I recently posted about our system for making a memorization box to keep up with the children’s Bible memory work and Becky had this question:
I would love to read a post on your memorization: what verses do you/have you memorized (and at what ages?). Also what literary pieces (poems, etc.) are your kids memorizing?
Do you have a list (or could you post a list) of recommended memorization for toddlers/preschool age children?
I wish that I had a better answer for you, but we have not set out a long term plan for our children’s memory work. We just add new passages as we master the older ones and try to work on memorization daily. We have picked some passages because they are meaningful to us and others that speak to areas of behavior or thought where our children are struggling. I keep cards of passages that we want to memorize at the beginning of our memorization box.
The first passage that we teach to our children is Proverbs 1:7-9. We attempt choose several longer passages because they seem to be easier to remember than many separate, single verses. We begin expecting them to participate in our memorization work as soon as they are able to talk. Don’t be afraid of longer passages for little kids, they are amazing memory machines. Here are some of our other starting passages:
- Psalm 119:105
- Psalm 19
- Phil. 2:1-18
- II Timothy 3:16-17
- Deuteronomy 6:4-9
- Ephesians 6:1-13
- Isaiah 55:6-7
- Proverbs 16:24
- Romans 6:23
- Proverbs 18:9
- Romans 6:23
- Psalm 23
- Psalm 1
I’m going to stop there. You get the idea.
We have enjoyed God Our Provider
We also learn a Psalm a month by singing it during our family worship. Ideally we sing the Psalm at every meal, but it seems that we generally end up falling back into just singing it during our family worship in the evening. We use The Book of Psalms for Singing
We have all of our children memorize the Catechism for Young Children and prefer for them to be finished by the time they are 5 or 6 so that they can begin on the Shorter Catechism. The catechisms are easy for them to memorize because of the question/answer format. We adapt the Catechism for Young Children a bit because they will be memorizing the Shorter Catechism and some of the questions are the same, but with different answers, so we teach the longer answers the first time so as not to confuse them. (Check out those catechism links, I didn’t know that they were available free online!)
You can see in our schedule that we have a separate time for our little ones to work on the catechism. Then we work on our memorization box with everyone at the breakfast table and the little ones get a little one-on-one memory time when I teach them their reading. We encourage our older children to spend some time memorizing on their own during their daily Bible reading time.
We learn each passage by repeating it out loud together. The children are encouraged to say it aloud even if they don’t know it all yet. When the children are younger, I say it with them and then stop and let them say some key words by themselves. As they learn the passage, I let them say more and more of it on their own. We do not spend much time on any one passage. We simply say it aloud between one and three times each day.
As far as literary pieces and poems, we have not spent much time on those. Remember this post? In it I explain some of the reasons behind the decisions that we make everyday. We are trying to choose the very best things to spend our time on and so have concentrated on scripture to this point. Poems are something that I see being incorporated as our children’s Biblical knowledge becomes more comprehensive. Our children do enjoy memorizing many things for fun and of course we encourage that.
Work a little bit each day and it is amazing what you can accomplish over the years. Also realize that our family doesn’t always accomplish all of this everyday. It is our goal, but we frequently fall short and when we do we just keep working where we left off.
We have done some fun Bible memory competitions with the children. We divided them into two groups readers and non-readers and then whoever memorized the most verses in the designated time earned a gift certificate to Vision Forum.
I have some more reader questions that I hope to get to in the next few days. If you have a post idea or question feel free to email me using the form on the Contact page.
Related posts:
I am always amazed at how much Scripture our little kids can learn. My older ones learn a verse a week, plus occasional longer passages (like some of the ones you mentioned). I post the weekly verse on the window by the kitchen table. They say it before each meal a few times. For longer passages, we practice saying them during our Bible study time. My 3yo can almost perfectly recite the books of the New Testament. The 5yo has mastered this, so I will be beginning the books of the OT with her next week. My 5yo learns a different verse than the older ones right now. I am having her learn a verse for each letter of the alphabet. I am making her a pretty keepsake book (scrapbooking type thingy) for her to illustrate each verse. She has learned through the letter F.
I have her repeat each phrase of the verse after me 5 times. Then she tries to say it 5 times. We add additional phrases as she is ready. It’s that simple!
Thanks for the memorization idea.
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It’s astounding how much children can memorize!!! We were working on Psalm 1 a couple weeks ago with our 5 year old and 6 year old, and our three year old quoted the whole thing to us the other night. Just amazing what they can keep in their memories. We mostly work passages of scripture, too, although some weeks we do individual verses. We don’t have a set schedule of what verses or passages to do. It’s mostly what my husband decides. Sometimes I think we should have that all figured out for the year, but then reality hits. The reality that laughs in my face and says “Jamie, if you did that, you probably wouldn’t keep to it, anyway!!! You’d change your mind three weeks into it.” Which is a sad truth. I’m always setting lesson plans and changing them. There is no reason to think this would be any different. I’ve learned not to write anything in ink!
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Yes, Heather and I are friends from our college years. She was one of my bridesmaids, and I was one of hers. We recently reunited through the internet, and I found your blog through hers. I knew if she had you in her blogroll, yours had to be a good one. I thought when you mentioned in an earlier post where you live that the two of you probably attend the same church.
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We love our Truth and Grace (TAG) memory books! They are available in 3 levels. The first book contains the catechism you start your young kids with (minus the pedobaptism as it’s edited by a Reformed Baptist) plus it contains 50 verses including longer passages for Christmas and Easter memorization and also half a dozen hymns. The 2nd book contains the Westminster shorter plus longer Scriptures and hymns, and the 3rd contains the Heidelberg confession and more verses and hymns. We also work on verses that I think especially help character develpment.
Thanks for sharing your system
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Raising Olives Reply:
October 30th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
Oh those sound wonderful. Thanks for telling me about them.
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