Teaching kids Bible verses seems like a daunting task. Sometimes the task is as hard on the thumbs as asking a programmer to hammer a nail. I thought repetition was the key. Read the verse over and over. The kids say the verse over and over. After you have read the verse so many times you have memorized it, the kids have memorized the first line. You read it some more and some more and some more and some more!
Awana has some tips that may help! Check out this link:
Awana.org: Parents Can Make Scripture Memory Simple, Easy and FUN
The memory cards, taping the verses on the ceiling or around the house, and including reviewing in the normal schedule/routine all help with the repetition thing. Be creative. Make it fun.
Another tip I like is the erasing of words. You can do that on a chalk board, white board, or index cards as suggested.
Our Awana at Home book has given us some other tips that I really liked. Some of them are along the same lines, but others are pretty creative.
One suggestion is to record your child saying the verse. With technology today, you can do this in a number of ways. You can record it on a cell phone, or I’ve done it on my laptop. You could use your WebCam to record a video of it (Maybe use cheese). Digital video recorders make it easy to record verses too.
Another part I think is important is to make sure that the child understands the verse. Sometimes I have trouble getting them to slow down and take the time to understand it, but it is important. Memorizing a bunch of words is pointless, but also, you can remember it better if you know what the verse is trying to say.
Another suggestion is to have the child illustrate the verse with a picture. Sometimes the kids learn it easily by writing the verse out.
One of the most interesting ideas is to tap into kinetic learning. I marched my son around our house while we said his verse. Then we threw a ball back and forth and said a phrase with each catch. That worked so well that I tried it a little at church. I handed a piece of paper back and forth with our kids and had them say a phrase each time before they passed the paper. Again, it worked well.
Turning the verse into a song can work well sometimes. It works even better when someone else already wrote a song for the verse.
One tip I didn’t see in the book was to make hand motions to the verse. The motions seem to help younger kids who can’t read the verse. I think it helps them visualize it when they don’t understand written words.
So, those are some of the tips I found from the different Awana resources. Do you have any of your own? Please comment. I would love to try them out.
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