At the beginning of the school year, she got her first Big Girl Bible. It's "My First Message: A Devotional Bible for Kids." It still has colorful pictures, but the stories are more in-depth and true to scripture, and they are in the same order as they appear in the bible, which I like.
BigGirl loves her Bible. If you played the game Desert Island with her and asked her which 3 books she would want if she was stranded on an island, I'm certain her bible would be one of them.
We read one story at a time, at her request, which is at least 3 days a week. The devotional has four sections to each story: Read, Think, Pray, and Live. After we read the story, her bible has a question at the end for comprehension. There is also a suggestion for something to pray about, relevant to the story. And finally, it has a blurb about how you can apply the moral of the story to life today. It's great.
To really make sure she understood the story and the moral of the story, I made a simple worksheet for her to re-tell the story in 4 parts using drawings. The worksheet is basically a sheet of paper folded in half, and in half again, dividing the paper into 4 quarters. Starting with the top left quarter, BigGirl draws what happened first in the story. Then she moves to the top right quarter for what happened next, bottom left for what happened third, and finally the bottom right quarter is what happened last. [I totally stole this worksheet idea from someone else and I'm so sorry that I don't remember who!]
What she draws and how she interprets the story is completely up to her- I don't re-read the story or guide her artwork in any way. Sometimes when she's drawing she asks very good questions, wanting to know details that weren't explained in the story but are important for visualizing the story. Like, was it morning or night when this happened. Or, was it cold or hot outside, so she can decide if the people need long sleeves or short. She's a thinker.
I wish I had a picture of her doing her bible work, but I'm not sure if my camera could capture her passion and love for learning.
This bible and DIY worksheet has worked wonderfully for our bible lessons. She's thirsty for knowledge and it's my job, it's my calling, to quench her thirst!
Thirsty Thursday is brought to you by FiveJs. Check it out if you're striving to raise life long learners, too.
