Ideas for Family Devotions

My husband is very creative when it comes to family devotions. He loves to use hands-on visual aids to bring a point home with the children. Here are a few ideas that we have used, which I hope will spark some ideas in you to try with your family! I would love to hear of your ideas as well! You could leave a comment below, or post separately.

The first two are adaptations from a book called Family Nights Tool Chest. I highly recommend it!
LESSON ON BEING CAREFUL WITH OUR WORDS
To do this, I recommend buying as many travel-size tubes of toothpaste as you have participating family members.
Get a sheet of plastic or something to put over your table or the area you are working with, give each person their own tube, and tell them to squeeze out the contents on the (plastic-covered) table! They will probably love doing this, if they are anything like my children!
After they have had their fun squeezing it all out, tell them that you will give a $1 bill, or a $20 or whatever you choose to use – to the first person that can put all the toothpaste back into the tube!
Our children used toothpicks and put forth a valiant effort at trying to get the toothpaste back in the tube, but it was just impossible.
After they gave up trying, we talked about how important it is to be careful with our words. Once we say something unkind or careless, it cannot be taken back!
Here are some verses you may want to use:

Proverbs 12:18
Reckless words pierce like a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.

Proverbs 17:27
A man of knowledge uses words with restraint, and a man of understanding is even-tempered.

Here are some pictures of our adventure:

Hunting for Hidden Treasure

This one takes a bit of preparation before-hand, but it is minimal.
My husband and I first gave the kids this instruction sheet:
Hunting for Hidden Treasure:
1. Walk into kitchen
2. Look on top of the rabbit’s cage
3. Open box
These instructions were easy enough to follow! They quickly found the box placed on top of the rabbit’s cage and excitedly opened it.
But it was empty!!!
Then we gave them a second instruction sheet. It read:
Hunting for Hidden Treasure:
1. Dominique- give Joshua five, six times
2. Joshua and Dominique: Go up and down the stairs ten times
3. Go to the basement bedroom and find a yellow car inside one of the shoes
4. Take the yellow car and put it under the bed.
5. Pick up the blue lego.
6. Take the blue lego and jump on the trampoline 15 times each
7. Go to the den and return lego to lego box
8. Spin around seven times
9. Run backwards to the other side of the room
10. Get piggy back rides from Mommy and Daddy
11. Find a piece of paper under the couch in den
So, they excitedly followed all of these instructions, and located the paper under the couch. Fabio had written on it: Use the paper and pens on the floor to write Mommy a note saying, “I love you.”
So, they did, except that Dominique just drew me some hearts.
When they gave me the notes, I gave them a map of our house with arrows directing them into their bedroom.
In the bedroom, they hunted for another map directing them into the kitchen.
In the kitchen, they hunted for another map directing them into the living room.
In the living room, they hunted, and found a treasure box!
Upon opening it, they found TWO lollipops for each of them! (All-natural and sugar-free, of course!
YAY! A hidden treasure!
While they enjoyed their treasure, Daddy took some time to talk to them about the more important treasure we should seek: JESUS! and the wisdom that He gives.
We asked them which map was easier to follow? The first one, of course! The only problem was, that box was empty! So, we also talked about perseverance until we find the prize, and not taking the easy way out, or giving up too soon.
Then we read Proverbs 2:
1 My son, if you accept my words
and store up my commands within you,
2 turning your ear to wisdom
and applying your heart to understanding,
3 and if you call out for insight
and cry aloud for understanding,
4 and if you look for it as for silver
and search for it as for hidden treasure,
5 then you will understand the fear of the LORD
and find the knowledge of God.
6 For the LORD gives wisdom,
and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.
The whole chapter is a good read!
Here is a little video clip that we taped of the kids after we had finished our treasure hunt, about what they had learned. At the time we did it (a couple years ago), my daughter was apparently too young to “get it”, LOL, because she said she learned a story about Jonah! I guess it is about time to do this one again!

CULTIVATING A THANKFUL HEART


First, Daddy got all this rocky “soil” and gave each child a section to “cultivate”.They used forks to get out all the rocksand debris in order to prepare a good soil for planting.Then he gave them each a “seed” to bury in their plot, and on each seed was written: “Thankfulness”. As they worked, he explained to them that this soil was like their hearts! The rocks in their hearts were things like complaining, grumbling, disobedience, and strife.If they wanted to have a good attitude, they had to cultivate a thankful, happy heart!

After they had planted the seeds, they bowed their heads to pray that God would honor their work at cultivating their hearts’ soil. He made sure to pray for long enough to have time to “grow” some thankful, happy hearts while they had their eyes closed. And when they opened their eyes, look what had grown!!


We pray that this will be a true picture of what grows in our children’s hearts as we seek to cultivate the soil of their lives with the Word of God!
TEACHING THEM TO APPRECIATE THEIR PARENTS TEACHING
In Proverbs 1:9 it says , “Your parents teaching will beautify your life. It will be like flowers on your head or a chain around your neck.”
When we read that verse, I had an idea!  We got these foam circles and flowers that I picked up last year at a garage sale, some yarn, some beads and a pen.  I asked the children some of the things that Mommy and Daddy are always trying to teach them, and we wrote these things on the flowers and circles, and then we made necklaces out of them!
This project was actually really encouraging for ME, because I saw that they could readily remember some of the things we were trying to teach them!
Our supplies:

I thought it was hilarious that when I asked them what Mommy and Daddy are always trying to teach them, this was the first thing they said:

Dominique’s Finished Product:

Some of her “adornments” of wisdom:


Joshua’s Finished Product:

And some of Joshua’s adornments of wisdom:


These are some of the things Mommy and Daddy are trying to teach Israel:

And, Israel’s finished product: