Making Learning Fun!

How can we make learning fun? How can we help children understand concepts on their own?

The children learned that God accepts them and then drew their hand print and name to demonstrate it!

These questions have floated around in my mind for many years. My goal has been to help children learn Biblical concepts in an educational and fun way! The reason I feel so passionate about this subject is because I believe that the message of salvation is the most important concept people will ever hear. How can we as ministers help children truly understand this concept?

One day I happened upon the learning method called Discovery Learning. Basically, this method seeks to help children learn for themselves by giving them opportunities to figure the answers to concepts themselves. After “discovering” this method, I have used it many times.

Examples of the children's Lego Tabernacles.

One example is this past weekend. The children had been studying the ins and outs of the Tabernacle. So to put their knowledge to the test, we did a fun game! The game was to assemble and create the Tabernacle out of Legos. The children were immediately excited to create a Tabernacle of their very own. They were all saying—first we need to build the altar, then the bronze lavar, then we need to make the gate, don’t forget the opening to the gate, make sure the lamp stand goes inside the tent and so on. The volunteers were all blown away by the excitement and knowledge shown by them! The children were having so much fun they didn’t even realize this activity was actually testing their knowledge on the subject. Discovery learning helped them put everything they were hearing about the subject of the Tabernacle for the past four weekends into practice.

Stacey Davis is the Weekend Coordinator for Grades 3 & 4 at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California.