Our memory verses

There are few blogs that I check every day. Preschoolers and Peace is one of them. (Oh, I know... if you read our posts at all this is already pretty apparent.) I feel like I'm always linking to Kendra's site! The fact is, she has so much wisdom to share.

I am a big-time gleaner of great ideas. Here's one she shared awhile back, that I immediately (as in, the following day) put to work in our own home. Here's our own memory work box.

The first thing I did was purchase a box, index cards, and dividers. Then I copied all 26 verses we'd memorized when we went through ABC Bible Verses. (I bought some fun alphabet letter stickers, too.) I made five sections for Monday through Friday, and divided those 26 verses up between the five sections.

As we learn additional verses, I keep those cards in the front and we go over those daily, in addition to whatever is in our section for the day. When I feel like we have those down, I move them to their respective section.

Once a day, usually at breakfast (but if we forget, at another meal; as the box resides on our table) we review the days verses. On the weekends, we review those verses in the front we haven't quite gotten down to memory. (Or, if we missed a day throughout the week, we can cover that day.)

One thing that we liked so much about the ABC Bible Verses book was that the letter of the alphabet triggered our kids' memory for the corresponding verse. I noticed that if my daughter was having trouble remembering the verse, she would look intently at the big letter printed in the book, or at the picture, and try to remember the story that went with it.

I've tried to utilize that concept for our own memory verse cards. For each verse I've drawn a picture or symbol on each card. A few examples:

In the picture above, our verse was Psalm 119:11 "Thy word I have treasured in my heart." On the card, I drew a heart to help trigger their memory.

For the verse "God is light. In Him there is no darkness at all", I drew a little light switch on the card.

For the verse in Job, "Stop.. and consider the wonders of God", I drew a stop sign.

For Proverbs 29:11, "A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control", I drew a picture of a little angry girl. (Or I tried; notice that's not one I'm showing you a picture of! But my children know it's an angry girl! :))

This is also handy because we can then use those real-life symbols to remind of us of the verses we've learned. Like when we stop at a stop sign, or turn on the light, or see a little angry girl or boy!

I realize this may get more difficult as we learn more verses (to come up with enough pictures and symbols), but for now this is working well for us!