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While teaching encouraging Bible memory verses for children and grandchildren are some of the most important things I do with my grandkids, there are other important things we work on as well. Some of my grandkids are learning Latin words this year (amazing how many of them I know from Law and Order – who says TV isn’t educational! 🙂 ). We’ve been working on body parts (see – those Halloween skeletons ARE quite useful!). And now – it’s on to memorizing the books of the Bible. A great brain activity for my whole Sandwich Generation family including my grand children. 🙂
True confession time. I’ve been reading the Bible for over three decades. I’ve been reading it daily for over two decades. I’m sure I had to learn the Books of the Bible when I was in Lutheran school for eight years. I’ve worked with various grandkids on this project more than once over the past umpteen years. And yet, I still struggle with a couple of those minor prophets! So ANYTHING I can find to help them and me learn these easily, I grab at!Â
Of course, you know me! Loving Christian praise and worship songs for all ages, I am always on a quest for yet another fun Books of the Bible song and over the years, I have collected a handful of them in an iPod playlist for my grandkids and myself to enjoy while tootling around town, including:
- Bible Book Bop by the Go Fish Guys – This is our absolute favorite version to listen and dance to. It’s fun, it’s “baby boomer AND grandkid happy” (think Beach Boys, baby!), BUT it is a little bit hard to understand the names of all of the books of the Bible in the song. I still play it every time – because we love it AND because I’m sure it’s filtering in their brains and exercising mine as well. But I also always play at least one other on this list.  🙂 Â
- Perfect Book – A Books of the Bible Song from Awana – very easy to understand and a cute and perky little melody. It, too, has all the books of the Bible in this one song and it is much easier to understand, although it does go a bit fast. I, personally, love a faster beat most of the time, but for learning the books of the Bible, sometimes slower is more helpful.Â
- Thingamakid – they also split the Old and New Testament books of the Bible into two songs, with the first song ending with the words, “The books of the Old Testament,” and the second just ending with Revelation. The two songs are very simple and basic, have different tunes, and are both very easy to understand. Perfect for just the basics!Â
- My First Hymnal – This also splits the Old and New Testament into two songs with different tunes and singers for each. At the end of the New Testament is a very short little speech about Jesus and His house but it gets cut off midway. This has a nice tempo, no extras, but each song was easy to understand. If it wasn’t for the odd ending of the New Testament, I think this would be my fave for the basics but that ending bumped Thingamakid up.
- Then there are the Nashville Singers with the Books of the Bible Medley song – They also combine the Old and New Testaments BUT they use different tunes for the two sections. I really like that they teach the categories as well as the list in the Old Testament books of the Bible song – i.e. “Let us sing the Books of Moses.” They refer to the Books of History, the Books of Poetry, the Major Prophets and the MInor Prophets. They also add little tidbits like “the Psalms of David.”  in the New Testament – I expected them to refer to the Gospels, and the Epistles, but they didn’t. They did, however, mix it up a bit by using a different tune and adding a few extra notes like “1st four books which come along.”  The one thing I did not like was that on a couple of the books with more than one volume, they worded it a bit different. For instance, for first, second, and third John, they sing “First John but John has three books before we go on.” In addition, some of the names of the books of the Bible are sung a bit faster, making them a bit harder to understand. Overall, I do like this version because they are learning more about the Bible, but I wouldn’t use it by itself.
- From WorshipForKids.com come two fun videos on YouTube – one for the Old Testament and one for the New Testament. They’re bright and colorful videos with a fun rendition of the books the Bible and a positive message in the middle. The only caveat is that there are ads covering the words throughout however I was able to click the little x and they went away. They are available free on YouTube and would definitely resonate with several kids I know. Enjoy. 🙂
Well, those are the ones in my grandkids current playlist. But they are NOT the only Books of the Bible songs. So check back throughout the week as we in the Sandwich Generation keep discussing this subject, including part two of this list next Monday. 🙂
Are You Teaching Your Children or Grandchildren the Books of the Bible http://t.co/H6MichZT (via @SandwichINK)