Teach your children (toddlers, preschoolers and elementary age) the Word and truths of God according to the Bible using these five simple and effective ideas!
As a small child, I lived in a house at the top of a hill in the country, outside a tiny rural town in North Dakota. I have so many fun photos and memories to remind me of those carefree days!
But living on a hill meant that we had to drive slowly up a quarter-mile long gravel driveway to get to our house, not always easy in a state known for its blustery winters and wet springs.
During the spring, the heavy farm machinery that my dad owned pressed the gravel down on the sides of the road, creating a rather large rut.
When my mom would try to get the car to go up the steep driveway, she would often get stuck in the muddy ruts, the wheels spinning as she attempted to make it to the top.
Over the past few months, I’ve been feeling the same way about our family’s devotional life as my mom did about the driveway ruts. Frustrated, stuck and going nowhere.
As our family has grown, our schedules and needs have rapidly changed. Our children are at different levels of spiritual understanding. And with four busy children, it is getting harder to find consistency in our daily routines and yes, even our time spent in God’s Word.
While we strive to have a purposeful time for devotions with our kids each day (read about the easiest way we’ve found to do devotions with young children), we did want to try and incorporate more of God’s Word into the flow of our daily life.
So I brainstormed and researched and came up with some very easy ideas for sort-of “infusing” our day with Scripture.
I realize how much we are surrounded by media at every turn and though we are very particular about how often our kids are “plugged in”, I figure we should use media for good by combining it with more “traditional” Bible study methods!
These ideas are ones we’ve been trying for the past few months and it has been successful and mixes things up, which is great! It’s good to have a few different options because not every day is the same and you may have more time some days than others.
Here are five simple ways to add Scripture to your child’s day so that our families can benefit from hiding God’s Word in their hearts at any time. Try one of these ideas and see how they fit your family’s needs!
5 Easy Ways to Add Scripture to Your Child’s Day
1. Use a Bible app on the go.
We love using the YouVersion Bible app (there’s a Bible for Kids YouVersion app that is animated, it’s also free and is in several languages!) and the Olive Tree app (there is a great study of the book of John for kids in this app!). You can do a lot with these apps such as choose your favorite version of the Bible, highlight verses, bookmark favorite passages and find Bible reading plans.
2. Incorporate a Bible quiz or challenge.
My 10 and 7 year old have had fun playing The American Bible Challenge app (based on the TV show) and using Bible quiz flashcards that we’ve picked up over the years. You can find some Bible flashcards that are good for elementary and middle school kids HERE and cute Bible flashcards for little ones HERE! What’s in the Bible has free flashcards as well!
3. Teach your kids to have their own Bible time
Although this is something we’ve been doing only recently, it’s been good for me to watch my kids learn more about Scripture or ask me questions based on something they’ve read in a devotional or a Bible study as we work through it together. There are a lot of good Bible storybooks that younger kids can look at/read and devotionals for kids as well (our older children like God’s Amazing Creatures and Me and the younger two have enjoyed the One Year Devotions for Preschoolers).
We’ve really been enjoying Developing a Quiet Time by Kim Sorgius! It’s teaching our kids what the Bible says about having devotional time and has helped my older kids form a method (the G.R.O.W. method) for their quiet time.
You can find two sets of Bible reading plans for your kids HERE as well as a FREE Proverbs Bible Reading plan for kids that I put together for my own children years ago!
There are also a lot of free Bible verse printables for younger children (who are early readers or who can read them with you) that you can find around the internet! To get you started, download these names of Jesus printable Scripture cards or download these Bible verse printables for your preschooler that will help them learn the Word!
4. Start studying a new book of the Bible from start to finish
A lot of times, it’s easy for me to just grab a Bible storybook and pick a story for the day. Then it dawned on me–why haven’t we done just a dedicated study on ONE book of the Bible? So we used The Dig: Proverbs and the kids loved it! It doesn’t go over every single verse of Proverbs but it has in-depth lessons on important passages of that book as well as additional prompts and ways to dig deeper.
You could also just start by reading straight through a book like John that is straightforward and understood well by children of all ages, such as the John reading plan from the Olive Tree app I mentioned earlier.
BONUS: Use a preschool curriculum that ties in the Bible, pre-made printables are perfect for me because I am not crafty! Our littles (pictured here at 4 and 2) love Raising Little Rock Stars Through the Bible: A to Z with verses and Bible-based activities that just happen to teach the alphabet along the way :)
5. Incorporate Bible songs and videos or act out a Bible story
We love to learn Scripture by way of music. Music is such an effective memory tool! (Probably why songs from my 80s childhood are still stuck in my head!)
I’ve shared before about our favorite Scripture songs for kids that won’t drive parents crazy!
You may also like: The Best Scripture Music for Kids
(Here is our 5-year-old getting ready to act out Bible stories with his paper puppets from My Jesus Journal, which is a product available from JellyTelly/What’s in the Bible! You can find some FREE Bible People Printables and make your own puppets HERE!)
There are lots of ways to add Scripture to your child’s day that are simple, effective, and most importantly, fun!
Enjoy teaching God’s Word to your children!
WANT TO SPEAK WITH GRACE TO YOUR KIDS INSTEAD OF YELLING?
4 Comments on 5 Easy Ways to Add Scripture to Your Child’s Day
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I am excited about the Olive Tree app. What is the study on John called? I tried searching and had trou le finding it. Thank you so much!! This post was a great encouragement!
Hi Jen! So, they must have reorganized their app, it was a bit hard to find the John plan for kids! But here’s how. Go into the app and click on “reading plans” (might have to click on the three bars in the upper left hand corner of the app to get there). Then click “new testament” and then click “children’s Bible reading plan”. It will bring you to the screen with the John plan (published by Rachel Wojnarowski is what it will say) and you can then click on “start reading plan” at the bottom of your screen. Hope that helps! :)
Thank you for all the good info. I am raising my granddaughter who has been diagnosed with learning disabilities and reading is really difficult. I plan to check out these Bible apps to see if I can help her find a love for Bible study .I presently use the you version app. and I have introduced it to my younger two grandchildren who love it. It is nice to hear from others who have good Bible study ideas for kids. Thanks again!
You are very welcome! I hope you are able to find a way of studying the Bible that is helpful for your granddaughter! The YouVersion app is great too :)