9/8/2011

Ok. I'm a day behind. Monday holidays seem to throw the rest of the week off. It's Thursday but this is my "Works for Me Wednesday" post.

My daughter is reviewing the books of the Bible. We know songs that we often sing to help us remember the order of the books. Here is a visual and hands-on way to practice ordering the books of the Bible (or anything else you might want to memorize in a certain order).

Clothespins and hangers. You need to have 1 clothespin per item you want to memorize. For us, that was 66 clothespins for the 66 books of the Bible. On one side of the clothespin I wrote the name of the book (ex. Genesis). I did this for all 39 books of the Old Testament and 27 books of the New Testament. I used a black Sharpie for Old Testament books and a red Sharpie for New Testament books, as a visual aid for my kids.


Hang the clothespins in the correct order on hangers. Then turn the clothespins over to the blank side. Use this second side to create a way for your child to self-check their work by using numbers or letters.


The New Testament has 27 books so that is almost the same as the alphabet, which has 26 letters. So I put an A on the back of the Matthew clothespin, B on the back of Mark, etc. I had one extra left after Z so I put a smiley face on that last one to finish off the 27 clothespins.

For the Old Testament, I just numbered the clothespins from 1 up to 39.

Here's my daughter holding one hanger with the Old Testament pins (the one with more pins, which have to curve around the edge of the hanger) and one hanger with the New Testament pins.

I like the fact that she can check her own work, by flipping them over and seeing the alphabet or numbers on the back. And now with my 3-year-old son I realize I can give him one set and work with him on letter or number recognition too.

Easy to create. Easy to use. Works for me!

PS: I originally created these clothespins 3 years ago and posted this tip way back then. I'm so glad these are still coming in handy today! You can see that original post here.