God’s World News Review -TOS Crew #hsreviews

With the Crew Review team we recently were able to review God’s World News.  We received the Early Edition which is for grades 1-2.  It fit the best with our little school here considering I have 4 kiddos in that age range.  My kids love getting things in the mail just for them.  Which is great for this review as we got a year subscription free!

God’s World News has a variety of different levels.  They have 6 total spanning from God’s Big World for preschool and kindergarten to Trak for high school.  Each level is available for a years subscription for $28. You can get a full year subscription which includes 10 editions or a school year edition which only includes 7 editions.

With our subscription we received an online edition.  Through this you can get online and read the editions, back editions, and much more.  You can read biographies, print off activities, and so much more.  The kids can also access a kids website or kids zone to find fun things and games for them to do.  I’ve loved that there is a parents weekly email that gives me extra ideas for current events.  Up until getting the magazine, I’ve not done a current events curriculum with my kids.  We really haven’t talked of much in the way of current events at all.  I had thought they were too young.  Well I was wrong!  They love learning about the current events and I love the Godly Christian take on them that we get with God’s World News.

We also received a full sized map of the world to help us locate the locations of the articles.  This was so much fun!  We love finding out where in the big picture the events are taking place.

You may be asking yourself, so what’s the big deal with this?  So what, it’s a Christian magazine for kids?  But it’s so much more than just that!  Yes it is a Christian magazine designed for kids at each level.  But it helps them develop critical thinking skills.  I had never thought of working on critical thinking in my kids this little, but it makes sense to start it now so that they grow in their thinking as they learn.  It makes a lot of sense actually and I for one am very glad for this.  I had never heard of them before this review opportunity came up and it has been such a blessing for us.

My kids can now tell you some of what is going on in the world.  They may honestly know more about this stuff than I do.  I must admit I don’t follow the news.  I really don’t.  We have no television.  We do have internet, but I don’t do a lot of news reading.  I look at the weather, check my emails, do some facebook, and blog.  That’s the extent of my internet.  I’m not sure I really have time for all I do on here and have no clue how I’d fit news into my tight schedule.  So now I get my news too!  Current events as told to me by my kids who are reading it in their God’s World News!

Within each magazine are full color pictures related to each article.  The articles are short and in big enough print my kids aren’t intimidated by them.  It also connects a Bible verse to the stories.  One of the editions had pirate stories including their ships and how they are recovering one such ship.  The verse was Psalm 143:5 about remembering the days of old.  Yes!  That is what we are doing.  We are remembering and relearning from them.  Great stuff here!

So what we’re doing.  Read the magazine.  Do the activities in the magazine.  Go online.  Print off extra activities as well as answer keys so the kids can grade their own(they love this) and also read more.  If there is a person in our stories we look for his biography.  If there is an event in our story we look for related articles.  The online resources really are wonderful and so much more than just taking a peek at recent magazines.

And now I close with the highlight of my kids reading.  In the first issue we received, the first story was about the 150th Anniversary Reenactment of Gettysburg!  This was so neat because the kids could say that their Daddy was there!  No he wasn’t in the pictures or in the article specifically, but he was there!  And they love to reenact the Civil War with us so this was great.  This one little one page article with 3 pictures started a whole study for us.  We studied the battle.  We watched films from the reenactment.  What a great way to start off our subscription to this magazine!  They are forever in love now and keep waiting for another “blast from the past” that might feature their Daddy someday!

For more Crew Reviews go to the Main Crew Blog Page and see what other Crew reviewers had to say about this great magazine.  You’ll find reviews for all the different editions/levels so make sure you choose one that relates to your child’s age to check out.