress and the graded quizzes~ that could be very helpful for parents who need portfolio material. It is possible to print a report directly after it is taken and graded, but if you miss that opportunity, the results seem to be inaccessible.

More PROS
Each lesson takes approximately 20-40 minutes ~ a boon for the homeschool mom who needs some time for attending to other students, or to get dinner started, or do her own devotions.

My son enjoys going through the lessons, and will sometimes ask to do more than one. Love it when something captures his attention and makes it fun to learn!

Information that he has learned through VeritasBible.com has come up in his conversation, so he is definitely retaining the particulars.

VeritasBible.com is a "win" in my book.

Not So Nutty Nitty Gritty 

• Company: Veritas Press 
• Product: VeritasBible.com Family Subscription
• Ages: Veritas recommends 2nd -6th grade
• Price: 
• Single Student $9.95/month or $99 yearly
• Family (Up to five students) $19.95/month or $199 yearly

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Blessings~