A Month in the Life

Making the Bible come alive and be relevant to my students is always a challenge. Many of them find the Bible boring. They love acting out stories, but I don't want them growing up and thinking that the Bible is just a big game either. So instead of using the various curriculums that I've accumulated over the years, we started reading books of the Bible a chapter at a time to give the students the whole picture of what is happening. We started with the book of Esther and the kids really enjoyed that. We are now making our way through the book of Judges. The kids are amazed that the Bible uses some of the same language they use (i.e. Eglan is called a "fat man") and that people didn't go to jail for some of the things (i.e. Jael pounding the nail through Sisera's head). We are learning about some of the customs of that time to give us a deeper understanding of what we are studying. I've had the opportunity to work with several Jewish families baby-sitting (even at some synagogues) and learned quite a bit about their beliefs as a result. The kids seem to enjoy this and I enjoy listening to their discussions of why they think something happened and how it's relevant to their lives today. And now, we don't just get to the end of a story and we're done with it. They actually want to keep reading!



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