Game Schooling - Bible Challenge

It's been a struggle for me to find what I'm looking for in a Bible/Theology study for Mane. As a 7th grader, she's past just learning the basic stories but still needs reinforcement of the facts and practice finding things in scripture. There's a whole lot I have to say about teaching and studying theology for kids and middle schoolers, but today I'll just feature the games we've been using as that base for solidifying the facts and scriptures...

Mane made a set of these popsicle sticks with the books of the Bible written on them. They are color coded for genre. She is using them as a way to learn the order of the books. Scrambling them up and putting them back in order is great practice!

We are also playing a game called Bible Challenge as a part of our regularly scheduled curriculum! I grew up playing an older version of Bible Trivia, and I credit that game with helping me learn a great deal in a way that I still remember it today. This version does not give multiple choice answers to the questions, making it a bit more challenging. Players collect rings in seven different colors representing categories of questions in order to win the game.

Mango recently sent me a link to a American Radio Works radio show called The Science of Smart that was primarily about how people learn and retain information. Researchers have found over and over again that the best way to study information in order to retain it is to be quizzed (or to quiz yourself) on that information. It seems to me that trivia games are a great way to accomplish that repeated quizzing that helps us remember!