Have you always wanted to teach the Bible to your kids but didn't know how to go about beginning a consistent Bible study method? Sharing in the nourishment of God's Word with your kids is not only possible, it's the foundation of parenting kids for Jesus! And I've discovered a life-changing and useful resource to study the Bible as a family or even do a small group Bible study.
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Written by Danika Cooley, Help Your Kids Learn and Love the Bible is a well-written book that teaches you as a parent how to address the Bible to your kids and how to start a bible study with your family. Because of this book, your kids will want to reach for the Bible time and time again for all life lessons to study Scripture and when they have burning questions needing to be answered.
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About Help Your Kids Learn and Love the Bible
I read Help Your Kids Learn and Love the Bible, not being able to put it down once I started, and was thrilled about the fresh ideas Danika Cooley, author and fellow homeschool mom, put into the book, eager to use her Bible studying techniques with my own kids. This book grabbed my attention as soon as I opened the first page of the introduction. Everything Cooley wrote down resonated strongly with me.
For example, she writes about always wanting to instill a love of the Lord with her kids and have Bible study time, but she didn't really know how to go about it at first.
She was learning different ways on teach about Christ, but she needed a good idea, a clearer way to teach Bible skills for children.
She says:
I was certain I needed to be intentional about teaching the gospel and reading the Bible to my children.
Danika Cooley in Help Your Kids Learn and Love the Bible, page 10
Does this also touch on a soft spot inside your heart too? Do you want to be more intentional about teaching Scripture to your kids, but you don't really have a clear path on how to go about it day by day?
This book will help!
The book is broken up into 3 sections:
Introduction: You Can Help Your Kids Learn and Love the Bible
Part One: You're the Leader
- Making the Bible Approachable For Your Kids
- A Good Start to a Strong Finish
- Finding Time in an Age of Hustle
Part Two: Faithful Reading
- Who Wrote This Thing, Anyway?
- Keep the Message In View
- A Library of Books
- Profitable Discussion
Part Three: A Daily Walk
- Reading the Word Together
- Hide the Word In Your Child's Heart
- Praying the Word Together
- Study the Word When You're Not Feeling It
Conclusion: Reaping Fruit from a Living Branch
Gleaning from the sections alone, you can tell that Cooley covers things on how to teach about God's love and like how to set up the foundation of starting to study Scripture more intentionally, how to learn about Scripture and its different parts along with discussing the Good News with your kids with discussion questions, and how to be consistent in reading the God's Word with your kids (even when you're not feeling it!).
One great thing about the book is that she discusses her personal experience with the transition from thoughtful Bible studying to the first time she intentionally began teaching the Good News to her kids and how to teach kids about God's love. She makes you feel like you're not the only one how wants to do more direct teaching about God's promises. I've read how reading others' personal experiences will help you feel more connected to the writer.
However, in this book, Cooley goes into detail and exposes her vulnerability to truly let you know that she, too, was once facing unknown ways to teach these bible competency for kids. Because of her experience, she enthusiastically shows you how to start a Bible study with your family.
Grab Your Free Bible Study Tool Kit – no strings attached!
You can grab this awesome and completely FREE Bible Study Kit for teaching about God's promises! When you click here or click on the image above, you will be taken to a page to get it. Before you add this Bible Study Kit to your cart, you get the opportunity to choose between the ESV version or the KJV – how cool is that?
Inside the Bible Study Kit, you get the following awesome (and totally free!) resources:
- The Truth About the Bible Banner
- I am Generation Bible Lapbook
- Bible Reading Cheat Sheet (I talk about these below!)
- Bible Stick Puppets
- Bible Copywork
- Bible Comic Book Pages
- Through the Bible Reading Chart
Just click here to grab your free Bible Study Kit for help teaching about God's promises or click on the image above. This Kit would work SO GREAT with the book Help Your Kids Learn and Love the Bible too!
How To Start Teaching Bible Skills for Children
Cooley gets into the descriptive transformation on how to teach kids about God's love inside her book. She includes steps that helped me on how to start a Bible study with my kids and I know they will help you as well!
Teaching About God's Promises Through Help Your Kids Learn and Love the Bible
In section two, you will read about creating a regular study routine with your family. She begins by suggesting to go over the origin of the Bible and go over the basic characteristics of Scripture to your kids because it's important to know who wrote the Bible and why we trust its words (page 70).
To begin teaching the Bible to young kiddos (around toddler/preschool age), here's one way on how to teach kids about God's love: make sure you have genuine enthusiasm about teaching Scripture to your kids because that kind of excitement is contagious. Your kids get excited about things because you're excited about things and learning about the Bible is no different. So when you excitedly talk about the Biblical stories of the Bible in awe and wonder, your kids will also catch on to the magnificence of the stories, thus representing the magnificence of God while teaching about God's promises.
As your kids grow older into elementary age, Cooley recommends teaching bible skills for children and teaching about Scripture and the Doctrine of Scripture in deeper truths. She uses the easy-to-remember acronym SCAN to help kids understand and recall these truths a lot easier. Here's what she explains SCAN means:
S is for sufficient.
Sufficient is the first step. God's Word consists of every little thing we need to know in order to grasp the understanding of salvation as well as exactly how to be Christ-like. The Bible has everything we need. We don't need to look for God anywhere else, because the Word of God has it all. It is sufficient.
C is for clear.
The Bible clearly states how to follow Christ and be Christ-like. It reveals exactly how to be saved in its pages. Kids can understand Scripture and know who God is and understand salvation. Everything is clearly stated in the Bible, from salvation through God's Word to living for God.
A is for authoritative.
God is the alpha and the omega. The Bible is God's Word and thus it is what we shall follow to live Christ-like and for God. God is our Father, the ultimate authority in our lives. Jesus is the King of Kings.
N is for necessary.
To live a truly virtuous life in godly ways, we absolutely need the Bible. Reading God's Word will help us understanding who God is, how to be saved, and how to live a moral life. It is through the Good News, written in His Words and in Scripture, how we come to know God's plan and Jesus Christ. Therefore, the Bible is necessary to live our lives according to how God wants us to live.
SCAN contains the four attributes of Scripture and is more like a model to follow as you go through and study God's Word. This will help enable you to further teach Bible study skills for kids and is the perfect beginning to teaching about God.
How To Teach Kids About God's Love and Making It A Regular Part of Your Family's Day
Throughout the book, Cooley gives you tons of suggestions for study materials and creative ways to study God's Word, resources, and tools to help you teach the Bible to your kids. Even in the above section about the acronym SCAN, she recommends creating a poster with these four attributes for your kids to remember it!
The Bible is a story (page 91). Your kids will delight in reading it and learning more about Jesus. To do this effectively and to help kids retain these Biblical truths, there are quite a number of ways for teaching about God's promises and implementing study skills for kids. Personally, I liked to begin in the gospel of John to teach the kids more about salvation.
Now know that there are a lot of examples that I could pull from the book, thankfully, to teach these skills for children, so I'm going to give this example for studying:
Use a Bible-reading cheat sheet! This is definitely a great way to teach Bible skills for children and I've found that I genuinely love this idea! And we're not using notebook paper for your cheat sheet, but index cards! By the way, you can get your a free Bible Study Cheat Sheet right here inside of the free Bible Study Kit!
First things first, one way to learn how to start a Bible study with your family is mentioned in Cooley's book on page 92. As your kids read through the Bible, whether it be studying in their own time, such as their own personal bible study quiet time, or reading as part of a group, they'll be using these index cards to jot down good questions they'll have about that particular passage. On one side of the index card, have them write down the main theme of a book of the Bible or chapter they're reading. The point of this is for the kids to understand how important context is when we read the Word (paraphrased from page 93).
Then, on the other side of the index card, have your kids write down several good questions that come to mind as they read a passage, story, or chapter, even if it's about the big picture of the overall passage or more finite questions about the details. These are questions that will be discussed as a family.
According to Cooley, some of these questions could be:
- How does this story point to Jesus?
- What did I just learn about God?
- How does human sin show up in this poem?
- How does this piece of history point to my need for a Savior?
- What did I just learn about how to follow Jesus?
- Does this passage show me how to love God and love others?
And some of these questions could be used to understand the context of the story of chapter:
- How does this passage relate to the section before and after it?
- Did the story we just read give me enough information to understand what the Bible is saying to me?
- Do I need yo look up this character or idea in the Bible to learn even more about what God is telling me?
Use questions like these to develop your cheat sheets so that each time you read a story or book from the Old Testament or from the New Testament, you'll have this cheat sheet to refer back to.
Of course, these are just some answer questions to include in the cheat sheet – or on the other side of that index card. And you may need to help your kids create the Bible-reading cheat sheet, but eventually, they will be writing their questions in their own words. And, according to Cooley, writing their questions help them to think critically about what the Bible has to say to them.
In addition to this nifty study tip for teaching Bible skills for children, Cooley goes even further on what you could do with these index cards and how to use them for future Biblical studies to learn how to teach kids about God's love:
Consider laminating their index card to use as a bookmark in their Bible. Each time your read Scripture together, use their cheat sheet to look for the main ideas God has communicated to us.
Danika Cooley, How to Teach the Bible to Your Kids, page 94
How To Start A Bible Study With Your Family Using This Resource For Moms
The best way for kids to learn is by reading and enjoying the bible. This book How to Teach the Bible to Your Kids helps moms on how to teach kids about God, different yet effective study methods for how to start and continue a Bible study with your family or even with a study group, and gives tons of great ideas and resources for moms to teach their kids about morality while navigating tough decisions without fear in an easy-to-understand way.
You'll enjoy reading this book as it gives you plenty of biblical study tips and helps you begin the journey of being intentional about studying Scripture with your kids on a consistent basis.
Personally, I'm fairly picky when it comes to Christian books, so I am sincere when I say I thoroughly enjoyed this book not only for the many suggestions I've never even thought of but also for the way Cooley writes. Not many writers can pull this off, but with the way Cooley writes, you'll feel like you're reading the book of a friend as you start to feel a sort of kinship and connection to the author. How often can you say that about a book you've read?
Get your copy of How to Teach the Bible to Your Kids by Danika Cooley right now or click on the image below to learn more!
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This book captured my attention right from the beginning on page 1 of the introduction. The way Danika writes makes you feel like you're reading from a friend. She writes about her experiences and offers great ideas on implementing the suggested Bible study tips and resources. Anyone who always wanted to be consistent and intentional with Bible Time with their kids should start off reading this book first. Once you do, you'll feel more confident and capable of helping your kids know more about Scripture and God's love. Plus, you'll know that you're doing the ultimate duty of parenting – teaching God to your kids!
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