Welcome to the Spring Into Summer series! Throughout the next two weeks, I hope to give you some tools to prepare for a fun, creative and relaxing summer.
Today we’ll start with something that’s close to my heart: doing devotions with your kids!
Deuteronomy 6:6-9 says,
“These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”
You may be wondering why this is “summer” related, but it’s because I think that summer is a great time to begin devotions with your kids or to restart them if you’ve gotten away from a regular devotional/prayer time.
Family devotions for us are a time to dig into God’s Word with our kids from the oldest to the youngest and also to teach them that they can pray to God anytime about anything!
Some basic steps to starting a devotional time with your children:
1. Choose a time of day. Morning, evening or at the dinner table, whatever works best for you. Try to find a time that can stay consistent. If you know that you have evening activities several times a week, night time probably isn’t the best option.
2. Make it a relaxing atmosphere. Some families like to light candles before they pray or include music and family singing time. You don’ t need to know how to play the guitar or piano to make a joyful noise to the Lord!
3. Pick a devotional book that is age-appropriate for your children. This can be easy or challenging, depending on the age-range of your kids. Of course your Bible is the most important book for devotions but there are many biblical devotionals that can serve as go-alongs. {I talk about one of the books we use in the video below.}
4. Encourage prayer. Praying with your children strengthens their faith and encourages them, especially when you pray over them. If your child struggles with praying out loud, I share in my video a tool that has worked for us to jump-start our children’s prayer time.
To explain a couple of the tools we use to make devotions enjoyable and teachable at the same time, I’ve made my first-ever vlog! {It has different info than the post.}
If you can’t see this video, click here. {And can someone tell me how I can be sure I’m looking directly into the camera? I thought I was, but now as I watch it, I don’t know…}
Somebody, anybody, please watch this and tell me I don’t look completely ridiculous. It was completely spur-of-the-moment. :)
And speaking of reading books, here are some tips to keep your kids reading this summer along with some free “reading map” printables!
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*The Story Bible from Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis, Missouri. It can also be purchased in paperback or hardcover form (at a lower price) on Amazon.
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34 Comments on Starting Devotions With Your Kids – Spring Into Summer Day One!
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This is great! Thank you for sharing how you shepherd your little ones. So helpful! :)
Thanks so much! Glad you found it helpful :)
Hello! I love you ideas for starting devotions with your kids. I work at a summer camp called Camp Calumet Lutheran and I have been looking for a good book to help explain the scriptures and to help the younger children better understand the bible. This is the website to the summer camp if anyone is interested. https://www.calumet.org/ It is a great place to have your children learn about God’s word and His love.
We have enjoyed camping with you at Calumet for the last few years during Homeschool Week! Fantastic!
How do I get to your FB page to like it?
Monica
https://happyandblessedhome.com
Hi Monica! If you scroll to the top of my blog’s page, you’ll see 4 “coffee bean” icons on the right side. Click the one with the “f” and it’ll take you there!
We use a devotion book that goes with the Adventure Bible (can’t remember the name right now). When we first started, I hadn’t really thought about the routine, environment, etc… A few nights each week (like Wednesdays after church) we were running so late we went to bed without doing them. It took a week or two of seeing the look of disappointment on my son’s face when he said, “Is it too late to read my bible verses?” for me to realize what I was doing!! Now we make a point to do them, no matter how crazy our day is. It’s been a great habit for both him and for me.
Kristen @ Trial & Error Homemaking
It’s funny how our kids’ enthusiasm for devotions sometimes is the motivator for us as moms! God’s way of keeping us in the Word :)
Would you be willing to share the prayer character cards that you use? I love the idea, but am struggling with coming up with some on my own! Thanks, Sonja
Hi Sonja! I may use the character cards as a separate post but in case I don’t get to it, here are a few we use: Love for one another, for us to be witnesses, that we would have teachable hearts, that our love for God will grow, Fruits of the Spirit (each on a different card), obey with a happy heart, thankfulness, that we would be peacemakers, that we would be forgiving, humble, and grow in wisdom.
I’m sure there are many more, but maybe this helps a bit? :)
This is so helpful and encouraging. Currently my daughter and husband are going through the Hands-On Bible for Preschoolers and love it since it is actual excerpts from scripture (rather than paraphrases). We may check out this one next.
Also like the prayer card idea to encourage focused prayer time. We’ll have to work on that next.
I would love it if you would consider linking this up to Titus 2 Tuesdays. This is right down the alley of why TTT was created.
https://cornerstoneconfession.com
Hope to see you there.
Kathy
Thank you Kathy, I will definitely check out your link up later today!
Thanks for linking up Jenn. Hope to see you again.
It was so fun to “meet” you through your vlog, Jenn! I loved it! Great ideas for a daily devotional! DAILY is something I need to get more intentional about! Love the box of prayer cards you use with your kids! I think we’ll make that a summer project!
Thank you for watching the vlog :) I would love to see your prayer card box–no doubt it will be really awesome!
Jenn your vlog was great – it was neat seeing you in motion! You have quite an accent :) Doing devotions with your kids is a wonderful thing, and it will help them develop their faith, especially as they see it modeled out with their parents as they do devotions together.
~Nicole, Working Kansas Homemaker
I love that you mentioned the accent–I never thought I had one, I always figured the people from the South were the ones with the accent! :)
First, I love your video! You do a great job. Love it!
Second, the Story Bible looks really good! I can’t wait to ask my husband about getting it.
Thanks, friend :) We LOVE the Story Bible and the illustrations are just amazing in my opinion. I forgot to mention that they have Bible “vocabulary words” with each story too, so now the kids know what “cherubim” means, among other words :)
Great post! So refreshing to see people busy doing God’s work! Great idea Kelly re: A to Z bible verses… We’ll have to try it as well. Keep inspiring and blessing others Jen!
Thank you for your kind words :)
You did an awesome job. Thanks for sharing. I have been doing A-Z bible verses for the kids to learn and memorize.
A to Z Bible verses are a great idea! Thanks for mentioning that, btw, as it reminds me that I’m working on a Scripture memorization program that I’ll (eventually) share on the blog!
You have nothing to be embarrassed about…you did great! Seriously. And it served its purpose…because now I’m motivated to start spending more time in God’s word and prayer with my kids! Wonderful video. Really.
Thank you, Marci :) I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your encouragement!
Great ideas and I love the video! Awesome job!
Thanks for the encouragement :)