Sharing God's Word with Little Ones...for you fellow mommies out there!

I know no one's perfect and I know there are a million things that get in our way of truly saturating our little ones with God's word...their attention spans, our attention spans, dirty diapers, crying, "I don't want a Bible story, I want dinosaurs", and so on and so on. This being said, I have been burdened lately to take a very proactive approach to Grayson's learning as much about Jesus as he can. Let me say I've always been a little skittish of "memory work," because too many times the focus is put on what a child can spout out, not what is being hidden in their hearts....this has stopped me from pushing too hard, too fast. On the other side of that, I want to be the training parent God would have me be...we are to "fix these words in our hearts, teach them to our children, talking about them when we sit at home..." as it talks about in Deuteronomy 11 and "training up our children" in Proverbs. As much as I do not want to shovel scripture into my child so he can "perform", I want to hide God's word in his heart so he can fall in love with the God who loves him so! I've heard it said that a child's life and learning of Christ should come in stages: "embrace" being the first step. I simply want Grayson to know that God loves him unconditionally, sent His Son just for him, and I want him to truly grasp what we're teaching him...and this comes from being exposed to truths of scripture.

So, I've been on a hunt to find activities for him to do at home, so we can help him stay excited and engaged during family Bible time and during the day when he and I are talking about God. I wanted to pass along these great resources I've found:
http://totallytots.blogspot.com/ This blog is a great place for memory verses...see "In My heart" The scriptures coincide with ABC's. For example, this week Grayson and I are working on our A's, so we're using: "Keep me the Apple of your eye." Psalm 17:8 There are free printables for you to use for art, bookmarks, or simply a cute visual of the verse. Our printer is out of ink, so I simply drew a (very sad) version of their cute printout and hung it on the wall right above his play area. This is our 3rd day, and now he sees the picture hanging and tells me the verse. Again, not about reciting, but I love that we can talk about what God is saying to him in a way he'll understand and more than likely, remember. See "Bible Bites" for more great stuff!

http://www.lapbooklessons.com/BibleLapbook.html is this great way to make a "lapbook" for your little one...simply putting together a file folder of printable coloring sheets, verses,etc. that they can go back and look at. I'm sure this is a little advanced for Grayson, but we will work on it very slowly and one day, there will be a lot of great memories about our God for him.

http://www.daniellesplace.com/html/bible_themes-fruit.html more free printables for "Fruits of the Spirit" coloring, etc.

And simply for encouragement, read 1+1+1=1 http://1plus1plus1equals1.blogspot.com/ (on blogs I read)! Carisa is a missionary, home schooling mom and her blog is full of inspiration and ideas to teach your little one about God and learning!

Hope you ladies can enjoy these....we sure are! Here's a promise from our Father to ensure that we moms have all it takes to be an inspiration and a teacher of His Word: "The eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to Him." 2 Chronicles 16:9

Love to you all through Him!