As a kid I always liked the memory verse practice games we did. There was something exciting about saying the verse and watching as we got rid of the words randomly. Now, as a teacher I realize how helpful those game were to help kids practice, and I wanted to come up with new ways to practice memory verses in our Bible lessons. Today, I’ve got 5 memory verse practice games with STUFFED ANIMALS!
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What you need for all of these memory verse games:
stuffed animals (I know you probably have a bunch, but I also looked for a set you could buy for relatively cheaply that would work for this, also they’re cute), Sharpie, index cards (I cut mine in half for the pictures), yarn, blue tape (I used this because I couldn’t find my hole punch)
How this post all started
A few weeks ago at youth group, we played this game where the kids had a letter hanging around their neck and had to switch places to create words.
This got me thinking about how we could do that for memory verses, and I started thinking, “How can I take pictures of this without putting other people’s kids in the picture? Of course! Stuffed animals!”
I asked my son if he knew where a stash of stuffed animals was, he looked at me suspiciously, and asked, “You’re not going to cut it up or anything?”
Privately thinking, ‘just what do you think I do child?’ I answered, “No, I just need to take pictures of it.” Then he grudgingly told me where to find them, and I gathered up around 7 or so stuffed animals.
So, three of these you could easily do with kids wearing the words, and I’ll tell you how I would do it if the kids wore the words.
Memory Verse Practice Game 1: Swap 2
Line up all of the stuffed animals at one end of the room all out of order.
On a child’s turn, they run up and swap two of the animals to get them into the right order. The first team that gets them all swapped around, sits down.
Modify if kids are wearing the cards: have one kid who is in charge of telling what two kids to swap, and once it’s all in order, everyone raises their hands.
Game 2: Move 1
In this version, again you scramble up the animals, and have the kids line up at the back of the room.
Then on their turn, each kid can run up and move ONE animal to get the words in the right order. Super easy and fun.
Modify for kids: Again, have one kid who is moving the kids around 1 at a time, it’s super simple and easy.
Third game: Line up!
Have each kid grab an animal and line up.
On their turn, they run-up, and put their animal in order of the memory verse. Nice and simple.
Kids with cards: Have the kids wear their card and on their turn they walk up and try to place themselves in the correct place in the verse.
Memory Verse Practice Game 4: Grab one
This is a variation on the last game, but instead of everyone starting with a stuffed animal, as they get to the front of the line they grab the stuffed animal they’re going to take up and put in the right place.
There isn’t really a way to do this with kids already wearing the cards unless you want them to grab a card as they go up.
This ends up with kids trying to meta-game it, and they’ll pick through and try to find the next word, which to my mind is all to the good, and they have to decide which is faster, just grabbing the word on top and guessing where it’ll go, or finding the right word.
I’m not really sure which takes less time.
Game 5!
I don’t have a picture for this one, because it would literally have been me randomly throwing stuffed animals around the house, and that wouldn’t have made a good picture.
In this game, you hide the animals around the room.
And I don’t really mean hide, I’m not expecting you’ve done a super thorough job, because if you’re prepping it while the kids are there, let’s be honest you don’t have time to do that (now if you’re prepping before kids, you can hide it all over the room more thoroughly).
Have the kids start looking for their animals and put the verse in order.
Now, if you’re doing this with several teams, this is where the colored index cards come in handy, you can create sets in different colors for each team.
What do you think?
Fun games, absolutely ridiculous, or too much work?
I think it would be really fun, and since I already have stuffed animals, though not as many as when my kids were little, it could be a fun way to do it.
- Memory Verse puzzles
- Memory verse puzzles for Deueronomy
- One Another Bible verses
- Do Not Fear Bible verses
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