I hope you are all healthy and persevering in the midst of this time of shelter-in-place. One gift of this situation is more time together as families with our children. I thought it may be of help to parents to provide a list of ideas and resources for how to be intentional with our time with regard to Deuteronomy 6:6-7.
And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.
My prayer is one or more of these ideas with be of encouragement to you to continue walking faithfully on the journey of parenthood the Lord has set before you.
(1) At the breakfast table, read out loud a couple of verses from the Proverb which corresponds to that day’s date.
(2) Choose a short verse to memorize together as a family and use hand motions to act it out to help you all remember it. Our family uses this system and has fun with our bible verses at the close of dinner each night.
(3) Make a prayer basket of names on strips of paper. Have a child pull one name out and your family will pray for that person. This works great at a mealtime!
(4) When tucking your child in at night, ask them what is one thing from their day they can thank God for as a way of cultivating gratefulness in their heart.
(5) Write “Jehovah Jireh: The Lord Provides” on a paper or poster displayed in your home and record specific ways God is providing for your family and meeting needs during this COVID-19 crisis.
(6) If one of the parents is musical, sing worship songs together as a family with the piano or guitar.
(7) Listen to worship music throughout the day as a way of saturating your heart and the hearts of your children with truth. The Worship Initiative by Shane and Shane is a resource for great songs and Seeds Family Worship is another resource for scripture rich songs for kids.
(8) If you feel inspired for more structured teaching of your children, then Ministry-to-Children is a free website with some solid pre-written lessons you can use. Here are links for their toddler lessons and preschool lessons.
(9) If you are going on family walks for a fresh air break, point out the beauty of creation around you and guide your children in appreciating how God is Creator and therefore in control of all the Earth, including the circumstances of COVID-19.
(10) At night before bed, read a page or story to your child from a Jesus Storybook Bible. If you don’t have one, then read to them from one of the gospels about the life of Jesus and paraphrase to their comprehension level as needed.
I hope you find these ideas helpful during this challenging time!
