Reformation Resources for Teaching Kids

The reformation was a time when men and women of God saw discrepancies in what the church was teaching and what the word of God proclaimed. They stood for truth even though, for many, it cost them their lives. Teaching our children the importance of reading and understanding scripture for themselves should be a top priorities in their home. Telling them about people who have done this in the past gives them the courage to stand for truth in their future.

The following are resources we have used in our home. Acquiring all the books would be far more than you need. Hopefully this list will help you choose well what would be best for your family and their current age range.

Why Did the Reformation Happen? by Dannika Cooley is a must. Of all the books I will mention this is the one I think every family should own. This is a brief overview, written for kids attention spans but not skipping key players and information that many other children’s books might pass over. It’s less than $10 making it budget friendly for everyone. We used this as the skeleton of our lesson outlines and then built off of it adding activities and more books that would expound upon the lives of individuals.

Downloadable Resources: Thinking Kids Press also offers kids crafts for hands on learning. We made paper roll dolls of John Knox, Martin Luther and John Calvin. You can also download what you would need to create a lap book which will help with vocabulary, timeline and geography.

The Lightkeepers is an excellent series of biography’s of Christian hero’s, however if you don’t want to buy the whole thing at once you can just purchase this book to get started, Ten Boys who Made a Difference. This book includes: Knox, Luther, Calvin, Tyndale, Hus, Zwingli, and more. These stories typically start by sharing what childhood would have been like and the process that got them to a defining moment. Each story takes about ten minute to read out loud and has a summary of addition information and questions for further conversation at the end. If a person was martyred these books tell those details and therefor I advise not concluding the stories with sensitive children or those under about 8 years.

Activity Book: This is a fun way to give your kids hands something to do while you read to them. We made 6 of the 21 paper dolls from this book and plan to attach them to our school room timeline. Each character has a pre-colored image and a black and white if your child prefers coloring themselves.

This series, Risen Hope, contains six books, each chapter is a brief snip in the life of someone who made a profonde impact on church history. The chapters are in chronological order which makes it easy to follow if you are wanting to create your own timeline while reading. Personally, I prefer the stories of the Lightkeepers series, but I appreciate the grouping of a specific time and that it has all the leaders. male and female, in one book. Both books are black and white with little to no illustrations. The publishers recommend these books for students to read independent in Highschool. You can certainly read them as a family and include younger ages but yes, I would say this series is a great fit for independent learning at an older age.

God’s Timeline: the Big Book of Church History. Whew, let me be clear from the begging, timelines are difficult. There is rarely one agreed upon date that transitions one time of history to another. Also, it is hard to cohesively structure so much information into one book. The great parts of this book is it’s vast amount of colored images. I also appreciate the organization of color, all purple pages represent the reformed church.

This is a great book for moms to use while planning a lesson or someone who is already familiar with history but needs help organizing it all in their brains. I would not hand this book to a student and expect it to make complete since. Perhaps it’s because I struggle with sensory overload. There is too much happening on each page and it takes a lot of focus for me to follow along. The publishers say this is appropriate for preschool -second grade but I would recommend it for middle school. It’s way too much for littles.

This book, Reformation Heroes, could serve as a whole curriculum, but it’s not a short read. The inside cover has a wonderful timeline. While pictures are not included on the timeline, there are plenty of visuals throughout the book, nearly every time you turn a page. They are black and white but unlike most other books with hand drawn simple line drawings, these are copies of art throughout history. For many this will be more information than you want, especially for young children but I will say that they have done an excellent job organizing each chapter and making it easy to read with headings that break up each section. As someone who prefers having too much information and is willing to just pick and choose what I will read, this book makes me feel fully equipped.

Picture Book: Alternatively, you could get these books on the lives of individuals, but published by the same group. These are colorful with lots of images, again copied from great works of art throughout history. The book will take you a bit of time to read but can be done in one sitting. It’s geared toward children 7-12 years old. These are a bit of an investment but are quality and thorough.

Reference Book: Similar to an eyewitness ok DK book Inside the Reformation is packed full of images and little facts. Beyond the people, this book shares more about what life was like during that time frame. You’ll see bright colorful pictures of architecture, food, musical instruments, transportation, cities, documents, tools and so much more. This is a great add on to any of the books that were already mentioned.

Graphic Novel: My boys have read this on their own several times. It’s John Calvin’s Illustrated Institutes, it’s based on his most famous work but made so kids can enjoy and understand what they are reading. Honestly it has been great for me as well!

Historical Fiction: We have not read this yet but it is on our shelf. Trail Blazers offers a variety of biographical novels based on the lives of hero’s through history. I have heard great things. Our brains love context and stories so taking the time to read a book like this will help solidify in your child’s memory who that person was and the significance of what they did. We plan to do these throughout the years to recall what we have studies after having a base line reformation history.

Audio: At the same time as the reformation was the renaissance. I wanted to spend more of our time focusing on what God was doing with his church but the Masters of the Renaissance did play a roll in the time. Turning on this audio while in the car was a perfect fit for our season. The stories were easy to listen to and at home we would look up the pieces of work they referenced. Check with your online library app to see if you have free access.