Parent Resources for Faith-Training Toddlers
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When Maya turned two about six months ago, Nathan and I decided that it was time to become more intentional with faith training our toddler at home. We go to church each Sunday, and hope that she is getting exposure to the basic stories and songs while she is there, but learning about God is not a subject that I feel comfortable outsourcing. Knowing that my daughter knows the truth, learns to love the Bible, and understands who God is and the role He plays in her life is too important to place in another’s hands.
Even though I have taught kids the Bible my whole life as a volunteer and a vocation, I was still intimidated on where to get started with my own toddler. If you are in the same boat, I hope that these resources will be a help to you as you think through the faith-training plan for your kids! Every kid is different, and there are great resources for the whole spectrum, but here are some of our tried and true absolute favorite resources and how we use them on a regular basis
Bible Book Time
Every night before bed, we have what Maya calls “Bible book time.” Nathan and Maya share this special time when they pull out her toddler Bible and read one story each night. This time is the core of our faith-training plan. We have tried several different toddler Bibles and own at least half a dozen, but our favorite is the Bible app for kids Bible. If you haven;t discovered this resource, it is AMAZING! YouVersion (the Bible app) now has a Bible app for kids that you can download and use for free. It has interactive Bible stories that are fun, short, easy to use and understand, and perfect for my toddler, but would be great for all ages up through fifth grade. Instead of relying just on the app, we bought the physical book that goes with the app. Each night, Nathan reads a story from the Bible with Maya, then they do the interactive story together on the laptop. Hearing it twice in two different formats helps her little mind, which needs repetition, to remember the story even better. The Bible has 28 different stories, and the app has a lot more, so we repeat the whole thing about once a month. This is perfect for her to be able to learn all of the character names without being overwhelmed.
Another book that I have recently discovered and love is I Can Learn About God by Kenneth Taylor. This book is basically theology for toddlers. It tackles all of the difficult to discuss topics such as the Trinity, heaven, and the plan of salvation all on a toddler level. It is so great!
Music Time
Most kids love music, and Maya is no different. She started showing an interest in music videos pretty early. She loves to watch YouTube channels of all of the movie clips with Disney songs. At first I thought that a lot of the fun church songs would be over her head, but when I heard my two year old singing, “spiraling like frozen fractals all around” from Frozen, I knew she could handle just about anything. I set about trying to find some non-cheesy Christian music videos with catchy songs, and it proved to be a challenge until I discovered Bethel Music Kids. They are on google play music, YouTube, etc. and we now listen to them and watch them all the time. Maya calls them “kids dancing,” lol. Not only do they have great songs, high quality videos, and amazing dance moves, but they also produce videos where they teach the dance moves, and Maya loves watching those too. My ten year old niece and nephew think they are cool, too, so they are definitely not cheesy!
Screen Time
Interestingly enough, the most difficult replacement of regular media for a something faith-based has been just regular old screen time. Maya has a limited amount of screen time each day, and I would love to find some good alternatives to the usual favorites. We tried a PureFlix subscription and were disappointed. The adult content was ok, but the offerings for kids were pretty cheesy and even my two-year-old was quick to want a channel change. She loves watching “The Star” on Netflix, which is good, but that is about it. If you have some good screen time options, please leave them in the comments below- I would appreciate the recommendations!
Sanity Moments
The last one I want to talk about is a video clip on the phone that I use for sanity moments. You know, when I need to clip her fingernails or some other task that requires her to sit still for three minutes- those moments. We have an app called Parent Cue that goes along with the curriculum that our church uses with the kids. You sign in and link with your church and each week you can watch the video that goes with the curriculum at home. Not only is it great for us to know what her Bible story at church was and be able to talk about it at home, but we can review it together on the app. If your church doesn’t use the curriculum, I think you can still get the app, or just look up the videos on youtube, the ones for Maya’s age group are called Wonder Clubhouse, and she loves them!
I hope this list is helpful in giving you some great resources to use in your faith-training efforts at home. Having the right resources that you know your kids will love makes all the difference in making faith-training fun for both you and your child!
Our next skill to tackle is prayer! Maya knows the “God is great, God is good” prayer, but we would love to teach her how to talk to God in every moment every day. I’ll let you know if we find some good resources to help, and if you have suggestions, we would love to hear them!
