I have a confession, though Sunday mornings are reserved for such spiritual endeavors like Sunday school and church, it isn't always the most spiritual experience. Can anyone else with children relate? It is just a part of raising kids. At this age, they are not designed to sit quietly for an hour, or more. However, they do need to begin to learn, and they learn by doing.
To help everyone in our family keep their sanity during church, each of our children has a "quiet bag" filled with reading books, magazines, coloring pages, markers, pencils and puzzles.
Our oldest is a puzzle fan, and when I saw Tyndale House Publishers offering Bible Jumble for Kids, by Christopher Hudson, I jumped at the chance to review this book. Well, I guess my 9-year-old is reviewing the book, but I'm writing it.
The book contains 200 puzzles, of a variety of jumble puzzles; traditional jumbles, jumble criss-cross, and more. There is one puzzle per page, and all the answers can be found in the back. Each jumble is associated with a Scripture passage; not only helping the child solve the jumble, but also learn more about the Bible.
That last part is one of the reasons I love this book, it encourages children to dive into the scripture while solving these jumbles.
Another reason I love this book is a by-product of working on jumbles, it is helping to improve my son's spelling. He is an awful speller, I think it is genetic, the other part is that he doesn't take the time to sound out the word. To solve these jumbles he has to correctly spell the words, and he knows that so he works a little harder on his spelling. Now if only we can get him to do that with his normal school work.
The jumbles are challenging, but not hard for any child who loves these type of puzzles. Now, for my son's mother :::cough::: that is another issue. I've never been a fan of word puzzles and am amazed that my 9-year-old is solving these puzzles within seconds of looking at them, while I'm still scratching my head.
When I asked my son why he liked this book he said it was because he was able to work on it with me (note my previous comment about not being very good at word puzzles. Apparently, he hasn't realized this.) His favorite puzzles are the criss-cross jumbles.
And, if he finds himself stumped by a jumble, out comes the Bible.
I recommend this book for anyone, child (who is reading) or adult, who enjoys puzzles. If you are an adult, and inexperienced with word puzzles as I am then you will also find them challenging.
***Tyndale House Publishers provided me with a complimentary copy of this book.
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