Bible II is a required award for Helping Hands. It could be earned in one or two meetings, but I prefer to spread this one out over five meetings. I love having a bible story or a time in the meeting that we are focusing on Christ and our Bible friends, so I often spread out our religious awards over a few weeks.
Books of the Old Testament
Fulfills Requirement #1
In my club, we rotate between the Old and New Testament books each year. My club is small and we don’t have a class for Builders and Helping Hands on the same year. Right after we recite our pledge and law (with the whole club), we sing the books of the bible. We do this at every meeting.
At the beginning of class time with my Helping Hands, we recite the books of the Old Testament. At the beginning of the year, we’ll focus on the first five books, but we add the rest in pretty quickly. Each kid (and adult) has the books of the bible to read from as we recite. (Printable at the bottom of the post)
I also send the books of the bible home with each of the older adventurers. In an ideal world, the Adventurer will review the books of the Old Testament each day with their parents. In reality, some kids will practice daily, and will learn the books of the Bible, and some kids won’t. And that’s okay. We accept all of our kids and families as they are, and we are grateful for the time we get with them.
Bible Stories
Fulfills Requirements #2 & #3
Over the course of five meetings, I read the following Bible stories to the Helping Hands:
- Noah
- Abraham
- Moses
- David
- Daniel
My favorite Bible story book is the Jesus Storybook Bible. My backup favorite for this age (because not every Bible story is in every bible story book) is 100 Bible Stories. I read the week’s story to the kids while they color the picture. You’ll find the pictures in the Helping Hands Workbook (available at AdventSource and possibly your local conference office or as a free printable at Club Ministries), but my favorite version of the pictures are in trading card format. For the trading card printable and more information all about these pictures for all four years, check out this post.
Memory Verses
Fulfills Requirement #4
Memorize and explain three of the following verses about living for Jesus:
- Exodus 20:11-17
- Philippians 4:13
- Philippians 2:13
- 1 John 2:1-2
- Jude 24
- Your Choice
Over the course of three meetings, we learned the following verses through games. The two games I used are all about using the power of repetition. Both games are liked by the Helping Hands. We play Memory Verse Erase so frequently that I expect the kids to get tired of it, but they keep asking to play it! To play Memory Verse Catch, you will need a whiteboard/large piece of paper/chalkboard/something to write the verse on that will be easy to see by all the players. You will also need something to throw such as a beach ball or a koosh ball. I used our beach ball from the Caring Friend Award. The game is super simple.
Catch the ball. Read/recite the verse. Throw the ball. Repeat! This game works best for shorter verses.
- Philippians 4:13: Memory Verse Catch
- Philippians 2:13: Memory Verse Erase
- Jude 1:24: Memory Verse Erase
Game Time!
Fulfills Requirement #5
Play two games that will help you remember the Bible stories.
Spread out over multiple meetings we played three games: Bible Timeline, Bible Charades (using the timeline cards), and Bible Scavenger Hunt. For instructions and resources for Bible Timeline and Bible Charades, check out this post.
I used the free Bible Scavenger Hunt printable from Scavenger Hunt. The page is comprised of riddles about different characters in the Bible for the kids to solve. I hid mini post-it notes around the room with Bible character names on them (the answers). I had enough sets of post-its for each helping hand to have a full set. Once they found the post-it, they used it to cover that matching riddle.
The riddles did make the kids think, and they did need assistance with them. The next time I teach Helping Hands, I’ll think about making my own riddles to match the stories the kids are learning in Adventurers. Although matching the stories might be nice, I also think this printable is completely appropriate for our Helping Hands – hopefully they are learning Bible stories outside of Adventurers as well, and these riddles are a fun way to review.
Books of the Bible Printables
I enjoy to coordinating the Books of the Bible printables with our yearly theme. I am including each of the versions I’ve made over the past several years in both Old Testament and New Testament versions. The background image with the butterflies was created by the endlessly creative Vanesa Franco, a fellow Area Coordinator in the Oregon Conference. The adorable adventurer kids are from the talented @urias_arts. You can find these graphics and a library of more friends at Traços de Esperança (Traces of Hope).
What’s your favorite way to memorize the books of the bible? Tell me about it in the comments.
If you use these ideas, could you do me a favor and come back and comment about how they worked for your club? I’d love to hear about your experience.