6 “And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
The greatest parenting advice I ever received came prior to my first child's birth and was from a local preacher in the Lord's church. It was really nothing new....God included it in Scripture as well! Our friend told us to keep God's word ever before our child(ren) by posting verses all over our hosue. He also told us to use every day instances to constantly discuss God's word. Bible teaching doesn't come solely in the form of "formal" Bible lessons. The key is to have it constantly included as a part of our lives.
Everyone always asks what I do with the kids to teach them their Bible stories. It's really nothing fancy. I'll post individual lessons on here from time to time. I have a "schedule" of sorts that I try to follow with the order of their stories. I'll attach a sample to this if I can figure out how to do it. My kids are a little over 2 years apart. My oldesr child just turned 5, and the younger is 2 1/2. We started their stories at birth, and for the younger one we are currently doing one story for the whole week. We introduce it on Monday and add on each day until we get in all the details we want by Friday. Saturday we review and Sunday we use his lesson from his Sunday school class. My older child usually has 2-3 stories a week that are related to each other or follow a "theme." I am blessed to be a stay at home mom, so I work on the stories during the day while my husband's at work, and then he "quizzes" the kids when they get home. At the end of each week, there are certain questions they need to be able to answer about the stories. I use felt board, crafts, songs, games, and illustrated books to help them learn the details. We try to make it memorable and relatable to their ages.
My kids also are required to learn memory work every week, which started as soon as they were able to talk. Sometimes it's a verse, sometimes a list, sometimes something else. Last week we did the fruit of the spirit, and the week before that, the parts of the armor of God. Right now we're doing the plagues of Egypt. Both children knew all 66 books of the Bible by age 2. Do I attribute this to brilliance on their part? As much as my proud mommy heart would like to, the answer is "no.!" It was simply repetition, repetition, repetition! We sang them over and over and over. Every car ride involved competing to see how many we could do. Every time we talked about a Bible story, we mentioned the book it came from and then went through the books. Little children have an amazing capacity to learn if we just take advantage of it! Their minds will be filled with SOMETHING...as parents it's our job to fill it will something godly! It's worth every bit of extra time we spend to insure our children on are their way to heaven!
