• Paterson Smyth included a few “Lecture to the Teacher”and “Note to the Teacher” sections throughout his commentaries. I have merely summarized them for you at the top of the corresponding lesson under the heading “Guiding Thoughts” and encourage you to read fully and seek guidance from your pastors and elders for clarity. These are for the teacher and not intended to be read aloud to the student. 

Paterson Smyth had 24 lessons in The Book of Genesis. I have broken Lesson 22 into two parts due to length; therefore my guide includes 25 lessons. (See Appendix B for a potential schedule on how this guide could be used in a homeschool setting with two Old Testament lessons per week.)

These recaps and transition statements are my personal narrations of the previous week’s lesson and are meant to serve as a bridge to the new lesson’s reading, but are not meant to be read verbatim. The principle is as follows: “Before the reading for the day begins, the teacher should talk a little (and get the children to talk) about the last lesson, with a few words about what is to be read, in order that the children may be animated by expectation; but she should beware of explanation, and, especially, of forestalling the narrative.”

I have covered these topics extensively elsewhere in the guide. Please reference the “Bits and Pieces” and “Charlotte Mason” essays for more information.

• At the bottom of each lesson, you will find the prompt, “Draw a picture in your timeline to remind you of this story.” 

• For especially our younger students, drawings are one way of narrating. 

• If time allows after the lesson, you can give your class time to make a drawing or jot down a few words in a simple timeline to remind themselves of this story. 

• I then encourage children to pull out these timelines at the beginning of the next lesson to remind themselves of what we studied last time.

• Free PDF for Old Testament Timeline

• Unless otherwise noted, all Bible quotations in the guide come from the English Standard Version.

• These lessons were created with 2nd-5th graders in mind, though I do believe there is some flexibility on either side of this age range.

• I recommend either providing Bibles for students to follow along or building a classroom habit of children bringing their own Bibles to build Bible literacy skills. 

• I do not recommend having younger children read the Bible passage aloud. Rather, focus on having the passage read aloud both beautifully and reverently by the teacher or having older children read the passage silently to themselves.