Have you ever wondered if it’s really all that important to read the Bible with your family?

Could it really be a part of God’s plan to study the Bible with your whole family?

Is it even possible to read the Bible with all your kids at the same time?

As homeschool parents, we do have the opportunity to spend our Bible time with all of our children at once. Not only does it make the process easier–it looks pretty biblical, as well.

Why Read and Study the Bible with Your Whole Family?

I always like to look to God’s original design when considering how we should function in our lives.

Just like God established the church, he established families—and he directs families to worship together.

In the Old Testament, as we see in Ezra, Nehemiah, and Joel, families are called to stand together for the public reading of God’s Word—even the smallest people.

While Ezra prayed and made confession, weeping and casting himself down before the house of God, a very great assembly of men, women, and children, gathered to him out of Israel, for the people wept bitterly. – Ezra 10:1, ESV

In Ezra, children were included in the assembly of the Lord.

And all the people gathered as one man into the square before the Water Gate. And they told Ezra the scribe to bring the Book of the Law of Moses that the Lord had commanded Israel. So Ezra the priest brought the Law before the assembly, both men and women and all who could understand what they heard, on the first day of the seventh month. And he read from it facing the square before the Water Gate from early morning until midday, in the presence of the men and the women and those who could understand. And the ears of all the people were attentive to the Book of the Law. – Nehemiah 8:1-3

The book of Nehemiah also describes children in the assembly, listening to the Book of the Law of Moses. Nehemiah 12:43 refers to children rejoicing with the people.

…gather the people.
Consecrate the congregation;
assemble the elders;
gather the children,
even nursing infants.
Let the bridegroom leave his room,
and the bride her chamber. – Joel 2:16, ESV

In Joel, the assembly even includes nursing infants.

Not only are we to worship our Lord together in the larger body of Christ. We are also called to worship God as a family. Deuteronomy chapters 6 and 11 have, perhaps, some of the best known, direct commands to do so.

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. – Deuteronomy 6:4-9

Grab your FREE Bible Study Tool Kit–over 130 pages of Bible resources for your family!

Read the Bible with Family

• That God’s Word is important
• That we can learn about the Bible together, and from each other
• That our family has committed “as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15b)

There is great value, too, in being able to guide our kids through the Bible. We want to be able to help point them—over and over again—to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

• It is so vital that our kids learn who God is—that he is sovereign and holy.
• They need to know that we are sinful and that our sin separates us from a holy and just God.
• We want to communicate over and over again that God loves us so much that he had a great plan for our salvation since before the beginning of the world, and Jesus—God the Son and the Son of God—became fully God and fully man so he could live a sinless life and take the punishment for our sins.
• We need only to believe on him and confess in with our mouths, turning from our sin—repenting—and we will be saved.
• We also want our kids to understand Jesus’ commands to his followers.

Not only can we study the Bible as a family, it is really important that we do. Our kids need our guidance and support understanding the most important book in the universe.

Danika Cooley’s book Help Your Kids Learn and Love the Bible is your crash course on teaching the Bible to your kids. Danika is an award-winning children’s author and Bible curriculum developer, and her popular Bible Road Trip is used by tens of thousands of families.

Learn more about Help Your Kids Learn and Love the Bible and grab your free 130-page Bible Study Tool Kit here.

The post Why Read and Study the Bible with Your Whole Family? first appeared on True Aim.

When it comes to following Jesus, there’s probably no more well-known truth than this:

Nothing is more important than engaging with the Bible and prayer.

For followers of Jesus, raising kids IS discipleship. Therefore, if we’re going to create a culture of discipleship in our home, Bible engagement must be a high priority in our parenting.

Teach Your Children to Engage With Scripture

In the Old Testament, God instructed His people about this, saying this about His commands: “Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up” (Deuteronomy 6:7).

Essentially, what God says is, talk about His word with your kids all the time – at home in planned environments, out and about as you go through your day, at bedtime and when you get up in the morning.

In planned times and unplanned times, pass on God’s word to your kids.

This is what the apostle Paul has in mind when he tells parents to “bring up their children in the admonition and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4).

When Paul chooses one line to guide Christian parents in their parenting task, this is it: make sure you’re nurturing your kids in the instructions of the Lord.

So I think it’s fair to say that nothing is more important than helping our kids engage with the Bible.

It’ll look different at different stages, so here are tips for each age group!

3 Tips to Help Your Kids Engage

Small Children

One of the biggest realizations I had when our kids were small was how much more capable they are than we think.

My daughter Ashley was 2 and half. She was regularly coming home from Sunday school with a short 3-5 word memory verse. Then one day I’m sitting on the couch and she started marching around the family room casually reciting all of Psalm 1! The whole psalm!

How did that happen?!

Well my 5 year old had been memorizing Psalm 1 for school, so he and I had been chanting it out loud together … and apparently my 2 year old had been listening in and absorbing it! (By the way, Psalm 1 is great text about the blessing of a life grounded in the Bible. You can listen to my thoughts on Psalm 1 here.)

Small children are like sponges. So here’s my tip for helping them engage the Bible:

Facts and Fun

Use this time to help them learn all sorts of Bible facts and info but do so in fun, interactive ways. Chanting. Singing. Games.

Find a good children’s Bible and read it everyday before bed. As they become more familiar with the stories, pause while reading and have the kids finish the sentence or fill in the word.

To memorize, sing or chant the passage.

We played “The Bible Story Game” with our kids. We’d all sit in a circle on the floor. One of us would have a small ball. We would toss the ball to each other and whoever caught the ball had to tell a Bible story.

Occasionally when they told a story I’d ask why they liked that story.

Sometimes, we’d read a Psalm about praising God with songs. Then we’d all grab little instruments (a rattle, a tamborine, etc.) and march around the room singing praise songs to Jesus.

We had fun learning the Bible.

8-12 Years Old

At this stage it’s time to begin building a framework for character development and decision making. That means, it’s time to help them see how the Bible connects with their life.

So here’s a couple tips for Bible engagement at this stage:

1. Aim for Understanding

Not just understanding what it says but what it means and why it matters.

When reading the Bible as a family, ask questions about the passage you are reading like:
-what are some ways you can put others first in your life? [maybe prompt them with different areas life – friends, family, etc]
-who has hurt you and how can you be actively kind to them?

2. Connect the Bible to Life

Be alert to teachable moments where you can help connect the Bible to life: A squabble with friend or when they helped someone out and you discuss the joy of serving others like Jesus.

When our kids were in this stage, my wife and I began going out occasionally and leaving them home alone for a couple hours. My son is two years older than his sister, so I wanted him to begin to think about what it means to be the man in relationship to a woman.

So one day we were getting ready to leave and I said, “Jeffrey, you’re the man tonight while mom and I are gone. What does that mean?”

He answered immediately – “I’m in charge!”

“Ok, sure,” I replied with a smile. “And what does it mean to be ‘in charge’ as a man?”…

Silence.

I had him look up Ephesians 5:25, where he promptly learned that it meant laying down his life like Jesus, so he needed to put Ashely’s wishes and well being ahead of his own.

At this stage, you want to connect the Bible to life as a framework for character development and decision making.

Teen Years

The teen years provide new opportunities and new challenges. Often schedules get a little crazier and the kids are busier (especially once they have a driver’s license and a job!). It’s harder to have the same routines as you did when they were younger.

We found it harder to read the Bible consistently as a family.

Is it okay for a pastor to admit that we read the Bible infrequently together during the teen years?

What we did have, however, were frequent conversations at the dinner table or late at night (why did it have to be just as I was getting ready for bed?!) about God, life, the Bible, people, and the struggles of growing up.

Some of those questions were prompted by me. Some were sparked by something that happened at school or with friends. And often those questions came with all the emotions of teen angst.

So my first tip for the teen years is this:

1. Brave the hard questions

Wade into the mess. Engage with them. Expect pushback. Think out loud with them. Don’t force agreement – the goal isn’t for them to agree with you; it’s for them to submit to and trust God.

So even when they reach what feels like a poor conclusion, you may need to let it go and remind them (gently and graciously) that God is the final authority “so just be sure your listening to His word as you think this through.”

But whatever you do, don’t shut down the lines of communication.

2. Coach the habit of reading and praying on their own. 

Don’t badger them. Don’t guilt them. Encourage them. Affirm them when they have been doing this well. Every now and then ask them what they’re reading and what stands out to them.

If they admit they are struggling, ask if you can do anything to help support them.

One of the things I’ve discovered is that a lot of young people know they should read the Bible and pray but they don’t know how. That may be your teen. If that’s the case here’s a short video course (three 5-8 minute videos) that gives a model for how to read and pray consistently.

If they are open to it, offer to do a reading plan together where you’re reading the same passages on your own and texting or sharing with each other what stood out to you from your reading. I’m doing this right now with a friend who’s a brand new follower of Jesus and using a reading plan I created that works great for this. You can find that plan here.

A Most Important Bonus Tip

Ultimately, the most important factor in helping your kids engage with the Bible is you … if you are engaging with it, soaking in it, praying it into your own soul, (And don’t be afraid to let your kids “catch” you reading and praying), then the Bible is central in your home because it’s central in your life.

If you’re struggling to read consistently or want some fresh ideas, you too may want check out my video course or reading plan.

The key is setting a time, place and plan so that more often than not you engage with the Bible and connect with God. Then you can experience the blessed and flourishing life that Psalm 1 describes.

John Whittaker has been serving in ministry for 30 years.  He loves to help people see how God’s word speaks to their life and his greatest thrill in life is to see people come alive to the joy of walking with God honestly, humbly, and transformationally. John served as a professor at Boise Bible College for 19 years, as well as pastoring at a couple of different churches in the Boise area and teaching and preaching in various places around the world. His partner in ministry is Louise, his closest friend and wife for 30 years. They have two married children and are expecting their first grand daughter in November and their second grandchild in February! To learn more about John and the online Bible teaching resources he’s currently creating visit johnwhittaker.net.

The post 3 Ways to Teach your Children to Engage with Scripture first appeared on True Aim.

When I went to Bible college, Bible reading, prayer and memorizing scripture was mandatory. That made it easy to want to study and put God’s word to memory. It is also easy to make my children study scripture as part of their homeschool curriculum. We have them memorize certain verses we feel are the most important. Verses that will encourage and strengthen their faith. But, as for my own studies, I find myself very undisciplined.

This post contains affiliate links. Please read my full disclosure for more information.

That’s why I have found that Bible verse coloring pages really help! While I color the image that captures the meaning of the verse, I say it over and over to myself. I will also use it as a time to pray with and about the verse and what it means.

Bible Verse Coloring Pages

These coloring pages are free and will help you remember 6 verses that capture the whole Bible. Hand drawn by a Christian mom, she captures the essence of the verse beautifully in her images.

Older children will really enjoy this as part of their scripture memorization or Bible study. You could even read the chapters that the verses are from while they color.

These pages include the following verses that represent 6 events of the Bible.

1. Creation – Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”
2. The Fall of Man (Adam & Eve) – Philippians 2:11a “every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord”
3. Judgement (Noah and the Flood) – Genesis 9:13a “I have set my bow in the cloud”
4. The Promise (Abraham) – Luke 12:31 “Seek the kingdom of God above all else, and He will give you everything you need.”
5. God’s People (Moses) – The Ten Commandments
6. Jesus – Matthew 28:6a “He isn’t here! He is risen, just as he said”

The 6 events are the most important to teach your children and what all the other events in the Bible can be categorized under. It is what we use to summarize the Bible and help our children understand the past present and future!

Download your Bible coloring pages here.

If you like these pages, you might also like this new Bible Verse coloring book! What a fun family devotional activity!

Share your finished coloring pages on Instagram and tag @trueaimedu #Biblecoloring. Can’t wait to see them!

The post 6 Bible Verse Coloring Pages first appeared on True Aim.

This post is sponsored by Tyndale Publishing. All opinions are my own.

One Sentence Bible Storybooks

I love being able to weave God into every subject in our homeschool. That’s very difficult when finding material for my daughter to practice reading. With her limited abilities, I’m lucky to find stories that have a point at all. One Sentence Bible Storybooks help my daughter remember the most important stories and characters of the Bible. Plus, she gets to practice her reading skills because of the simple words and repetitive text.

We really enjoyed reading the storybooks together, then doing the devotional in the back. There’s even a short prayer to make it easy for parents.

Since each book just gives one sentence on the Bible story, you can expound upon the storybooks by talking about the whole Bible story if your children remember it, or reading to them from larger Storybook Bible.

The story also gives a verse to remember in the back, so we made it our memory verse for the week. A fun and hands-on way to help children memorize scripture is to make a craft and hang it up where they can see it. Then, throughout the week, have them say the verse as they look at their craft that they made. You can make it stick even more by offering a reward for repeating the verse without help at the end of the week.

One Sentence Bible Storybooks come in sets of ten books. The sets that are now available are; Bible Favorites, Bible Heros, Bible Animals.

The Burning Bush Bible Craft

One week, my daughter read Moses and the Bush. The illustrations are adorable and she really liked the image to word guide in the back to help her identify the important words in the story.

After she read the story, I did the short devotional and then helped her do a simple craft for the memory verse of the week.

For this craft, you can draw a bush outline on a piece of green construction paper, or print of this handy printable that I made onto card stock or construction paper.

You’ll need pieces of orange, red, and/or yellow tissue paper and glue. Have your child put a small amount of glue on the bush and attach their tissue paper where they want to represent the bush being on fire. After they are done with this simple craft, have them repeat the verse to you.

There are LOTS of simple Bible crafts you can do with these Storybooks on my Bible Activities for Kids Pinterest Board.

One Sentence Bible Storybooks Giveaway!

Enter to win 1 of 5 sets of One Sentence Bible Storybooks: Bible Heroes! This boxed set of 10 delightful mini books helps beginning readers recognize basic vocabulary words while learning about 10 of their favorite Bible heroes.

Stories include:

• Adam and the Goat
• The Men and Their Horns
• The Wise Woman
• The Strong Man
• The Brave Queen
• Three Friends in the Fire
• Shepherds and the Angels
• The Boy and His Bread
• Paul and His Pal
• King Jesus

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The post Teach Reading and Bible Stories with One Sentence Bible Storybooks first appeared on True Aim.

One thing we try to do every night is eat dinner together. And so it struck me recently: Why don’t we do our family Bible time while enjoying a meal together?

This simple change has brought so many blessings to our dinner table! Not to mention that our family Bible time conversations have made our dinner discussions extremely rich.

We keep it very casual. My husband simply pulls out his Bible (or uses the Bible app on his phone) and he reads a passage.

Sometimes we work through a specific chapter or book of the Bible; and other times we pick a set of verses that are appropriate to a specific behavior we’d seen earlier that day (ahem).

As we go along, we give background to the passage or ask our kids questions about what we’re reading.

Family Bible Time Discussion Starters:

• How would you summarize these verses?

• What do you think God is trying to say through these verses?

• What other stories in the Bible (or stories from your life) does this remind you of?

• How can you apply these truths to what’s going on in your life right now?

These questions are similar to what our family refers to as the “Five Rs”—a system we’ve developed for helping them (and us!) to have meaningful independent Bible study times. You can download a free “5 Rs” printable bookmark here if you’d like to incorporate this concept in your family Bible time (or your personal devotions).

I love that family Bible time over dinner makes spiritual conversations incredibly easy. Along with discussion about the passage, I’ve also noticed that our kids ask some awesome questions about God or the Bible during this time. My husband and I want our kids to ask these hard questions and to discover how to find the answers, so we welcome this!

God intends for us to share his truths with others through relationships. What better place to do that than at the family dinner table?

Question:

How would a simple change like having family Bible time during dinner bring new levels of spiritual growth to your family? Have you experimented with this technique before and what were your results?

Share with us in the comments!

The post Easy Tip for an Awesome Family Bible Time first appeared on True Aim.

For day 1 in our Creation Story Book, we started with our memory verse, Genesis 1:1. We did 2 very basic art projects and our copy-work.

First, we drew the earth on our printable and then we did a simple crayon resist painting.

God Made Light Creation Craft

Crayon resist is perfect for the first day of creation. The effect illustrates exactly what it says in the Bible, Genesis 1:3-5. I especially like to emphasize to my kids HOW God made light; through His word. God’s word is THAT powerful!

We started with a blank white piece of paper and used white, yellow, and orange crayons to draw a burst of light in the middle of the pages. Then I reminded them about how God separated the light from the darkness and we used black watercolor to paint over the crayon.

The crayon (the light) shows up bright against the paint (darkness).

Making Light Experiment

Later on, we did some experiments with light to try and explain what it is. We watched this little video on light first.

In simple terms, light is energy. We tried to make a light a few different ways. First, we tried making it with sugar cubes. It was really hard and we ended up having to go in a closet. One of the dads in our homeschool co-op rolled the sugar cubes with a rolling pin really vigorously and saved the experiment. It worked! The friction created when the sugar cubes hit each other created little sparks of light.

Then we tried it with a balloon and a fleece blanket. That worked too! The science behind that is a little more complicated, but your older children will love learning about how electrons are attracted to the blanket and then jump from the blanket to the balloon and create a lightning effect!

Finally we used glow sticks to make some really bright light. Make sure you show the children how the sticks don’t glow until you break the glass inside. Then, the gas and chemicals combine and start releasing energy. Then they start to glow.

Use this science experiment printable to record your findings and talk about how amazing the light that God made is!

Just like the light is energy and helps guide us through the dark, God’s word does the same thing for us in life. So, after each of our activities we took time to pray and ask God to help us remember to listen to His word so that we won’t live in darkness and stumble through life, but live in peace and be energized by the hope His words bring to us.

Psalm 119:105, “Your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.”
John 8:12, “When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.””

More ideas for Day 1 of the Creation Story for Kids!

Creation Scripture Journal

Days of Creation in Legos

Paper Plate Art & Memory Cards

Creation No Sew Toddle Quiet Book

The post The Creation Story for Kids: Day 1 first appeared on True Aim.

I don’t just want my kids to KNOW the story, I want them to BELIEVE. I’ve started by teaching them what was made on each day. Then later, I can fill in more of the details.

I’ve joined with other bloggers to bring you even more ideas! Join us for activities, crafts, experiments and more to help your children learn the Creation Story!

I’ll list each day below and continue to add resources to help you and your children create a Creation Story Book.

Creation Story Book for Kids

We made these little books in my preschool 2 years ago. The kids enjoyed every activity! We don’t do too many structured crafts unless they are learning activities. These crafts accomplish more than that! They help children learn about what God made on each day of creation, practice handwriting, and make a book that they will love to read over and over.

For this storybook, I took the children’s artwork from the days of creation and put it in sheet protectors. Then I tied the sheet protectors together with string and duck-taped the side to make a very sturdy book that is perfect for a memory box.

If you like to do your own creation unit and storybook, please see the days of creation below with ideas for activities you can do. If the activity isn’t a craft, I suggest taking a picture and gluing it onto the creation copy-work printables you find below.

Creation Copy-work and Drawing Sheet Printables

We used these printables below for some of the art that we did for our storybooks. It also helps to have some Biblical text to guide you on what to say for each day. Although, not all of these are the actual verses, but summaries of the creation story.

They are great for handwriting practice too! If your child is too young to trace it on their own, you can just guide their hand by holding their wrist. To download, click the image below and save to your computer. Please share this post when telling others about these printables and not the download itself. Thank you!

Days of Creation Activities for Kids

Check out all of these ideas below and have your child choose 1 or 2 for each day of creation! Do one activity each week or each day, it is up to you! Get ready to have lots of fun and glorify God at the same time.

I also recommend checking out this FREE music from Songs for Saplings and signing up for Creation Moments, a daily fact about God’s creation sent to your inbox!

Follow our pinterest board or subscribe so you don’t miss out!

Follow True Aim Education’s board The Creation Story for Kids on Pinterest.

Day 1 – God said, “Let there be light…”

Crayon Resist “Light” Art & Making Light Experiment

Creation Scripture Journal

Days of Creation in Legos – Light

Paper Plate Art & Free Day 1 Memory Card Printables

Creation No Sew Toddle Quiet Book

Day 2 – God called the vault “sky”.

Rainbow Craft & Why is the Sky Blue Experiment

Creation: Sky – No Sew Quiet Book for Toddlers

Days of Creation Accordion

Days of Creation in Legos  – Sky

Paper Plate Craft & Free Day 2 Memory Card Printables

Day 3 – The Land, Seas, Plants, and Trees

Landscape Collage Art & Colored Flower Experiment

Creation: Land, Plants & Sea- No Sew Quiet Book for Toddlers

 Creation Game Board

The 7 Days of Creation in Legos {Day 3 – Land, Plants & Seas)

Day 4 – “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky…”

Sun, Stars & Moon Art and What is Orbit Experiment

Creation: Sun, Moon & Stars- No Sew Quiet Book for Toddlers

Creation Daily Number Flip Book

The 7 Days of Creation in Legos {Day 4 – Sun, Moon & Stars}

Day 5 – Fish & Birds

Fish and Bird Crafts & How Fish Breathe Experiment

Creation: Birds & Fish – No Sew Quiet Book for Toddlers

Creation Task Cards

The 7 Days of Creation in Legos {Day 5 – Birds & Fish}

Day 6 – Animals & Man

Animal Crafts & About Me Silhouette

Animals & Man – No Sew Quiet Book for Toddlers

Preschool Animal Sort

The 7 Days of Creation in Legos {Day 6 – Animals & Man}

Day 7 – “God blessed the seventh day and made it holy…”

Keeping the Sabbath Holy – 5 Activities to do With Kids Each Week

Creation: Rest – No Sew Quiet Book for Toddlers

Creation Paper Plate Project

The 7 Days of Creation in Legos {Day 7 – Rest}

Check Out Our Christian Preschool Curriculum!

The post The Creation Story for Kids! first appeared on True Aim.

Welcome to Mom’s Library!

Filled with parenting tips, activities for young children, crafts, devotionals, recipes, and more!

Be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss the next Library!

Check out last week’s Mom’s Library for Fun with Pumpkins!

This Week’s Featured Posts…

Bottle Cap Busy Bag Ideas

I’m saving up my lids so I can make some of these! What a great way to reuse something that I can’t recycle.

Sometimes Getting Mad is the Right Thing to Do

I love this bible lesson and activity! There are certain things that should make you mad and it is actually a good thing!

Awesome Stem Learning Activities

I’m a sucker for science, math and engineering. If I could skip reading and writing in my homeschool I would!

Would you like to participate?

If you were featured please grab a button.

  

The post Free Resources for Moms: Mom’s Library #112 first appeared on True Aim.

Teaching children about the Holy Spirit isn’t easy. I don’t think anyone will fully understand until we ask God in heaven, but I did the best I could.  I broke our lesson into three parts: Who, How, What.  This made it easy for them to learn and as they get older, I can fill in their basic knowledge with more details.

Who is the Holy Spirit?

Before our lesson, I froze some water with blue food coloring in a small plastic cup. Then I popped it out into a bigger dish and displayed it in the middle of the table. I had my daughter read Matthew 28:19 that says, “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit…” 

After we read the passage I asked who the Holy Spirit was and my kids gave me great answers, “It’s God’s Spirit. He is God.”

Yes, He is God, but also different!

I explained that there is God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and just like this water can be three different things.  “It can be ice, liquid water, and what else can it be?”

My daughter Audrey immediately said clouds. “Right, it’s called water vapor,” I said. We can’t always see it, but we know it is there because it collects in the clouds and then it comes back down as rain.

We put the ice outside to observe the 3 forms.  After a while, the ice turned to water and we marked the water level. The girls kept going outside to check on the water and see if it had turned into water vapor and went up into the air. You could also speed this up and boil the water or microwave it.

So the Holy Spirit is God; He is the same as Jesus and the Father, but He is a different form.

How do you receive the Holy Spirit?

In Matthew 3:16 Jesus is baptized and the Holy Spirit comes down on Him from heaven. While my children are very young and don’t really understand what being baptized means, they do know what sin is and so I talked with them about what Acts 2:38 says, “Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” If your children are older, this would be a great launching point for a discussion on baptism.

For now, with my children I just talked about what kind of sin they struggle with and how they could repent, stop doing those things and commit their lives to God.                              

What does the Holy Spirit do?

We get the Holy Spirit from turning away from sin, being baptized and committing our lives to God, but what does He do?

He helps us remember what we’ve learned about God (John 14:26), do God’s will (John 16:13-14), helps us bear the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:16-26), and makes us children of God (Romans 8:1-17).  We can’t leave it up to Him to do all the work, we are responsible for reading our Bibles and Praying so the Holy Spirit can help us.

My children loved singing this silly song to remember the fruit of the spirit and what it looks like when the Holy Spirit is working in us.

In my homeschool I am all about review, so at meals I will ask questions about what we learned during our lessons.  Breakfast is when we talk about God and read the Bible so we can start our day off right, so the next day I asked these questions to help them remember all they learned about the Holy Spirit.

1. Who is the Holy Spirit? (God)

2. How do we receive Him? (Repenting and committing our lives to God through baptism)

3. What does he do? (Helps us live the way God wants us to)

4. How do we know the Spirit is working in us? (By the fruit)

5. What’s something that you need the Holy Spirit to help you with?

We had a blast and learned a lot about God and about each other. For more bible study ideas for kids, check out all of the posts for each letter below.

I’ve joined the ABC’s of Bible study for children!

For more bible study ideas for kids, check out all of the posts for each letter below.

The post H is for Holy Spirit Bible Lesson and Activity first appeared on True Aim.

Materials:
• Two plastic cups per child
• One permanent marker
• Water
• One straw per student

Object:
Children will race to be the first team to fill their cup to the water line.

Preparation:
Fill half of the cups three quarters with water and place them one foot apart on a table. On the empty cups, draw a line around the middle of the cup. Place an empty cup about one-two feet in front of each water cup.

Introduction:
We all try to remember to work hard and never give up. Reaching to expand our horizons doesn’t just happen in school or with dreams, but in our spiritual lives as well.

Today, we are going to practice our stretching by playing a game!

How to Play this Bible Game

1. Give each child a straw and have them sit in front of a water cup.
2. When you say “Go!” children will stick their straw straight in the cup of water.
3. Next they will place their index finger on top of the straw, covering the hole.
4. They will then have to pick up their straw, keeping their finger over the hole, and reach over to the empty cup.
5. Once the straw is over the empty cup, they will raise their index finger, dropping the water into the cup.
6. The first student who reaches the halfway line on their cup wins the game.
7. Students may not stand or move their position at any time.
8. The only way to get the water in the cup is to stretch and reach as far as they can.
9. There are no penalties if water spills or does not make it in the cup.
10. The game continues until all children have filled their cups halfway.

Closing:
That was not an easy assignment, was it? The Bible says “I can do all this through Him who gives me strength. (Philippians 4:13)” Gods loves us all, and that love is free. But our spiritual growth is not easy! We have to work on it and sometimes we might become so frustrated and overwhelmed that the goal of spiritual maturity seems unattainable. But what we must remember is that if we try hard, if we stretch and reach for something that seems far off, we will eventually be spiritually strong for Christ.

Here’s another great verse from Philippians. Apostle Paul says in chapter 1 verse 6, he is “confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

Let’s keep reaching and watching God do great things when we do!

If you liked this bible game, you may also like Spring Has Sprung!

About the Author: Mary Kate Warner
Mary-Kate is a regular blogger at Christianity Cove.  You can find her writing about Christian Parenting, Homeschool Teaching, Bible Study and Sunday School Activities, Faith and inspiring children to love God.

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The post Bible Game for Kids: Reach You’re Almost There! first appeared on True Aim.