Several months ago, I received these games from Bible Games Central. We have SO much fun with these! If you’re looking for a playful, unique way to teach your kids about the Bible, these games are perfect.
Bible Bingo
This is not your typical Bingo game – although if you’ve played Bingo before, you’ll know exactly how to play. Each player has a Bingo card and each square has a different book of the Bible along with an illustration from a story within that book. The Bingo squares, as well as the Bingo calling cards, are all color coordinated and labeled with not only the book of the Bible but the section that book is in.
This is not only a fun way to play Bingo, but it is also an enjoyable way to learn the books of the Bible and how the Bible is organized. We play this game as a family, but this would also be perfect for a youth group or another larger group. The game includes 24 double-sided Bingo cards so up to 24 people can play!
My 4-year-old, Finn, had a fun time playing this game – it was his first time playing Bingo and he had a blast. He laughed a lot while trying to pronounce some of the harder-to-say books of the Bible (“Deuteronomy” for example!).
My recommendation for playing this game is to read through the booklet beforehand – it gives a very succinct overview of each section of the Bible. This is helpful for being able to explain the books of the Bible as you play. The only thing that I would love to see added to this game is a one sentence summary of each book of the Bible! Which, I know, is easier said than done. I found myself trying to recap each book to Finn – which is simpler for books like Jonah or Esther, but harder for books like Lamentations or some of the books of history.
Playing this game, and telling Finn about the books of the Bible, is an inspiration for understanding the whole arc of the Scriptures.
It also made me wonder how much to tell Finn about some of the not-so-kid-friendly stories of the Bible. How do you explain Job to a four year old? This takes wisdom and discernment from parents and teachers.
Bible Games Central also has a fun Christmas Bingo edition of this game, which comes with a memory card game as well!
Parable Parade
This is a fan favorite in our house. I was pleasantly surprised that Finn was able to follow along with the rules and understand how to play! The focus of this game is the parables of Jesus. Each “parable card” is illustrated with a scene from one of Jesus’ parables and there are 4 cards in each parable set. I would compare this game to Uno – you take turns pulling cards from a draw pile and you try to match the parable cards with each other. There are “oopsie” cards, which function as skip cards as well as “kingdom” cards, which allow you to steal from another player.
What I love about this game is that it’s a fun way to teach biblical concepts. To assist with this, there are parable summary cards with a summary and explanation of each parable. The explanations are simple and easy to understand. There is also an optional addition at the end of the game for players to retell the parables in their own words using the cards and their illustrations as a reference point.
We did make some modifications to the game for my 4-year-old: I removed quite a few of the Kingdom cards and oopsie cards, and we took turns drawing one card at a time instead of drawing unlimitedly. We also started the game with 4 cards in our hands. This made it go a little faster for my little guy.
I highly recommend this game – it’s perfect to play as a family or in a Sunday school class, youth group, or other church setting.
Bible Memory Game
This memory game is another great one for learning the books of the Bible. The game comes with A LOT of cards – which means you can make it as challenging as possible. Of course, for my little one, we only use a fraction of the cards. But it is fantastic for challenging your memory and learning the names of the books of the Bible. I was surprised by how quickly Finn got better at this game! We are increasing the difficulty more and more each time.
As he gets older, I foresee that we will add another biblical element to this game. For example, if a player matches two cards from the same book of the Bible, in order to “win” the cards, they have to recap a story from that particular book. If they can’t, the next player gets a turn to do it and possibly win the card set!
A final thought on playing games…
Games are SO great for kids to play, especially at home with family. It teaches them real world skills that they’ll need as they grow – but allows them to learn these in a safe setting. They learn about following rules, strategy, negotiation, sequential thinking, cooperating with others, healthy competition, and so much more. Playing these games inspired us to help Finn to grow more in his competitive nature – he was such a sore loser!! Since playing these games, we have started teaching him how to be encouraging to others even when he doesn’t win. This is a tough lesson!
Playing games is also a “sneaky” way to teach concepts that otherwise would be done through rote memorization – such as letters, books of the Bible, numbers, etc. I’m grateful that we live in a time when we can take advantage of games and activities such as these to teach our little ones about our awesome God!
If you’re looking for more ideas for family devotionals, this is what we use! Check them out in my Etsy shop.
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