one of my favorite blogs, emily at jones design co., had book week this past week with a linky party. i feel like she and i would be friends if we lived in the same city.
for awhile now, i’ve wanted to do a post on some of my favorite children’s bibles, as well as some of my favorite parenting/mothering books. this might be funny, because i don’t like to read. some people LOVE it, and just drift into lala land while they’re reading. me? i need to be doing something. i have the hardest time just sitting there reading, unless i’m on the beach. then, i’ll read an entire novel in a week, when it’s hard for me to read a 150 page book in 4 weeks at home. go figure.
anyway, our bedtime routine is a pretty important part of our day. the boys love for us to lay down with them (when we can, which is most nights) and sing “my maker”, “bless the Lord”, and “Jesus loves me” (or “bible” as s calls it), and we also pray together and read the bible.
our favorite and most loved children’s bible is “the Jesus storybook bible” every story in this bible points to Christ, and that’s just how we do church. no matter what text our pastor is preaching on, it always points to Christ. so, obviously, we were on board with this one. this bible is good for 18 month olds-6 year olds. we’ve used it from day 1 with our boys, and right now, all of them still love it, even though we’ve read through multiple times.
we also love “the beginning reader’s bible“. this bible is scripture, plus it has a “pray God’s word” section, a “remember God’s word” section, and a “do God’s word” section. so, it’s great to memorize scripture together, and sometimes do the activity the next day and be able to talk about the story we read the night before. we like this one for 3-8 year olds. since it’s straight scripture, sometimes it’s hard for the little ones to maintain their attention through the whole story. the pictures in it are wonderful, though. good illustrations are really important to us in any book we get for our kids.
the last one that we love, and that i hope we do from time to time, is “sammy and his shepherd“. this book is a fictional story that is based on psalm 23. we learned psalm 23 as a family while doing this. it was so great to see the lightbulbs go off in our kids’ heads while we were asking them questions about the story to relate it to everyday life. this book is good for 4-12 year olds. it’s a chapter book, but the chapters are only a couple pages long. however, there’s not a lot of pictures, so it’s harder to hold the littler kids attention. also, the discussion questions are pretty advanced, but can be asked in easier ways for younger kids.
i think i’ll do a different post with my favorite mothering/parenting books. this one is full enough! what do you do for bible reading time with your family? is there a certain routine you follow, or scripture reading plan? let us know in the comments!
the williams 