Over the past year I did a great Bible study on the book of James with a small group of ladies in my church!  At the same time Greg and I felt it was time for our evening family devotions time to move away from children's Bibles, and that we should start having our kids read and dig into the actual word of God.  Our 10 and 9 year old are completely able to read a passage, answer basic questions about it, and then apply that passage to their lives.  So from that desire I wrote 33 lessons on the book of James for older children (ages 7 - 13). 

Each family devotional lesson takes around 10 minutes and walks through the entire book of James.  I began with 3 lessons on who the man James was - looking at him as Jesus's half-brother who was an unbeliever, believer, and then church leader, and then the lessons go through a few verses each night from 1:1 to 5:20.  The final day the entire book is read to get the feel for it as an actual letter.

I followed the ARTS acronym:
A - Ask a hook question to draw the kids into the lesson.
R - Read the passage.
T - Think about the passage by asking the kids questions.
S - Self-reflect on how the passage applies to your life.

Children who will benefit from this study most are 2nd-8th graders who are able to easily read and understand a Bible passage.  Younger children can learn from it too, but it's definitely geared for older elementary or middle school kids.

So I hope you'll check it out and consider using this with your older kids during your family devotional times.  Our family has completed 25 of 33 lessons and it's been awesome!  We will definitely be continuing this method of Bible study for family devotions.  The kids have requested that we study Ecclesiastes next and Greg's agreed, so you can pray for my seminary professor as he brings that book down to a child's level - haha! :)

I hope this James Children's Bible Study is a blessing to some of your families too!