Quiet Time for Little Ones

Guac N' Roll said...

Hey! How did you go about teaching her to do a quiet time? I'm thinking about another dear friend who has a kindergartener in the fall... and I'm not sure how I would go about this for my own child - though that is a while from now!

How do I do a Quiet Time for my soon to be Kindergartener:

First of all, every thing is CD based, so that it can be her alone time with God and because she doesn't read that well yet.  This activity is mainly directed at Princess, but Speed Racer is joining in it too, because Princess is truly excited about it.

I have told her that this time prepares her to remember Him throughout the day, and she has told me how it has, although it is very much a discipline we are still working on.  For example, we are working on not telling lies, learning what lies are, and telling the truth.   So the memory verses she is learning are about telling the truth, not lies.  She clearly told me how the verses helped her make the right choice in playing with her brother to tell truth and not deceive.

In our house, generally, she gets up, gets dressed, and then has her quiet time.  One of the things I am trying to teach her is the importance of doing it at the start of the day.

First, she listens to a bible story.
Then, she listens to a memory verse song a few times.
Then, she listens to preschool bible songs or praise music.
Then, she is able to pray or draw a picture for God.  Art is her strength so I try teach her to use that to honor Him.

At preschool this year, she learned 26 memory verses, one for each letter of the alphabet.  She did not realize that she didn't just learn them for learning's sake, so I explained to her recently that you learn them to practice them.  For example, one of the verses was "Keep thy tongue from evil.  Psalm 34:13"  When she was not using her tongue correctly, I reminded her of this verse and told her that's why we learn verses to know what God wants and expects of us.  So she really seems to understand this now as we are learning.  At the end of this week, she already knows Psalm 119:10-11.  We are using, Hermie Scripture Memory Songs.

The good thing about this is that Daniel and I are charged as her parents to teach her spiritual truths.  What she learned at preschool was good, but it had not been made personal to her, which is our job.  So I see how going to a private school or even homeschooling could be good but still not good enough if I am not doing my job as parent in directing her in her need and making the Scripture relevant to her.

At night time, which is separate from Princess' quiet time, we have family bible time, and we use The Early Reader's Bible, but we've used many of the preschool bibles.  We cycle through them regularly.