You have no idea how long this post has been in the making. It’s been a really long time. And when I planned it, I had no idea I would be starting a homeschool blog years down the road. So this is part one of a two part post. The second part of the post is 26 Verses your can teach your child in a year and it’s on my homeschool page, Life, Learning, Homeschool.
I started teaching Bible verses to Bug when he was 3. Children are such little sponges so I figured the earlier I started, the better. With a little repetition it’s quite easy to teach a verse to a young child. And heaping amount of praise makes them eager because they understand that they are doing something important. We did 26 verses in just about a year – spending about 2 weeks on a verse with some time for review here and there.
Here is Bug at 3 saying the first two verses he learned (warning – the cute is too much to handle!) We learned a verse for every letter of the alphabet so the first two are A and B.
So, why should we start teaching children to memorize scripture? Well, like I said above, children are sponges. They can remember so much. If you teach them now and refresh often it will stick with them. Bug was 3 in that video above. He is 7 now. We review them sporadically and he can still recall them.
How many adults do you know that can quote 26 Bible verses? By teaching Scripture to your children, you’re giving them an early foundation in Scripture that will follow them in life. A lot of adults feel that memorizing Scripture is tedious or unimportant – with devices at our fingertips all the time, why memorize what you can just look up? That’s the thinking of many. But by starting your child out now on memorizing Scripture, not only will they have more verses committed to memory but the significance of knowing Scripture will stay with them too as they grow.
Knowing scripture can help in a variety of situations. When Bug is afraid of a thunderstorm I ask him to say his W Bible Verse – “Whenever I am afraid I will trust in You.” Psalm 56:3 This is teaching him first that Scripture is relevant and second to recall Scripture in times of need. Not to go look it up but to recall it on the spot.
I would also like to mention that in the course of teaching your child Scripture YOU will learn it too. So if you feel like you don’t have enough Scripture memorized, then start teaching it to your children and you will all reap the benefits!
To see the first 26 verses Bug learned between 3 and 5 years old, head on over to Life, Learning, Homeschool for the list of A-Z of Bible Verses to teach your child!
And check out this video of Bug saying his favorite verse.
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