Since we have typically shy away from including news in our home for our children, when offered the opportunity to review God’s World News and their publication God’s Big World, I thought it would be a great chance to see if it was something that would work for our family. If you are looking for a good way to include news in your home, without exposing your children to the often depressing and secular news that traditional news includes, then you may wish to include God’s World News into your home.
Providing real world information and news with a Biblical world view and scripture reference, God’s World News offers six different news magazines for children targeting specific age groups in each magazine. Each issue is a little over 20 pages and contains various stories, features, pictures, and puzzles that are age appropriate and relevant.
We received a subscription to God’s Big World, the publication from God’s World News for Pre-K and Kindergarten age children (ages 4-6 typically). Additionally, we were sent a corresponding bonus wall map (which comes with the September issue for subscribers) that we could use for reference to the places mentioned in the news articles from around the world. During the review period we received the July, August, and September 2013 editions (a year subscription includes 10 monthly issues each month except December and May). The summer issues (June, July, and August) are slightly shorter than the school year editions and do not include quizzes, but they are set up similarly.
Additionally, a subscription to God’s World News includes online content to whichever grade level you subscribe to. The online subscription has additional teaching notes, quizzes, lessons and biographies. An online digital magazine is accessible on the website as well. You can visit the website here. We used the online quizzes to have fun seeing who remembered the answers and the additional biographies were fun to read. The lesson plans are helpful to deciding how to use the articles into teaching moments and go deeper into the content.
God’s Big World magazine has “teaching tips” throughout the magazine giving the parent additional information to help make the story covered a more in-depth study. This can also help if you are incorporating a story into your multi-age classroom. This is what we did to include our 3rd grader.
We chose to read God’s Big World together as a family in the evening. We chose to read a couple of stories at a time. However, my older daughter found the publication interesting as well and read through the entire magazine the first day she had it. She then read a couple of the articles to her brother the next day and completed one of the puzzles that he didn’t want to do (my son doesn’t like to draw much yet so she found a puzzle where you draw the matching half of the butterfly – she enjoyed that.) My son enjoyed the puzzle where you find the things that are different between two similar pictures. He also enjoyed a puzzle of matching baby birds to their grown up parents (which had corresponding capital letters to match with lower case letters).
I particularly liked the short stories with the corresponding Bible verses after the stories. 
We enjoyed discussing the Bible verse along with the story. For instance, we read a story about a World War 2 prison of war that sold his ring for food. Someone found the ring and sent it back to the man’s family. The teaching tip explains the story a little more in depth and the Bible passage reference stated that God never lost site of the man’s ring as it says in Proverbs 15:3 – “The eyes of the Lord are in every place.” I liked how these passages were fit into the stories.
We enjoyed finding the places mentioned in God’s Big World on the map we were sent. It is a great map and we have used it for reference to the God’s Big World publication as well as our other geography studies. It is a colorful map and has some wonderful break-out sections on the map. There is also a Map-It icon throughout the publication helping students locate where the article references on the wall map.
Overall, we have enjoyed incorporating what is happening around the world, from a Biblical perspective, into our school and home. God’s Big World is a colorful publication, full of wonderful photos and puzzles. The paper pages are not glossy and therefore easy to make notes on and work on the puzzles without trouble.
You can view a sample issue of God’s Big World here as well as see a sample lesson here and sample biography here. There are publications for all age groups Pre-K through High School. You can purchase a full year subscription to include 10 publications for $28 per year. God’s World News provides discounts for 2 or more publications being mailed to the same address, which means you can get a discount if you sign up for a subscription for each of your children. E-Subscriptions are also available. You can check out subscription options and prices here.
Click to read more reviews from the Schoolhouse Review Crew that were done of each of the six God’s World News publications.
Leave a Reply