(SCROLL DOWN TO DOWNLOAD LESSONS) I love the idea of teaching our children God’s story chronologically so they put the pieces together from Genesis to Revelation. This way, they see the bible as ONE BIG STORY instead of a collection of short stories. We don’t usually start a movie in the middle and jump around so why learn the bible this way? Honestly, neither method is wrong. As long as they are learning God’s word, it’s wonderful!! I never learned the bible chronologically growing up and as I’ve done so as an adult, it is amazing to see the pieces come together.
I also believe in teaching children based on their development levels AND incorporating methods that allow auditory learners, visual learners and kinesthetic learners to all learn the way they learn best. This really helps teachers with ADD kids too! You will be amazed at what ALL the kids learn and retain when using these methods in every lesson. They have so much fun, they don’t realize they are learning and they want to bring their friends to bible class. And this is the easiest way I know of to teach! There’s literally little to no prep work.
Each week I will post another lesson. Soon enough, we will have gone from beginning to end. Oh, I should mention that I incorporate only a few of the Psalms and I DO NOT teach Proverbs, Ecclesiastes or Song of Solomon to K-5th graders. Kids at this age do not have the life experience needed to understand the Psalms or the maturity for the others. You can probably already guess why I would exclude Song of Solomon… 1:13: My beloved is to me a sachet of myrrh resting between my breasts. Yikes! I don’t think so.
My classes are divided up into four parts:
- Warm-Up. Kids don’t all arrive on time and we don’t want them to miss the most important part of class, the bible lesson. So, I begin with a warm up to get their minds moving this direction. I try to make it fun so they look forward to getting there on time. I have some kids that get upset when they miss this part.
- Prayer. Kids should be taught how to pray and why we prayer from an early age. I try to remind them that God is our Heavenly Father. He wants to hear from his children. I remind them that you can’t have a relationship with someone you never talk to. Then, every child is able to participate and no prayer request is frowned upon. At these ages, we want them to feel comfortable talking to God about anything that is important to them.
- Lesson. This is the meat of the class. At the elementary age, our goal is to teach them the bible stories. In fourth/fifth grades, we will add principles, but overall, we want to teach the stories. Developmentally, this is best. And with a long term plan, we can prepare our kids for adulthood, teaching them how to find answers to all of life in the scripture. (Read more on this here.) I rotate the hands-on items we use to teach. These include: Play-doh, Silly Putty, Play Floam, Cool Sand (1/2 cup each), White Erase Boards and Rainbow Putty (a mix of silly putty and slime). (I’ll include links to purchase these items if you are interested. You may only want to start with a couple of items and add on to your collection over time. Lessons can interchange with any of these! I put the containers I use for the Cool Sand too. They have lasted a long time in these!) They look forward to class because they get to play. Studies show this is how they learn best and I am amazed every week at what these kiddo’s remember!
- Bible Books. I believe it is important for the kids to know what books are in the bible and how to find them if needed. In our digital world, it’s easy, but like a math teacher wants you to know how to add without a calculator, I want my kids to know what the books of the bible are, or at least to be familiar with them. We sing songs and play games to help with this. Again, songs and games make learning fun!
LESSON DOWNLOADS: (Each download includes a separate printout for K/1st, 2nd/3rd & 4th/5th)
1st Quarter:
1-Creation-Sin-Death.pdf (1059 downloads )- 2-The-Great-Flood.pdf (948 downloads )
- 3-Jobs-Suffering.pdf (919 downloads )
- 4-Tower-of-Babel.pdf (900 downloads )
- 5-Abram-sent-to-Canaan-land-divided.pdf (896 downloads )
- 6-Abraham-Sarah-Isaac-Ishmael-3.pdf (913 downloads )
- 7-Jacob-Esau.pdf (938 downloads )
- 8-Jacob-get-blessing-flees-vision.pdf (885 downloads )
- 9-Jacob-Serves-Laban-and-Marries-Daughters.pdf (929 downloads )
- 10-Jacob-Wrestles-with-God-and-Reunites-with-Esau.pdf (903 downloads )
- 11-Josephs-Coat-Dreams-Traded.pdf (894 downloads )
- 12-Joseph-in-slavery-and-interprets-dreams.pdf (847 downloads )
- 13-Joseph-interprets-Pharaohs-Dream-and-is-Reunited-with-family.pdf (928 downloads )
Daniel 2 – Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream God was with Daniel and even King Nebuchadnezzar had to acknowledge that Daniel’s God was more powerful than all other gods! Teach kids about God’s amazing power and remind them to go to God when we need help and praise him when God blesses.
RESOURCES (These are the items I ordered and use in my bible classes.)