Baby Bible Study

I've been getting emails from friends with little ones asking how we did Bible time when ours were smaller.   I'm certainly no expert, but here's a rundown of what we did, up to about age 2.  After that, we changed tactics slightly, so I'll save that for another post.  I have to confess that, when my kids were tiny, I did most of the teaching of Bible stories, Bible reading, etc., because they handled this better during the day than when my husband got home at night.  It took us a while to adapt our entire family Bible time to include the kids completely.  It's always a work in progress!! 

Birth - sitting up on their own - no official "sit-down" time.  Instead, we sang Bible songs constantly, looked at Bible board books during tummy time, and had chunky Bible toys like arks, etc.   We also kept them in services with us all the time unless they had a situation where they had to be taken out, and we trained them from day one to sit on the pew.  We would "pat the Bible' and talk about God constantly, in each and every situation possible.  Anytime the kids looked in a mirror, we'd say, "God loves ____________" and fill in their names.  Same thing with pictures of family and friends.   We'd say, "God made Nana," or "God loves Grandaddy," etc.  Singing was by far the most-used teaching method at that age.  Also, if they were awake when I was doing my personal Bible reading/study, I'd read out loud to them, just to get them used to hearing the Bible. 

Sitting up on their own-beginning to talk:  The kids would sit in their high chairs or with the boppy on the floor, and we would tell short Bible stories.  We'd use the same story for an entire week, and usually we'd do some kind of age-appropriate craft, coloring page, sticker page, etc.  When they began to talk, we'd have a set of questions for them to be able to answer by the weekend.   Here's a sample of some questions (and her answers!!) from when my daughter was tiny.  It's an excerpt from my journal at the time:

• Who wrote the Bible?  (God)
• Who made ______ (name anything)?  (God)
• Who do we read about in the Bible?  (Adam, Eve, Noah…these are her top 3 answers).
• Who tricked Eve?  (Sssssss  for snake).
• Who built the ark?  (No-nah)
• What did he build it with?  (Hammer)
• What did he put on the ark?  (Ephant – Elephant, Tiger, Bebra –Zebra, etc.)
• Who told Noah to build the ark?  (God)
• What did Noah build? (Ark)
• What happened to the ark? (Rain)
• What was in the sky after the rain?  (Bow)
• What did Joseph have?  (Coat)
• Were his brothers happy or mad?  (MAD)
• Where did they put baby Moses?  (Backet – Basket)
• Where was the basket?  (Water)
• When Moses said, “Let My People Go,” what did the king say?  (NO)
• Moses went to Mount __________  (Ninai – for Sinai)
• Moses got 10 what?  (Rules)
• Who gave Moses the rules?  (God)
• What did God tell Joshua to do?  (March)
• What did the walls do?  (CRASH or “Down”)
• What did the priests do?  (DoDo!  She blows like she’s blowing a trumpet)
• What was Samson?  (Strong!)
• He never cut his ____ (hair)
• Who did he listen to?  (God)
• What did Hannah want?  (Baby)
• What was his name?  (Amule – Samuel)
• What did David put in his sling?  (Tone – Stone)
• What did the sling do?  (Round & Round)
• What happened to the giant?  (Crash!)

Once they could talk independently and/or repeat most words:  We added in a memory verse each week, starting simple and moving our way up.   Many we'd put to song, but often we'd also just use the words in spoken form.  The kids would have a verse per week, and by Saturday they had to be able to tell Daddy their verse independently, since he was usually at work when we'd practice.   If they could do the verse and answer questions about that week's story on Saturday, they could choose a small prize from our prize box.  The prizes were VERY small, like a small pack of cookies, a special snack, a small book, or a treat from the dollar tree.  Although we only did one story a week, we continuously reviewed stories we had done previously, and we always always always sang Bible songs.   All the time. 

Both of my kids learned the books of the Bible at age 2 or 2 1/2 as well.  I will admit that my kids were extremely verbal, so I know that not all children have the verbal capacity at 2 to do this, but the concept is the same.   We would sing the books of the Bible almost any time we got in the car.   This way, it was frequent, and they were a captive audience, but I didn't have to force them to sit down and sit still.  They learned it naturally, simply through repetition. 

I hope this helps some!  Like I said, I am certainly no expert, and I'm sure there are many things I could have done better or differently.  But, for what it's worth, that's what we did!