Reading the Psalms with Kids

As many of you know from our newsletter our youngest rooms are starting new curriculum this Fall. While we are waiting for that to begin, we are reading the Psalms to the kids during story time. This past week we read Psalm 100

¹ Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth.
² Worship the LORD with gladness;
come before him with joyful songs.
³ Know that the LORD is God.
It is he who made us, and we are his;
we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.  ⁴ Enter his gates with thanksgiving
and his courts with praise;
give thanks to him and praise his name.
⁵ For the LORD is good and his love endures forever;
his faithfulness continues through all generations.

The Psalms are a great place to start when reading scripture to children. There are many reasons, children love poetry (it sounds like songs), it has simple language, and it has a lot of word-pictures. I find the last reason most important; because children can listen and see images of the words in their heads, “sheep of his pasture”, “all the earth”. They use their imaginations when listening and this is how kids remember things, how they learn, through their imaginations.

I encourage you to read Psalms with your kids, let the words speak for themselves, don’t feel like you have to explain every detail of them. Let them think about it and imagine what might be going on. You can explain what Psalms are and for older children encourage them to write their own Psalms of thanksgiving to God. This is a great exercise in learning to give thanks to our creator.