(or Raisins and Verses Time)
Of course, I think my grandkids are amazing! But so are their parents! I'm thrilled to have my daughter-in-law, Abby Fleming, explain how she is currently getting their two little ones to memorize scripture.
My Inspiration
Of course, I think my grandkids are amazing! But so are their parents! I'm thrilled to have my daughter-in-law, Abby Fleming, explain how she is currently getting their two little ones to memorize scripture.
My Inspiration
My
kids are smarter than I am. Well, they have a better memory at
least. It's always amazing to me what they can remember. Can you
relate to any of these?
- “Mommy, yesterday at lunch you said that I could have a special treat today!”
- When reading a favorite book, “Wait, you didn't read that right. You skipped some words.”
- After her second ever Veggie Tales, “and now it's time for silly songs with Larry...”
- Any kind of slightly annoying kids' songs are engrained in their little minds after only one or two times of listening to them!
- Potty songs, anyone??
Even
before I had kids, I knew that I wanted to take this uncanny ability
of theirs to remember EVERYTHING and use it for something beneficial
to them... memory verses. This decision was inspired by two
families.
I
worked in an Awana Club
with the first family when I was back in high school. For those of
you who don't know, Awana is a children's club with a huge emphasis
on Bible memorization. It's a great program, but at the time I
didn't fully understand how important it was that the children were
memorizing Bible verses. At a leadership meeting one night, we were
discussing whether we ought to include more “fun” things in lieu
of some of the memory verse time. I was all for it, but the Mom of
this family disagreed with me. She talked about how her children
were like sponges, soaking up everything and
how she wanted to use
this time in their lives to help them soak up as many Bible verses as
they could hold. The
value she placed on this was contagious.
Later,
when I was working my first teaching job, a fellow teacher invited my
husband and I to his home for a family dinner. At the time, he had
two very young children. After dinner, they told us that they needed
to practice their family memory verses together. I was sitting there
expecting something to the extent of “God is love” when they
started reciting the entire chapter of Genesis One (motions
included)!! I was blown away at what they could do at such young
ages. I was also inspired to higher
my expectations for
my kids one day.
How
we made it work
Today,
I am “Mommy” to a 3 year old daughter and a 1 ½ year old son.
After several hiccups and failed attempts, we have come to a memory
verse routine that works well for us. I hope it can help you find a
system that works for you!
The
first thing we did was buy a highly recommended CD, “Hide 'em in
Your Heart” by Steve Green. It
is a CD composed entirely of verses set to music, but in a kid
friendly (and amazingly
not annoying to parents) way.
There's just something about music that can help our minds remember
things. I decided
to use this to help my daughter memorize the verses on the CD. After
owning and listening to it for a while, we started practicing. Our
practicing revolves
around three words: consistent,
rewarded
and relaxed.
Consistent.
I established a certain
time every day when we practice our memory verses. For us, it's in
the morning right after breakfast, while we are still at the table.
We break her verse down
into very small phrases (2-4 words) and repeat them to her with the
same exact intonation every time. Then, she repeats the phrase back
to us until she can do it on her own. The next day, we review what
she already knows and pick up practicing where we left off. Now that
she's used to it, she can usually add a new phrase on every day or
two.
Rewarded.
We
all need some sort of motivation, and our kids are no different.
We've somehow convinced our
daughter that raisins
are a special treat, so that is our token bribery...
I mean reward. We
actually call it “Raisins and Verses Time” now. When she first
started, we would line up the raisins, one for each word, and she
could eat them as she said the words. Now,
we break it up into two piles of raisins. First, she says all her
previously learned verses, we give her lots and lots of praise, and
she eats her first pile of raisins. Then, we work on her new verse,
sometimes reinforcing the phrase she learned yesterday, sometimes
adding a new phrase, always with lots of praise.
Relaxed.
We've
learned that our daughter learns her verses much quicker and happier
if we keep it a fun and relaxed time. There is no pressure.
Sometimes, she gets on a roll and can do a new phrase every day.
Sometimes, we take a week on a two word phrase. There is no rush.
No one is keeping score. We're thrilled for every verse she can hide
in that little heart of hers.
With
this routine, our daughter has learned 6 good sized verses and is now
working on the Lord's Prayer. It's not quite Genesis 1, but we're
pretty proud of her!
I
mentioned I have a 1 ½ year old son too. He can't talk much yet,
but he was feeling a little left out during “Raisins and Verses
Time” and very jealous that she was getting extra raisins. So, he
now has his own verse that he tries to say every day, too. One day,
it will sound like “God is love”, but for now it sounds more
like, “Dg!! La!”. He gets a couple raisins and lots of praise,
and he gives us a big grin. It's a pretty good trade off.
I
hope you can use this to find a system that works for you!!
Do you like to write? Do you have a mealtime story that will inspire other moms to get their family together around the table more often? Check out my guidelines and then write away! I'd love to make you my next guest poster!
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Abby Fleming graduated from Emmaus Bible College with a Bachelor's Degree in Elementary Education and Biblical Studies. Also at Emmaus, she met and married Daniel Fleming. They have been married 8 years now and have a beautiful 3 year old daughter, Anna, and a handsome 22 month old son, Kenneth. After the birth of their daughter, Abby and Daniel decided together that she could work as a full time Mommy. Currently, Abby and her husband are living in the Chicago area as he works full time and pursues further education.
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Loving this post! Thank you so much for linking up at Mom's Library this week. I'll be featuring this post at Meaningful Mama. I hope you'll be there again this week.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for the feature!
DeleteThis was a fun post to read and watch. What good advice you gave.
ReplyDeleteAs grandma, I have come back and watched these videos several times! I'm glad others have enjoyed my grandkids too!
DeleteWe used the GT and the Hale Express CD's for our sons. The verses are sung to music that made it fun as it wasn't sing song like some tapes I've listened to before. I still love them.
ReplyDeleteI think we had that when our kids were little. And the Steve Green CD is on a second generation now!
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