Tips for Teaching Your Toddler About the Bible

I saw a quote today that really spoke to my soul. “Once a teacher, always a teacher. No matter where you go or what you do. You can never truly get out of teaching. Its like the mafia- you know too much.” I read it and chucked… and then realized it was one of the truest statements I’ve ever read.

After having taught for seven years in public school and then putting my teaching career on pause to be a stay at home mom, I realized I didn’t quit teaching… I just teach my own kiddos now. Today my friends went back to school for inservice and it left me feeling a little down. I feel left out. This is my first year that I don’t get to set up my room, attend meetings that I actually enjoyed, talk with my teacher friends at lunch, make cute “getting to know you” work for the first day… all of it is going on without me. So instead, I’ve been researching, planning, and preparing what I will use to teach my own littles at home!

Recently, we’ve been really interested in the Montessori approach to learning. In VERY basic terms, Montessori focuses on learning through play, following your child’s interests, encouraging independence, and teaching practical life skills. (*NOTE* I’m not a huge fan of the discipline/parenting that many Montessori families follow, but that’s a different topic for a different day!) We have been implementing this throughout our house by making [almost] everything accessible to Simon, limiting and rotating his toys, spending a ton of time outside, taking part in many hands on activities, and encouraging independence.

I also wanted to begin moving from reading the Bible each night and praying to really teaching him about God’s word and the different “stories” in the Bible. I wanted to do this through the Montessori approach, but the more I researched this, the more I realized that not much was out there on God-centered Montessori. So, I ended up creating my own system by getting ideas and resources from several people and meshing them together.

The first resource I found was called The Gentle + Classical Preschool . Erin Elizabeth Cox put this resource together and offers it FOR FREE! One thing I love about this is that it has learning targets for Science, Language, Math, Social Studies, Health/Safety, Motor Skills, Catechisms, and includes a verse for the week. It has it all! However, the teacher in me wasn’t a huge fan that everything for the week wasn’t connected. I come from schools that use UBD (unit by backwards design) in which everything is interconnected. In my opinion, this makes it easier on the teacher and the child has an easier time making connections and building on their schema. I took her wonderful plan and created my own template. You can download it for free here 🙂

Another amazing resource that we use daily is Play Through the Bible. Its an amazing book full of lesson plans, crafts, activities, memory verses, etc. What is so amazing about this resource is that it’s totally done for you- each week has a theme, memory verse, guided discussions, teaching tips, songs, activities, sensory bin ideas, activities, and crafts- all with examples! You can take as much or as little as you want. Out of all of the resources, I think we use this one the most. Its super easy to adapt to meet your child where they are. We typically follow the plans in the book and then add in some extra fun- like special trips (like to the aquarium and zoo for creation week), videos or cartoons, and supplemental books.

For our Bible that we use with Simon, we do several different things. To introduce the story or topic of the week, I always use the Jesus Storybook. This book is easy for kids to understand and the illustrations are beautiful. My absolute favorite thing about this book, though, is that every single passage relates back to Jesus and God’s plan for redemption. On day 2 or 3 of our learning week, we either read the passage directly from my study bible or from the 365 Bible Stories for Children. One thing to remember is that the purpose is to expose your children to God’s word- not to make sure they have it memorized and completely comprehend it… because they won’t a lot of the time. As tempting as it is, don’t try to “dumb down” or “water down” the scripture for your children. Present it to them at a level they understand, but don’t be afraid to also expose them to passages straight from the Bible.

Throughout the past couple of months – because it’s been two months from the time I started this post until now (hahahaha – #momlife) I have had a few major takeaways when it comes to teaching my toddler about God.

1. Make it fun- I want Simon to be genuinely curious about God, his relationship with Him, and how it impacts his life. I want Simon to WANT to spend time with Him. Our relationship with God shouldn’t feel like a chore. I want Simon to understand that it is good and fun and exciting to learn more about who God is.
2. Don’t expect perfection- many times, Simon doesn’t grasp on to the level that I would like. My crafts and activities don’t go as planned. He can’t remember topics or ideas from day to day… and that’s OK! I think that my time as a teacher has ruined this for me. There is so much pressure in public education for students to MASTER what you’re teaching them. That’s just not how it works in the real world. We won’t always master something right away. Sometimes it might take weeks or years. What is important is that we’re exposing our kids to God’s truth- and we’re doing it often. (Deuteronomy 6:7)
3. Make it meaningful- I try to connect everything we learn about and read and do to something that is real and meaningful to Simon. For example, we talk about God creating everything. We talk about things that Simon sees and feels and knows. We go and observe things and talk about it. When we pray, we thank God for making our dog, Michonne. And chickens that give us chicken nuggets. And a wonderful daddy that works so that mommy can stay at home. We always try to connect what we’re learning to Simon’s real world.
4. Involve God- I know this sounds silly, but this has made all of the difference. Something I’ve noticed that Simon has really latched on to is talking to God. At the beginning, we prayed at night and at meal times. Since starting to go deeper with our learning, we try to pray all throughout the day. We pray before our lessons that God would help Simon understand. When Simon is being disobedient and mommy is losing her mind, we stop and tell God that our day is REALLY hard and we need his help. When we do something fun, we stop and tell God thanks. We definitely see a difference when Simon stops us when we’re about to pray and says “No, I pay!- thank you thank you thank you, Esther and daddy no bad dreams- amen!” (Remember, its not about perfection- we’re just excited that he WANTS to pray and remembers to be thankful) I don’t always remember to do this, but I’m asking God’s help to be a better model for my kids.
5. Learn, too- if there’s anything that I struggled with in public school it was realizing that I didn’t know all of the content. I remember my first year teaching and having to dig out all of my college history books when I found out I’d be teaching the American Revolution. I learned about it once, I know… but I just didn’t feel confident enough in what I remembered to teach 23 kids- to mastery. The same goes for teaching someone about God. If I’m not studying His word and spending time on our relationship, I certainly can’t teach my kids. Making sure that I’m spending some time each day in the word and praying constantly are the best ways to prepare myself for training up my children.

Remember, God is with you. He equips you and gives you just what you need for each day. He doesn’t expect perfection, but He does call us to raise our children in a manner that is pleasing and honoring to Him.

So what does your family do to teach your littles about God? I’m still learning and I’d LOVE to hear from you! Please leave me a comment with your ideas so I can share with others, as well!

Here are some other resources that we use and love 🙂