Bible Study Outside of the Box

*I was given a sample of Memory Cross products and Pieces of the Promise in exchange for an honest review.  Although I was given the products, all opinions are my own.  I promise to always be truthful to you, my readers.  I want to provide you with only the best resources.

Who hasn’t struggled doing Bible study at some time or another?  Especially children.  Part of the struggle is simply sitting down to read.  Sometimes kids are full of energy and don’t want to sit still.  Sometimes kids just have a shorter attention span or are easily distracted.  But we should not give up teaching children the Bible.  Studying the Bible with kids reaps great rewards.  Check out the advice Paul gave to Timothy…

But as for you,continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.” 2 Timothy 3:14-15 ESV

There must be a solution to help kids focus on Bible study…and there is!  

Get Hands Moving and Brains Engaged  

Learning doesn’t always have to look like sitting still.  In fact, more learning and remembering takes place when the student is DOING something.  What if we applied this concept to teaching kids about the Bible? What if we figured out how to do Bible study outside of the box? You can always spice up your Bible study with games and crafts.  Check out my Road to Heaven game review.  You can also have your kids draw a Bible story as they listen to it.  But if you want something a little different or already laid out for you, I have found a couple things that we really enjoyed…  

Memory Cross

Memory Cross Inc. is a fun way to keep your kids engaged as they hear a Bible story.   These story cards fold in origami style.  As you fold the cards, each part of the story is revealed in pictures and words.  The great thing is that the cards are pre-cut and easily fold into the correct shapes.  Many of the cards are black and white so young children can reinforce what they learn by coloring the story too.  The novelty of them helps children take a fresh look at what might be familiar stories.

If you are interested in Memory Cross Inc., you can always ask for your own free sample!  They have a wide variety of products, including holiday cards, educational products, business cards, and customizable products.  On a different topic–they even have products to support artists around missions the world.

Pieces of the Promise

I discovered Pieces of the Promise at Teach Them Diligently in Nashville this year.  Pieces of the Promise creates puzzle devotions for families.  We tried out the Armor of God.  There were 10 family devotions.  Each devotion had a corresponding part of a puzzle to go with it.  While we read the devotion to the kids, they worked as a team to put together the corresponding section of the puzzle.  

I loved that the kids were busy doing something that coordinated with the lesson.  It definitely took away my need to ask them to be still and listen while we were doing our devotions.  That made it much more fun for everyone!  They are are going to remember and enjoy Bible study more when they are an active part of it.  

Each devotion only took about five minutes, depending on how deep we got into our discussion.  Although each devotion centered around just one or two verses of the Armor of God passage, there were sometimes other scripture references mentioned as well.  There were always good points made and reflection questions too.  

The only downside was that the puzzle was a bit difficult for my 5 year old. A few of the pieces looked like they would fit, but the image didn’t match up.  I just told her to do the best that she could. If another parent is around while you are doing devotions, they could help the littler ones.  Perhaps one day Pieces of the Promise will make similar puzzles for little ones too.  I would definitely recommend those as well!

My kids were also bickering over pieces some, so I ended up giving them each different parts of the puzzle to work on.  Then we just doubled up on the devotions.  at an average of five minutes per devotion, it still didn’t take too long! 

Overall, the Pieces of the Promise puzzle was a huge hit.  My 9 year old son, who had not previously been into puzzles, was eager to go ahead and do all the devotions at once.  We actually did the puzzle a little faster than recommended.  As long as my kids were engaged and interested, I didn’t see any harm in that.  My son asked me to get the other Pieces of the Promise puzzles as well.  He is wanting to do other puzzles now too.  Score one for engaging his brain and practicing logic skills!

Pieces of the Promise also has a deck of Books of the Bible cards that are on my to-get list.  Each card tells about a different book of the Bible.  There are two games that come with the deck of cards.  There is also a page on the Pieces of the Promise website dedicated to listing new games that can be played with the cards.  You can even submit your own ideas for games to be placed on the page.  The possibilities are endless!

Make It Fun

The more fun we make Bible study, the better. Our goal is to help kids fall in love with Jesus! Click To Tweet

I hope you found these outside of the box suggestions helpful. At the very least, I pray it sparked your imagination about how we can make the Bible come to life for our kids.  The more fun we make Bible study and think outside the box, the better.  After all, our goal is to help kids fall in love with Jesus!

 

What are you favorite ways to keep kids engaged during devotions?