Get organized with your family Bible time and figure out how to have fun and make the most of the time you spend studying together.
What is Bible time for family?
Bible time happens daily and is when the whole family spends time studying God’s word. This can look so different for every family and will change as kids ages change. It is a priority that will be worth every minute spent.
For a long time I knew I wanted to make it a priority to have a set daily Bible time with my kiddos but I would try one thing after another and would never keep up the habit. I spoke with a dear friend and got so great ideas.
Don’t overcomplicate it
My biggest take away was not to overcomplicating things. Strict schedules or routines can cause failure.
Trying to check every box:
- Bible story
- Bible game
- Memory work
- Learning something new
- Reviewing something old
- Acting it out with puppets
- Telling the story with a flannel board
You get the idea. Trying to do it all wasn’t working.
Have a designated space
Another huge take away was having a designated space for everything we might use for Bible time all in one place. After my mindset shift, this was the most impactful!
Introducing my Bible time cabinet. It took some time to transform this previous game/DVD stuffed cabinet into this functional space to house all of our Bible time materials. All the time was well worth it. I wasn’t running back and forth from one room to another to gather all of our supplies we needed each night.
Now, do you need a huge cabinet? Of course not. You could simply have a basket that slides under your coffee table, or a bin you stick on a shelf. Anywhere you can keep your items together will work! This is just what worked for me.
What to use for family Bible time? – Top Shelf
There is a lot in this cabinet, so I want to take you shelf by shelf and share with you some of my favorite and most used items for our Bible time.
Top shelf: books. We have several different children’s Bible storybooks, a few different versions of the Bible, a song book, some early readers from Apologetics Press, some Bible character story books, some printables and misc. materials.
The Best Children’s Bible
This is the best Bible storybook! It has beautiful illustrations, is very detailed, and includes many more stories than your average Bible storybook. It also includes what book and chapters are covered in a story, which I appreciate.
Best Bible storybook for toddlers
Little Bible Heroes stories were easily one of my son’s favorite books for the longest time! These stories are very easy to understand and break down Bible stories in a way that makes it friendly for younger children to learn about the people from the Bible.
They come in larger books like this one, or in smaller paperback books that have two stories each. We have all that I have been able to find on the internet and will continue to buy more if more are made.
Something I do really love about these books is they include a key Bible verse and a few questions at the end of each story. Sometimes I just need a very simple approach to Bible time and these are awesome so my tired mom brain doesn’t have to overthink.
My favorite place to purchase these books is at Christian Books. It is one of my favorite places to grab a ton of great Bible materials for an inexpensive price!
These also make great birthday or Christmas gifts, so stock up on multiples while you are ordering! You’ll be glad you did! While you are at it check out the awesome selection of Bible games!
What to use for family Bible time? – Middle Shelf
This shelf has more interactive materials. This is our song cup. We use this when we just want a random song, or the kids can’t decide on a song they want to lead that night.
It’s also a great way to introduce new songs. I wrote the song number on the sticks that are in our song book so that we could easily look them up. This is one of those things we definitely don’t use every night, just on occasion.
Bible Finger Puppets
Here are our Bible character finger puppets. We got these at hobby lobby a few years ago before they changed things up and now they don’t carry them anymore! I was so sad when I found this out because I wanted to buy them and give as gifts along with a Bible storybook. These are fun for the kids to act out a story we already have read and are familiar with. I found some similar finger puppets that would work great.
Bible time materials from Creation to Revelation
These are some of our memory work materials. We purchase almost all of our visual aids for memory work from Creation to Revelation. I am not being endorsed to promote them. I genuinely love their products. The best route for your money is to buy the digital products so that they can be printed them as many times as you want. This comes in handy for making duplicates to have in our church bag!
The 17 Time Periods flip book we keep on the top shelf, but the rest of the card sets we keep in one of the white rope baskets. We found the baskets at hobby lobby, but here are some other white baskets that would work!
Chapter by chapter study cards
At the beginning of the year we started going through Genesis, Exodus, and Leviticus chapter by chapter using the Glean with Me cards from Creation to Revelation. We put the Genesis cards we have now finished into a zipper pouch and are keeping the Exodus and Leviticus ones loose until we finish this study. We don’t do these every night but try to do a few chapters a week.
Bible time games for kids
This basket is one of the favorites. It has all of our Go Fish and Matching cards. I have one set I made on Shutterfly, one set that is “Little Bible Hero’s” which the kids love because it matches up with the story photos. The rest that we have are from Creation to Revelation! We use these for all types of games. Our go-to games are matching, go fish, and headbandz.
During these games we like to ask questions about the people from the Bible that are on the cards. Playing the headbandz game is a great way to test everyone’s Bible knowledge. The person wearing the headband has a card on their head and has to guess who it is based off the clues given by the rest of the people playing. It’s so fun to see what facts kiddos can remember about a character.
Miscellaneous Bible time materials
This next basket has random supplies: “The Beginner Bible Story cards,” books of the Bible ring, Bible time line rolls, headband, and 17 time period magnets. I made these using the digital download from Creation to revelation but they also have these available to purchase as a premade item.
On the bottom shelf we have a basket full of Bible characters that can be used by younger children and also great for acting out stories and bringing them to life.
Theses are some of the sets available:
David and Goliath
The 12 Apostles
Nativity
Noah’s Ark
This box has some flannel board pieces along with some “file folder” type Velcro activities.
This set up has taken months to transform into the functional idea I had hoped it would be. I also know that as my kids grow this cabinet and its contents will change. It’s all about finding a space that works for your family to keep your things gathered in one convenient location so that it’s easily accessible for your family Bible time!
Do you have a Bible time space dedicated already? I’d love to hear about it. If not, I hope you have some inspiration to get one started! Come back and share so we can all be inspired by your set up.
Alex
Magen, I’m so looking forward to all the insightful, and frugal things you will put here! I’m so proud of you and excited for you!
Magen
Thank you for being one of my biggest fans and encouragers!!
Domingo Provost
I am genuinely thankful to the owner of this website for sharing his brilliant ideas. I can see how much you’ve helped everybody who comes across your page.