Today we said good bye to the last of our company. Though the times were great, it is also great to get back into the swing of things again, and have some normalcy. (is that even a word? I like to use it.) And so tonight we resumed our family scripture study once again, which was very exciting!
About a year ago, we noticed that our 5 little children often times had difficulty sitting through scripture reading every night. They would wiggle around on their "scripture squares", the little ones would move around and sit by someone else every few minutes, and it just seemed like we couldn't keep their attention very long. That is, until, we came up with a solution...
We had the children listen for the words: God, Jesus Christ, or Lord. Knowing that these words would appear quite frequently in the scriptures, we asked them to listen for those words, and when they heard them, they were to jump up from their squares and run around the stairs (the stairs are located in the center of the house and they connect all the way around, thus making a circle). We would chase each other around the circle and see who could get back to their square first.
At first it was exciting. The kids thought it was wonderful and SO fun. They sat and listened intently for the precious words in the scriptures that we read often, the sacred names of our loving father and brother. It wasn't until the kids were sitting on the couch with any old ordinary book reading the words and inserting the names of deity any where they wanted, and then running around the circle. And even worse, just running around the circle shouting the names of deity, that we concluded that although the idea was great, it needed revamping... fast!
Jason and I discussed what other words were repeated through-out the scriptures often, so that we could keep the concept (which was clearly working at keeping them reverent and attentive) going. That was when we came up with the "-ite" idea. So now, everytime we read an "-ite" name... Nephites, Lamanites, Zoramites, etc. we all run around the circle!
It has proven to be fun and full of just as much, if not more excitement, and much better than the original idea! However, for the past few months we have been in 3rd Nephi and reading about when the Savior visited the Americas and there have been very few "-ite" words. Again, the kids were getting wrestless and wiggly and non-attentive. That is... until tonight.
After slacking on our scripture study for the past week and half, we started back up tonight. And scripture study was not the only thing... exercising, too! Yet I can proudly say that I got a little bit of cardio tonight! We read the whole chapter of 4th Nephi (which isn't much, but is quite a bit for 6 little kids, age 8 and under) and I did not count how many "-ites" there were, nor did I count how many times I ran around the circle. However, I DID count the memories we were making!
I WILL remember the smiles on my children's faces, the pressure in my lungs from breathlessness, the giggles, the tears in the corner of my eyes from uncontrollable laughs, lapping Emma a few times, my feet burning beneath my socks as I sprinted on the carpet, sitting down for a brief second only to read the next "ite" and having to run yet another time around the circle, Eli watching us run around and around and trying to figure out what we were doing, sliding across the tile on my socks, more giggling, red faces, and just one happy eternal family who is LOVING their FAMILY SCRIPTURE STUDY!
And I must say... it feels good to be back!
1 comment:
Sounds like the best way to spend family scripture study!!
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