How We Homeschool-Bible Memory

Been 22 days since I blogged, told ya I'm only an occasional blogger! ;)

I am back today to share another snippet of our homeschool with you. If you missed our first post about how we even came to homeschool in the first place you can read that here.

I feel led to dedicate this post to my favorite area of our school, our Bible memory. Why is it my favorite? Well because although all of the other things that my children will learn are important, I know that nothing, nothing will impact them more than the Word of God. If they take only this one aspect of our schooling with them into their adulthood I will be happy. Happy because above all else, more than all of the grammar, math, reading, spelling and activities that we will absorb, only the Word of God is that which can transform them into the young ladies and young man that God wants them to be. That is what my husband and I want. Children that grow into adults that God desires.

So, how do we hide His Word in our hearts? Well about 3 years ago or so I came across the Simply Charlotte Mason blog. (Lots of great stuff there!) Somehow, I happened upon the post about their method of Bible Memory and became intrigued. An organized, purposeful way to memorize God's Word? We needed that. So, I read, learned and put the method into action. Can I tell you that this method works? It is systematic yet simple and effective. Our family has never memorized Scripture so effortlessly! And you don't just memorize and forget, you retain because...well, I'm babbling, let me just dive into it and you will see for yourself.

First you need to gather your supplies:

• Large index box (I guess you could use a smaller one until you outgrew it I have just always used a large one.)
• 41 tabbed divider cards (if they have numbers or letters on them that's okay, just buy some stickers to label your own. See my pic). OR get a free printable of these divider cards here.
• small labels for your dividers *optional
• blank or lined index cards

Next you will need to label your tabbed dividers (or stickers if you are using them) as follows:

• divider 1 - Daily
• divider 2 - Odd
• divider 3 - Even
• 7 dividers - Days of the week (Mon, Tues, etc.)
• 31 dividers - Numbers 1-31

Now you will need to put those dividers into your little box and get ready to fill 'er up! Decide which passage of Scripture or which verse you want to begin with. We started with Genesis 1:1-5 and are currently working on Philippians 2:1-8. We currently have 31 verses memorized...never counted until today. Wow.

You can choose any verse or passage that suits the needs of your family/studies. For example, we are memorizing the verses in Philippians because we have been studying humility as a family. We are doing this study. However, when we first began this system I also printed out this list of suggestions from Simply Charlotte Mason and keep it in my brain homeschool notebook for reference/ideas/inspiration. Alternatively, you can go here and download a 12 file pdf of the verses from their site. This is the first I've seen of that so yes, I downloaded it.

Next, you will write one verse on each card. Our current passage has 8 verses so we have eight cards. Put your first card behind the Daily tab and the rest in the front of that tab to be studied later.

Each day you will do the cards behind the Daily, Odd or Even, Day of the Week and Date of the Month tabs. Of course when you first begin you will only have the Daily card but you will acquire more and more as you go along.

For example, if today were Monday, the 7th, you would do the following dividers:

• Daily, 
• Odd (because 7 is odd),
• Monday 
• and 7. 

(If don't you have that many verses don't worry, just do what you have and your little box will grow.) 

The next day you would do 

• Daily, 
• Even (cause it would be the 8th), 
• Tuesday
•  and 8.

Is that clear as mud? I hope it's clearer.

Okay, final step. As you learn the verse behind the Daily divider, you will move it to either the Odd or Even depending on which divider is first for you. The card that was behind say, Even, will be moved to Odd and the card that was behind Odd would move to Monday and Monday's card goes behind Tuesday. You will just keep moving those cards back one divider as each new verse is memorized.

***This is where I do mine differently than what I learned on the Charlotte Mason site. If we are memorizing a passage of Scripture, I don't move those cards separately, I like to keep them all together. So yes, it takes longer for the cards to be moved around but doing it this way makes more sense to me. I like that we are always reciting entire passages together instead of splitting them up. Once we have them mastered, we will move all of the cards from the passage back one divider. I usually allot a week per verse unless they are short. If I have two short verses I will combine those onto one card.***

The genius in this system is that you are constantly reviewing the Word of God so you don't have time to forget any of it. I have changed a lot of things about our homeschool over the years but not this area. This has been the one constant in our lives. I am in love with this system of Bible memory! 

Okay, well, that's it. I hope you have enjoyed reading about this and I really hope that sharing how we do Bible memory in our home has inspired you to look for ways to integrate Bible memory into yours as well.

If you already have a system in place feel free to share your ideas in the comment section below. By the way, one random statement, I am just loving this cooler fall weather. Hope it's cooler where you are too!

In my next post I hope to show you how our large family of 7 schools in a 1400 sq. ft double wide. Nothing spectacular but it works for us!

Thanks for taking the time to stop by.