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You know how I get these REALLY REALLY good ideas about once every six months or so??  God gave me another one: BOOKS OF THE BIBLE “JENGA.”

Seriously.

This is the most fun way to learn the books of the Bible!

It’s SO easy to make, too!

How to Make Your Own Books of the Bible “Jenga” Game

Needed:

• A printout of the books of the Bible, grouped into color categories. (Like this one. Or one you can color yourself, like this one.)
• Permanent markers in a large variety of colors.
• A wooden block game like “Jenga” (I didn’t actually use a “Jenga” set, I got a set from the Dollar General store which is blank on the sides of the blocks, kind of like this one.)

To make:

Using the list as a guide, and matching the colored markers to the list, label the sides of the blocks with the books of the bible.

The set that I got at our Dollar Store came with 39 pieces – and since I use the Bible with 66 books, 39 books in the Old Testament, I literally did a happy dance in the Dollar General aisle. (I really did.)

So I bought two, thinking I’d use one for Old Testament and one for New Testament and I’d just have extra blocks in the New Testament set.

And then at home, when I realized that there EXACTLY enough extra blocks in the New Testament set to label with “Old Testament,” “New Testament” and all the categories, I did the happy dance again. (Really!) I am easily amused. =)

If you end up with a set that has too many blocks (it does seem like the set from our Dollar General is a rather small set,) you could simply have extra blocks leftover and that’s okay! Don’t fret the small details.

After you have your pieces labeled, all you need now is to know how to play…

How to Play Bible “Jenga”

I wanted our Bible “Jenga” game to be more than just a block tower game with Bible names on the side. I wanted it to be truly helpful for learning about the Books of the Bible.

Pulling on my experiences all those years in Bible Drill, I set about the task of making some Bible “Jenga” rules. I typed them up and made a pretty little print out that you are free to download if you’d like.

The basic idea is that you first work to put the blocks in order while building your tower, you play the game, and then you work to build the tower in order again to put it away (or play again.) This serves to help work on the Book order.

But to take that a little farther, you could mix the two sets together, to sort them and build the two towers simultaneously in order – that helps to practice order and which books are in which Testament.

Let’s take that further again, to learn the books that come before and after by pulling out a block, saying the name, and then reciting it with the books that precede and follow it. See what we’re doing now?

And last but not least, by including the categories (Law, History, etc.) we can learn those, too. And by color coding the books to the category block and the printable list, we can begin to learn which books go in which categories.

I LOVE THIS.

I am also toying with the idea of writing additional information on the flat sides of the blocks, such as who wrote the book and when it was written, etc. But if I do, I will add that later. And I’m also thinking that the blocks could just be used to sort by category, put in order, and just practice the books without playing the game. Or perhaps we can develop other games with these blocks. Plenty of possibilities!!

Our Books of the Bible Game

We now have an Old and New Testament set of “Bible Jenga” sitting on our bookshelf. The kids enjoy playing it, and we’re learning, too!

My oldest knows a lot of this already, but really needs to sharpen her skills, my son is just now learning some of this and needs a little bit of help, but one of the “rules” is to work together and help each other, so it’s a really great game for all ages. It’s not a competition, it’s a group effort. Why? Because studying God’s Word (even when you’re studying ABOUT His Word,) is a good thing, a “win,” it’s never a loss. 😉