I use a teaching method that I learnt from Heart of Wisdom called the 4mat system. I have modified it slightly to suit the needs of our family. I have found these steps to be very beneficial in not only our Bible study but when approaching all lessons.
I have created the anagram IDEA to help you remember the steps. (see the for a printable bookmark based on ‘IDEA’)
IDEA
- I is for Introduce
- D is for Digging Deeper
- E is for Examine & Elaborate
- A is for Apply to My Life
You can see more about this format of lessons over at the . However, I also wanted to mention the Activity Ideas that go along with steps 3 and 4. These are not all my own original ideas (is there really such a thing?) but I have complied the list. I have spent years gathering the various ideas and then compiled them into the four various activity types.
You’ll find many activities categorised within the following sections: Creative Drawing and Building Activities, Creative Drama Activities, Written Activities and Oral Activities. These Activity Ideas can be used with any learning activity and any subject. They can be as simple or as complex as you like! You might start to notice that your child has a particular bent for one type of activity and I have been asked if one should allow them to only choose the same activity each time. I will share what I have done with my children.
When my children were a little younger, I would encourage them toward choosing a variety of activities. This prevented them from only developing in certain areas an helped them to develop in a few areas. It’s like body building. When a child is young we don’t make them to 100’s of sit up’s each day in order to strengthen their abdominals. Rather we want them to play outside in a variety of activities which will strengthen the whole body.
Later though, as their interests and talents have presented themselves to me, I will allow them to narrow the choices a little. I have found that my older children do strongly desire one type of activity more so than anther and once they are older I believe this is important in allowing them to develop in the ways that God wants them to develop. But in the younger years, I try to aim for variation in order to expose them to more.
You can find the Activity Sheets for download on the (along with a few other freebies). If you use the Activity Sheets in any lessons (including your Bible times) please drop me a line and let me know.
Thanks for that IDEA Susan! It is much easier to remember than all the Es, and I struggle with remembering lists of things. This will be really useful for me.
SUsan, this is very neat! Thanks for offering this. I can see how very helpful this list could be for all sorts of things.
YOu are always so generous in helping us out!
Hi Susan, just popped over from the AHC tread on copywork/ narration – thanks for the link here! Just letting you know that I have printed an plan to use some of the Freebies an Activity sheets that you have here. Esp. thanks for the attendance record- so good to finally have one that is so well laid out!
Blessings, Jess