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We did Beyond last year and I didn't do the bible section since ds was in Awana's and memorizes several verses every week for that. We'll be doing Bigger this coming year. And I've thought about doing the memory verses.

What have you done or what would you do? If your child was memorizing lots in Awana's. Both? or just Awana's?

I am not sure what we will do yet either. I am sort of leaning towards just reading the HOD bible verse several times during our bible time, but not pushing for memorization. The kids will probably end up memorizing the scriptures anyway if we read them everyday. I will probably do the Awana verse first thing before school starts. Also, last year my kids did not end up memorizing their verses until right before Awana started in the evening. I think we will probably follow the plan I have unless I see that it is not a big deal and they can handle several verses. My friend says her girls did fine with both bible study and AWANA verses. Maybe I don't give my kids enough credit. Let us know what you plan on doing.

Blessings,

Ana Dawson

Last year, we made sure to take 5 minutes a day to memorize the Awana verses for the week. Then during school time, we would read over (or listen to) the HOD verse. DD did end up learning some of the HOD verses too.

We are going to do the HOD verses Bible time stuff first thing in the morning, then the Awana verses during family worship. Matthew is going to do Jayden's "story" from Awana on Monday, Grace's on Tuesday, review on Wednesday, and start learning new verses on Thursday. Grace will only do one Awana verse per week because she's still in Cubbies, but Jayden will do as many as she can handle. Last year she averaged 3 or 4, this year I'm expecting 2 and if she gets more than that great, if not, ok because she's learning one with school.

But basically, I'm keeping Awana and school separate this year instead of having Awana being the Bible portion of school. That way Jayden is less likely to get confused with the verses. We'll spend about 5 minutes a day on Awana verses except for Monday and Tuesday when they'll hear the story too. It also helps Matthew not have to come up with a new devotion every day.

Lora Beth

We'll be doing HOD Bible verses during school time. Awanas is done before bed time. I have a 5th grader and you want to talk about an incredible number of Awana verses to memorize. Wowser. We just read them every single day during the week. She takes her book pretty much everywhere and will even work on them in the car. My 2nd grader just has to work on his verses for a few minutes every day. They are much shorter.

I personally would do both. The more they have of God's word in their heart, the better in IMHO. With the way things are going under our new presidency towards socialism, there may come a time when we will not have access to a Bible Not trying to scare....just trying to put another perspective on it.

Thanks for asking this, kiloyd! I was wondering the same thing myself...lots of great ideas of how to do both, everyone!

My kids do Awana as well. We do them both. I have found that they have really gotten very good at memorizing verses and it has really not been too much for them. Awana lets them move at their own pace so it not really has not been an issue. In the end most of our kids finished more than one book in Awana because they just get so good at memorizing. As long as they are motivated it works great. Try to get them to work together and make a game of it. I did very little to help them with Awana because of the practice they got in HOD they knew what to do. I just listened when they were ready to be signed off. That is it. Anyway that has been our experience. Just doing one or the other may be best for other families. There is no right or wrong answer on this just do what works best but I would say let them show you what they are capable of because you might be surprised.

This has been an interesting thread to read as I have been grappling with this for some time. I did not go in-depth with our bible study in Bigger because I thought it would be too much along with studying for Awana. We only got through half of Bigger last year so we are going to continue with it. I actually was considering taking them out of Awana but they love it so much. I feel more confident listening to your responses that they can do both. My son moves to T&T this year and it's a lot harder than Sparks so I was mostly concerned for him. I don't want them to feel overwhelmed but maybe I'm just not giving them enough credit in their abilities.

We also do both. Grant was pretty good last year about working on AWANA on his own in the afternoons - or at least on Sunday afternoon before we went Sun evening.

Kathleen

We plan to do both, but dd is in Cubbies so she'll only have two verses (one for LHFHG and one for Awanas) each week to memorize. We'll do HOD verses during school time and save the Awanas verse for the weekend.

Thanks everyone. We'll give it a try, doing both that is. Dh pretty much ds's Awana verses anyway. And dd just has 1 verse each week with Cubbies.

Did you know they've dumbed down the Awana books? DS has done Skipper,Hiker, and Climber, now it's a flying theme and way easier. He'll be in T&T this fall too and the new books look so easy for him. I don't know why they do that?

I'd encourage you to do both too - we've had such deep conversations along with the Bible study boxes in the HOD guides. The verse being memorized seems to help our talks to be better remembered as well. I too believe that it is so important for our dc to have as many verses as possible in their arsenal to face the world. I so wish I'd memorized more as a child - my dc are much quicker to memorize verses than I am. But, I guess that's a good thing for them!

In Christ,
Julie

kiloyd wrote:Thanks everyone. We'll give it a try, doing both that is. Dh pretty much ds's Awana verses anyway. And dd just has 1 verse each week with Cubbies.

Did you know they've dumbed down the Awana books? DS has done Skipper,Hiker, and Climber, now it's a flying theme and way easier. He'll be in T&T this fall too and the new books look so easy for him. I don't know why they do that?

Yes, the new books are much easier. My DD was the first batch of kids doing the new Sparks in our church and was able to do so many sections each week on top of the verse for LHFHG. So I figure by going over the Beyond verse each day, I'm giving her the in-depth meaning of the verse and she still gets to memorize lots for Sparks to have that great sense of accomplishment.