This summer I decided that I wanted to switch up daily scripture studying with the kids a little bit. For years we have just read through the books, usually 15 minutes each morning. Many years ago I started with the Book of Mormon. Then we read the Doctrine and Covenants and then the Book of Mormon again. Next we read the Pearl of Great Price and then back to the Book of Mormon. Then the New Testament and this summer we were finishing the Book of Mormon, one more time. Over the last 16 plus years we have read many scriptures, but I felt like we were mostly checking off a box, saying, "we read today." The kids are all old enough now, the daily studying habit has been taught, and I feel like it is time for them to start understanding what they are reading and learning to search and really study the scriptures. I came up with the idea to read and study the Seminary Scripture Mastery list. I went to lds.org and printed, on cardstock, the 4 years worth of cards:
Old Testament Scripture Mastery Cards
New Testament Scripture Mastery Cards
Book of Mormon Scripture Mastery Cards
D&C Church History Scripture Mastery Cards
In each link, open the document in the PDF option and print pages 1,3, and 5. There are 8 pages total, but I just wanted the front of these cards. You can also get these cards at the LDS Distribution Center. I cut them down, punched a hole in the corner and put them on a ring.
Next I purchased these clear labels. They sell them at Wal-Mart.
I went to Avery.com and downloaded the template for these labels and I typed up the short scripture description located at the top of each card for each mastery scripture. Underneath that I typed the scripture.
Note: There are 100 total scripture mastery references. (Yes, I used the new list!) These labels come 80 per sheet. I typed up the first 80 references on page one and then on page two I typed (cut and pasted) the remaining 20 references four times, one per column. That way I can print everyone a page one and print one page two for four people and cut each row off.
Each morning we read and study one of the references. I decided to start with the Old Testament because that will be the book they study this year in Seminary. Everyone was given a red/blue marking pencil and the stickers. We read the scripture, mark it, put the sticker on, and then discuss what is written on the mastery card on the ring. We look up the footnotes and try to understand what the scripture is teaching us and why it would be a helpful scripture for a missionary. That is the ultimate purpose for them. Teaching others about the gospel and the scriptures.
For example:
Day Two was, Moses 7:18
We read, marked, stickered, and talked about what the card says. Then we went to the footnotes and found this scripture:
D&C 38:4
Logan (10), my last child in Primary, was excited because we are learning the "Follow the Prophet" song in singing time this year and it has a whole verse about Enoch, so he knew who he was. We sang the song and talked about Enoch. We looked up what "Zion" meant and discussed it. The last part of the mastery card has an "application" section. The question for this card is, "What can you do to build unity, promote righteousness, and assist those in need in your family, ward or branch?" The kids came up with answers like: service, fast offerings, being an example, etc. We talked about them and then we had our morning prayer.
This has been our new routine for a few weeks. When we finish all 100 mastery cards, I'll figure out what to do from there. :) If anyone has any great ideas, please share!
2 comments:
Since you've written this post, scripture mastery memorization has been discontinued in seminary (sad), and therefore the links that you've posted have been taken down from the website. My computer recently crashed (I think I saved all 4 PDFs to my computer, but I'll have to find them once I get the new hard drive installed), so I was out looking for the links again today. The only three that I have found are these:
https://www.lds.org/bc/content/shared/content/english/pdf/language-materials/10555_eng.pdf?lang=eng
https://www.lds.org/bc/content/shared/content/english/pdf/language-materials/10459_eng.pdf?lang=eng
https://www.lds.org/bc/content/shared/content/english/pdf/language-materials/10494_eng.pdf?lang=eng
I am sure that the New Testament Cards pdf exists somewhere on the site, but I just can't find it.
The way we've been using the cards is by printing off the back sides with the actual text [I write in the scripture reference in pen] and then for morning scriptures, we've been using the Charlotte Mason method to memorize them (explanation here: https://simplycharlottemason.com/timesavers/memorysys/). We found about this method from a non-LDS homeschooling mom, who uses it for scriptures, poetry, historical facts, and so on. In short, you say/read the scripture every morning until it's memorized. Then the rest of the system is about *keeping* it memorized over time by a clever systematic review system.
The reason we use the scripture mastery cards is because they happen to already be just the right size for baseball card pages, which my husband had from his childhood. We used little Avery circle stickers to label each square as Daily, Even, Odd, Monday, Tuesday, and so on [see that Charlotte Mason link for more info]. Basically, the recipe box version that they show in the link was a bit bulky for us, and these were the materials we had on hand. So far we have avoided the ones that are partial text on the back (like Joseph Smith's 1st Version-- they cut off the long ones on the back of these cards, but I would like to memorize the entire thing). I also sometimes add in other scriptures that mean a lot to me or my family, and someday we may also add the Articles of Faith or short quotes. Who knows?
We've been doing this for about 3 years now, and we now have 23 scriptures completely, solidly memorized. Even the 5-year-old knows them all and quotes along when people at church or General Conference start reading one of the memorized scriptures. We usually wait to move on until the 2.5-year-old can say them with us (she's obviously not so solid on the ones that happened when she was a baby). But the 5-year-old definitely knows them all and also memorizes them a lot faster than it takes the 2.5-year-old. With your older kids it would likely go faster. For us adults, we find that it's really helpful when we are asked to give impromptu lessons or talks. We also figure that this will be helpful for our girls if they decide to go on missions someday, or when they are teaching at church/home in the future. In all, it also takes about 5 minutes on the longest days, but we have seen so many benefits. It has been so good for us!
Evening scriptures are much more traditional (read through for a certain number of verses apiece), but I now hope to evolve to something like you're describing in this post as the kids get older. You are teaching them to really *study* the scriptures, in addition to learning to read them consistently. I love it. I will save this idea for future reference.
Thanks so much for sharing, and I'm glad I stumbled across this!
Thank you for sharing. I am lucky to have found my cards from Seminary but I need to reprint a few. Does anyone have the PDF of the New Testament and Book of Mormon original cards? where it has the scripture reference on the front of the card (notice newer versions don't have the scripture reference, only the passage).
Thank you!
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