How-To #5: How to get Sunday School Homework Done Each Week

As we mentioned in the introduction to our How-To series, we will be sharing a new question each month with suggestions/ideas from sisters from different stages of life and geographical locations. We are not intending to present “one answer” to many of these questions, but instead want to make available a buffet of ideas to help individuals and families “Magnify the LORD” in their lives.

How to get Sunday School homework done each week:

The way to ensure anything gets done is to prioritize it – spiritual education is the most important education your child will get, and you are fully qualified to give it. Show them how important it is by being interested in what they’re doing; so – chat about it on the way home from the meeting – discuss it over dinner, etc.  If you home-school your children you can incorporate Sunday school homework into their lessons. If your children go out to school then give the Sunday school homework a higher priority than school homework. Sit with your child or, at least be in the same room and discuss it with them – show them how interested you are. Make it part of your conversation several times during the week – it’s not possible to discuss the scriptures too much! Whatever you do, don’t allow a situation where no-one gives it a second thought before you’re on your way to Sunday school next week! What message will that give to your child?

Post memory verses on the fridge, so that they can be learned throughout the week.

We do try and do it early in the week so we can learn the instructor or memory verse throughout the week. I find it also helps to bring the lesson up throughout the week and apply the principles to everyday happenings as they arise so that hopefully the kids can begin to see how we can live by God’s ways even in today’s world.

Have all your children do it together and encourage the older ones to help their younger siblings.

I find Sunday School homework is a dish best served fresh. My younger ones will happily work on it during the exhortation after Sunday School and usually finish it.  The older ones, who follow along during the exhort, do about 3 questions a morning (they work on it for 15 minutes) before we start school each day. Then there is no scramble on Saturday or Sunday morning, as they have usually completed it by Thursday.  I have one child who hates to write, so spreading it out over the week has been the only solution we have found for us to stave off the tears.

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. 
Proverbs 22:6

In our family, we always did homework on Monday night. This meant it was done as a priority before the week ran away with us

As a homeschooling family, we make it one of our school subjects and try to work on it throughout the week. I try to spread it over a period of 2 or 3 days so it’s not done in a hurry all at once. We work on the memory verses every day during the bible reading portion of our school time.

We have found it’s best to do it earlier on in the week!  We set aside Monday afternoon after school as SS homework day.  The children get to know this as part of their weekly routine. They come home from school, have a snack, and do their SS homework before playtime. Make it a priority … don’t let it just “fit” in wherever because it might never get done.

If possible, have your children do it with other children in the same class (if they live close enough) so it becomes a fun activity together!

My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.
1 John 3:18

I have four children under the age of 6, so I find it too difficult to try to do Sunday School homework with the oldest two at one sitting managing all the kids, so we do a question a day during rest period when older kids are alone and the babies are napping.

A family in our Ecclesia has the children put their completed Sunday School homework on their Dad’s desk by Thursday of each week so he can review it for them. They need to manage their time before that to get their homework done.

We do our weekly homework on Monday morning before we start our schoolwork. To try to make it something our kids look forward to, once everyone has their homework done, we have hot chocolate or lemonade together. Tuesday-Friday mornings we would practice our memory verses before starting our school work.

Our kids have always done it on their own on Saturdays. They didn’t get Sunday School homework until they were old enough to read/write on their own.

I found that it worked to set the same day during the week to do it. I found that when they got home on a Wednesday or Thursday they had about half-an-hour to an hour to play after school and then I set them to work. Creating a predictable day of the week seemed to be easier for the kids.

But you are he that took me out of the womb: you did make me hope when I was on my mother’s breasts.
I was cast on you from the womb: you are my God from my mother’s belly.

Psalm 22:9-10

One night a week we aim to dedicate our bible readings for the night to the Sunday School lesson given to the kids.  So we will read a chapter or 2 that is the main part of the story and discuss and ask questions.  Our daughter then will often draw pictures that relate to or tell the story, or play hangman, followed up by completing the Sunday School homework that was set for the week.

I find it best to do Sunday school homework early in the week. We have a designated day (usually Tuesday) to do homework. That way we have all week to practice memory verses and their minds are still fresh from the lesson. If for whatever reason we don’t do it then, the week almost always slips by and before you know it we’re scrambling to do homework Saturday night.

Our four kids don’t always have the same lesson so sometimes Dad takes a couple of kids and I take the others. I like to get all their homework books out of their bags Sunday night and put them all together on the desk so it doesn’t get forgotten. We often read the Bible reading for the lesson together before answering the question.

We listen to the dramatized CSSA story while the children color their picture/craft/activity page and then do the homework sheet after with the story fresh in their head again.

We write it into our daily homeschool schedule. Every week, usually for an hour or two on a Monday afternoon, the Elementary and Middle-School kids are scheduled to do their Sunday School homework. This is usually done instead of Creative Writing, Penmanship, Grammar, or Spelling. My high-schoolers schedule their own time in the evenings.

How can a young man keep his way pure? By keeping it according to Your word.
Psalm 119:9

 

Magnify Him Together
Scroll to Top