Several months ago my husband and I attended a class that shared ideas how to teach your children scriptures stories. One of the ways they shared with us they called the "Blues Clues" style. The makers of Blues Clues did a study that children need to hear things five times in a row to have them remember thing real well. If you have young children a great way to teach them scripture stories is do the same story five days in a row.
We implemented this into our family and it has worked great. We do it every other week and read the scriptures the other weeks. We have older kids so we tweaked it a bit so that it would be for meaningful for them.
For my older kids this is what we do. (I do have younger kids and it works for them as well)
Day 1- Share the story
Day 2- Share the story, and then discuss the principle that the story demonstrates that you want to focus on.
Day 3-Share the story, then share modern day examples of the the principle that you are focusing on.
Day 4- Share the story, discuss the context of the story, (what's going on around the story).
Day 5- Share the story, How are you going to apply what you have learned into your personal lives and your family.
Here is an example:
Day 1- Daniel in the lions den from the Bible,
King Darius was the king of Babylon. He chose men to help him. Daniel was their leader. They did not want Daniel to be their leader. The men knew that Daniel prayed to God. They went to King Darius and asked him to make a new law. It said that the people could not pray to God. People who did not obey this law would be thrown into the lions den. Daniel would not obey the law, he loved God and he still prayed to him. The men saw Daniel praying, and went and told the the King. The King knew that Daniel had to be thrown in the lions den. King Darius fasted all night that Daniel would be saved, and Daniel prayed all night to God. In the morning the King went to lions to see if Daniel was still alive. Daniel said that God had shut the mouths of the lions.
Day 2- Share the story, then choose a principle. There are several you can choose from this story; obedience, faith,the power of prayer, Standing up for what is right. For our example lets choose obedience. You would discuss how Daniel showed obedience to God. God asked him to pray to him and no other thing. So even when the law was made that no one could pray to God, Daniel still prayed to God.
Day 3- Share story, then remind everyone that your focus is obedience, ask them if they have seen others being obedient. Example: I asked Chris if he would put his toys away yesterday. Chris was obedient and came right away and put his toys away. You could also add how that person was blessed for being obedient.
Day 4- Share the story, then discuss the context. You could explain how as a young boy Daniel was taken from his home and brought to live with the king. And other stories of Daniel leading up to the lions den story. You still would want to tie in obedience.
Day 5- Share the story, discuss what you can do as a family to show more obedience. Maybe your focus would be being more obedient to mom and dad, you could explain blessings that could come from that. Or being obedient to adults; teachers, parents and grandparents. Look at your family needs and decide. Then I like to write that goal down and post it on the fridge so that we all can remember. For individual goals I pass out a paper that we can right our own personal goal.
Don't think that my family is perfect, we just try to do our best.
I hope that you will take the chance to share the stories of the scriptures and teach those around you how to apply them in their lives.
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