The Bible Bee, Week 1

Our studying for the Bible Bee is in full swing here on the "farm". We are all a bit excited, and a little overwhelmed, at the scope of this challenge. We started out a little slowly, but we are in full gear for this week.

First we cut out some of the verse cards and put them on index cards with holes punched in them. Then we put them on rings... my ever present combo of index cards and rings... I love those things.

We started in to work. They "worked" all week while I was trying to figure out how to break down the verses into the 16 weeks we have to study. There are really 18 weeks, only we have two weeks of vacation built in.

At the end of the week I had them count up the verses they memorized... most had done 7 or 9 verses in the 5 days. One learned 15, and my eldest learned 34. She had worked really hard.

I delivered the news that the two younger children had to memorize 15 verses each WEEKDAY, and the bigger kids needed to do 25! Wow were we all shocked. So we needed to figure out a way to memorize more effectively... we fell back to our old standard of putting the whole verse on one side of the cards, and just the first letter of each word on the backs... so Joshua 1:9 (a category 1 verse) would say on the back of the card, "HIncy? Bsavc. Dnbt; dnbd, ftLyGwbwywyg."

I figure if we spend some time at each meal reading over the verses for this week using just the first letters, and the verses for next week using the full words, we will have read it over many times and they should have an easier time remembering them.

This leads us to knowing which verses need to be learned each week... I plan on putting up a full schedule on the blog for those who are studying for the Bee, but until I get to that, here is the first week. We counted out the number of verses in each Category and divided it between 16, so we would know the amount to memorize each of the 16 weeks.

Category 1: Week 1:
Genesis 1:1-2
Joshua 1:9
Nehemiah 9:6
Psalm 1:5-6
Psalm 19:14
Psalm 23:4
Psalm 23:6
Psalm 23:4-5

Category 2: Week 2
Genesis 3:14-15
Genesis 8:20-22
Exodus 15:11-13
Exodus 34:6-7
Duteronomy 1:29-31
Deuteronomy 6:4-9
Deuteronomy 32:1-4

Category 3: Week 1
Genesis 1:26-31
Genesis 2:20-25
Leviticus 19:11-18
Deuteronomy 7:7-10
Deuteronomy 8:2-6
1 Chronicles 16:23-33

Category 4: Week 1
Genesis 2:15-25
Exodus 20: 3-17
1 Samuel 2:1-10
Nehemiah 1:4-11

We also go over 5 Bible Knowledge Questions every day (25 a week), and 3 chapters of the books we need to know from the Bible. So for Week 1, we are discussing (and outlining) Chapters 1-15 of Genesis. (Eventually we will have gone over Genesis, 1 and 2 Samuel, Matthew, Acts, and Romans.)

Yes, this is a lot of work. I think it is good for them... when else are they going to be able to have the undivided time to hide God's word in their hearts? Certainly not as adults. I am pretty sure that none of us with our old and weary brains are up to this challenge.

We are basically done with school (legally only need 5 more days, but don't tell them that!), so as long as they do Math (and read) every day, they can choose to work on these verses or do the other remaining school.

What is more important? Grammar or Bible? Of course Bible. So we are taking the time this summer to do this. We may not be able to memorize EVERY verse they ask us to. But we will have memorized far more than if we hadn't tried to do it. And that is a winning situation no matter how you spin it.

Oh- and people who see us in real life... feel free to stop my children and give them a pop quiz... ask them any of these verses at the end of the week. Hopefully they will reward you with a word perfect rendition of the verse.

Here is a video I snuck of some of the children reviewing their verses... evidently they had to jump off the swing if they got something wrong. They did not know I was videoing them... it sounds as if they are right next to me, but really they are across the driveway. I did ask all their permission to put this online.



So is anyone else with me out there? Are there other families working on hiding God's word in their hearts in preparation for the Bible Bee? Let's join together and let each other know how we are doing!