We have been trying to change up our family Bible time lately, and the kids have had so much fun with it! I never cease to be amazed by my husband's ability to direct this part of our day. He is very uncomfortable being the "creative" type, but lately he's been awesome with it! Here are a few things we have done recently that might encourage you to try something new with family Bible time!
I am very crafty/artsy/creative, but I am NOT talented at coming up with games. My husband, on the other hand, is amazing at this! Every Saturday evening our Bible time involves some type of game. This might be one of his own creation, or it might be a board game with altered rules. Sometimes we have little prizes (5 minutes of staying up late, a special snack, extra reading time, etc.). Other times, the "prize" is satisfaction of a job well done.
1. Hallway race
The kids' favorite game, oddly enough, is standing at one end of our hall and alternately answering Bible questions to see who can get to the other end first. Randomly, there are "bonus" questions, and the method of getting from one end to the other is never the same. They LOVE this, and I am always so impressed with little details they remember. Missed questions result in moving backwards, and they have to listen carefully when they get a question correct, because they might have to bunny hop, snail crawl, crab walk, etc. to move forward. Whining because a sibling is ahead of you earns a trip back to start. Last weekend, they had a small toy train and they had to push it forward (difficult on carpet!) with each correct answer. Another time they could only move backwards. Still another time, they had to dodge foam balls my husband threw at them as they moved...if they got hit, they had to go back. The laughter this game brings is priceless. Sometimes the questions come from our KidSing/Pew Packers cards, and other times they are random Bible questions.
2. Cotton Ball Toss
This one is super simple, takes however long you want it to, and can be adapted in many ways. Simply write out topics on a dry erase board and draw shapes around them. Have your child toss a cotton ball onto the board and answer a question for the topic their cotton ball lands on after the toss. When a topic has been exhausted, erase it from the board. It can then be a "free" space where the kids tell a Bible fact of their choice, or it can be a "lose a turn" space. You can keep score (or not).
This came out of desperation one day when the kids just would not be still and focus on Bible study. We've used it many times and it never gets old to them.
3. ABCs
We play some variation of this on almost every long car trip. Starting with A, the first player has to name something in the Bible that starts with A. The next person answers for B, and so on. Sometimes we play, "I'm going on a trip through the Bible, and I'm going to read about _______." Each time we add a new letter, the person whose turn it is has to repeat the whole list. For instance, if I had "E," I would say, "I'm going on a trip through the Bible and I'm going to read about Abraham, Babel, Canaan, David, and Elijah..." I would repeat what the others came up with for A through D and then add my own "E" word. We keep playing until someone gets stumped on a letter. If we make it through the alphabet more than once, we cannot repeat a previously used word. Another variation is to come up with a word that starts with the last letter of the previous player's choice. So, if I chose Hannah for mine, the next player might say Herod...and then Dagon, and then Noah...and so on... Sometimes we do specific categories. For instance, only use Old Testament characters, or only prophets, etc. Once we played where our answers had to be in chronological order. That was hard! :)
4. Board games
Frequently, my husband will pull out a "regular" board game and announce "new" rules for it to make it Bible-study compatible. The past 2 weeks we have been studying about our speech and our tongues. The kids have recently had trouble being kind...there has been lots of hateful speech and backtalk going on. So, he took a card game we have (Sleeping Queens...SUCH a fun game!!!) and made rules requiring us to stay nice things about particular family members with each hand of play. One card even required us to say nice things about ourselves! As the game went on, we had to think hard to not repeat good things about each other. We also play Bible trivia games, Bible Pictionary, Bible Charades, Bible Scattergories, etc. At the end of every game, my husband makes application of what we have learned that night. These "game nights" seem to really help the kids cement the topics in their minds and hearts.
5. Bean bag toss
We have this game: http://www.discoverytoys.com/PUBLICSTORE/stores/homeoffice/product/Flip-Flop-Faces-Emotions-In-Motion,632.aspx#sthash.Xncb6j5K.dpbs, and it has served us well as a Bible story review game. We color code questions and ask them according to the color bowl the kids flip over. It is a good way for my high-energy son to get some movement into his Bible study.
6. 20 Questions
This is another popular car game. Someone thinks of a topic from the Bible and everyone else must try to guess within 20 "yes/no" questions. Whoever guesses correctly gets to choose the next topic. As the kids get older, this gets harder and harder, because they don't get stumped very often!
Feel free to comment if you have other ideas for Bible games! These aren't all the ones we play, but hopefully it will encourage you to add a little "fun" to Family Bible time and learn a lot in the process!
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