I received a complimentary copy of this book for my honest review. All opinions are 100% my own.
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Do you like to see your kids reading God’s Word and having fun while they do it? If so, Danika Cooley’s newest children’s workbook is something you will be interested in.
Bible Investigators: Creation is a workbook that guides kids, ages 8-12, through the Bible teaching them about God and His Creation.
Through their learning, Mrs. Cooley aims to teach kids how to investigate and study the Bible for themselves.
Kids gather “clues” from their Bibles, and then are asked to write and apply their knowledge in the many “My Investigator Notebook” blocks located after each text section and after each puzzle.
The workbook chapter text and the Bible truths they discover help the kids figure out the variety of fun puzzles and activities throughout the book.
Along with the fun puzzles, it’s really nice to read Mrs. Cooley’s lesson text since she writes in a really easy-to-understand, conversational tone. She’s gives the kids praise for jobs well done and gives them affirmation for getting things completed.
Bible Investigators: Creation Workbook Content
Bible Investigators: Creation is made up of 30 chapters divided into six sections. Each chapter is 9-10 pages long and consists of :
- Text to read
- My Investigators Notebook empty blocks
- Puzzle
- My Investigators Notebook empty blocks
- Puzzle
- My Investigators Notebook empty blocks
- etc.
Bible Investigators: Creation Lesson Content
I really like how Mrs. Cooley has her workbook lesson content designed. Her six sections are:
- God Created Everything in the Beginning
- The Story of Creation
- God Made Me
- Our Creator God
- God’s Good Creator Gifts
- God’s Great Salvation Plan
Section One: God Created Everything in the Beginning
This section emphasis the fact that God was there in the beginning and that He created everything from nothing and it was all wonderful.
Section Two: The Story of Creation
Section two walks the kids through the first six days of Creation, excluding man.
Section Three: God Made Me
God creating people is the topic of section three including the fact that God has a purpose for creating each one of us.
Section Four: Our Creator God
God’s attributes are studied along with discussing the function of Jesus and the Holy Spirit.
Section Five: God’s Good Creator Gifts
This section looks at God’s gifts of marriage, family, the Lord’s Day, and His blessings on us.
Section Six: God’s Great Salvation Plan
Section six defines sin and kids learn about Adam and Eve’s sin in the Garden of Eden.
God’s greatest gift of salvation to us is mentioned numerous times throughout the book, and it is studied more in this section.
Kids are taught that we are all sinners, and we can’t spend eternity with God unless we believe that God sent His son, Jesus, to die for us. His perfect blood was the payment for our sin.
Jesus didn’t stay dead but arose from the dead three days later and was seen by many witnesses.
Mrs. Cooley stresses the importance of believing in Jesus and what He did for us, and then telling others also.
Let’s Look at the My Investigator Notebook Blocks
The My Investigator Notebook blocks are located after each text reading section and after each puzzle. Sometimes there are more than one of these writing blocks in a row.
The purpose of the My Investigator Notebook blocks is to get the kids to think about the topic or question, and then to draw, design, write, and/or follow the specific direction above each block.
The blocks are labeled with “Observe”, “Interpret”, and “Apply”, plus the direction the reader is to follow and do.
Bible Investigators: Creation Puzzles
I am a puzzle person, so when I heard about this book I was very excited. There are 90 puzzles total, and they really make you think.
I’ve done about half of them already, and I didn’t even look at the answers at the back of the book! Aren’t you proud of me?
Wordsearch Puzzles
The wordsearch puzzles are fun and I found them interesting. I’ve never done wordsearch puzzles that are formed into a shape. For example there’s a butterfly shaped puzzle and a candle shaped wordsearch.
Yes, the puzzle shapes are interesting, but finding the words is not the end goal. After your child finds the words, he/she uses the remaining letters to fill in blanks to write out the key verse or to make a point. It’s pretty neat.
Rebus Puzzles
Rebus puzzles are a type of picture puzzle.
You see an icon of an item and then you see a plus or minus sign with the appropriate alphabet letter that is to be added or taken away from the icon’s name.
You’ve got to get the name of the icon correct and then the rest is easy.
Cryptograms
When you do a cryptogram, you fill in the blanks to create words and then all the words create a sentence.
Before you can fill in the blanks though you have to figure out how to decode the symbols, patterns, etc.
When you decode the pattern or symbols correctly, you’ll know how to fill in the blanks.
Crossword Puzzles
Mrs. Cooley’s crossword puzzles remain basically the same as a normal crossword puzzle that we are most familiar with.
There are some though that have an additional activity to do when the kids are done the puzzle. I don’t want to give everything away, so I’ll just leave it as a surprise for you.
Mazes
I’ve always liked mazes.
Some of the mazes in the Bible Investigators: Creation book have icons pictured within the puzzle.
The goal is to make it through the maze but before leaving you have to make your way to each of the icon pictures.
Makes it tricky!
Dot to Dot Pictures
O.K. I know that you know what a dot-to-dot picture is, but I was pleasantly surprised with some of these. Honestly, I do not know where I’ve been. I never thought of doing dot-to-dot pictures like this!
O.K. All of the dot-to-dot pictures use the numbers, but have you ever seen pictures that include the numbers in different colors?
The way to do this is to start with the black number one and then connect all the black numbers in sequence.
After you’re done with the black numbers then you can lift your pencil and start with all the blue numbers.
Just brilliant! So simple!
Picture Soduko
Don’t let the word soduko scare you. They aren’t as hard as you may have heard.
In fact, I love doing Soduko puzzles. Mrs. Cooley has made hers easy though with her grids being on the small size.
Logic Puzzles
Now, for me, the logic puzzles make me think. But that’s not a bad thing, because I like to think.
Logic puzzles give clues that either compare or contrast two items.
Using the list of comparisons and contrasts between all the different objects, you then whittle down your possibilities to come to the correct answer.
It’s hard to explain but once you try one you’ll see what I mean.
Unscrambles
As you can see in the pictures, Mrs. Cooley has unscramble puzzles that are just words.
Other unscramble puzzles are more than one word.
Then there are others where you unscramble one word at a time and then you have to put the unscrambled words in order to form a sentence or verse.
Drawing
Can we count drawing activities as puzzles? I’m going to if the item to draw is complex. For example, one drawing activity has the child drawing a pretty detailed castle onto grid paper. With these drawing activities I do like the fact that there is step-by-step examples of how to start and what to draw first and how.
I think finishing a nice drawing will make each child happy and give a sense of accomplishment, so I think it’s great.
Word Ladders
I had a good time doing these word ladder puzzles. Actually, I’ve never done them before until I got this book.
The point of the puzzle is to start with a given word and change one letter at a time in that word to create a new word. Then you change one letter again to make another word. You continue this process until you can create the given final word.
Believe me, it’s fun.
My Final Thoughts
Bible Investigators: Creation says it’s for 8-12 year old kids, but I think it’s good for anyone older than 8. Some of the puzzles are on the harder side, and if your 8 yr. old isn’t used to doing puzzles they are going to need some help and encouragement.
If your child wants to look at the Bible verse to help with completing the puzzles, Mrs. Cooley uses the ESV to base her puzzles on. Using another version could make things confusing.
On the other hand, there are times when a direction says to read or copy a verse, at this time, you can use the translation of your choice.
Upon purchase of the book, Mrs. Cooley gives instructions on how to obtain printable copies of the puzzles. This would be great if you want to use the book in a Sunday school class or for homeschooling multiple children at once. Just have the kids do the My Investigator Notebook blocks in a spiral bound or composition notebook separately.
The content is excellent. Everything is based on God’s Word. The entire Bible is used which will give your child practice finding references throughout their entire Bibles. Another plus is that using the entire Bible teaches kids that the Bible is all connected together and verifies itself through the inspired writers and years of history.
I would highly recommend this book to any homeschooling family, Christian school, Sunday school teacher, and/or children’s church teacher.
About the Author
Danika Cooley is an award-winning children’s author and Bible-curriculum developer. Bible Road Trip™ is used across the globe and weekly she encourages tens of thousands of parents to intentionally raise biblically literate children at ThinkingKidsBlog.org. She is the author of the Who What Why Christian history series, When Lightning Struck!: The Story of Martin Luther, and Help Your Kids Learn and Love the Bible.
About the Publisher
The Good Book Company which is an international book publishing company was founded by Mr. Tim Thornborough.
They aim to provide biblical and relevant resources that will encourage Christians and help them grow spiritually.
If you would like to follow The Good Book Company on social media:
This puzzle book looks really neat and will definitely be something I consider using with my amazing kiddos!
Thank you
Yes, it is a great book. Thanks for commenting, Jessica.