Start with a parent meeting, split the chapters before it rather than during it, and expect to spend the first month one child at a time.
Most of the work of a Bible Game season happens long before game day, and almost all of it is coordination rather than teaching. Here is the order that tends to work.
Before anything else, get the parents in a room. Cover which chapters the game draws from, which Bible version you are all working from, what resources you will be using, and what you expect of families between now and the competition.
That last one matters more than it sounds. Most of the studying happens at home, on evenings you will never see, and a parent who leaves that meeting unclear about what is being asked of them is a parent whose child arrives underprepared through nobody's fault.
Walk into that meeting with the chapters already split. Two to four chapters per child is the range that works, assigned on age and ability rather than evenly across the register.
Younger or newer children — Busy Bees and Sunbeams especially — should start with fewer. You can always add a chapter once you see how the first two are going. Starting light and increasing is far easier than walking a discouraged six-year-old back from four chapters they could not hold.
Eager children who want to learn all of it should be encouraged, not capped. If a child wants every chapter in the game, let them have every chapter in the game.
Watch for one parent quietly carrying several children's chapters. It happens easily and usually with the most willing parent in the room, and it ends with one exhausted family and several under-involved ones. Spread the load deliberately when you assign it, because it will not redistribute itself later.
Spend roughly the first month in individual sessions, one child at a time, before you bring everyone together. Children learn the material at very different speeds, and a group session held too early mostly teaches the confident ones that they are ahead and the quiet ones that they are behind.
Once the group does meet, keep the sessions short and keep them fun. Attention is the scarce resource here, not time.
Practice is not a drop-off. Parents should be in the room, because they are the ones sitting with the material during the week, and because they answer questions themselves on game day, every fifth question belongs to the parent group, and a Help Me Card puts a parent on the spot with no one to consult.
A parent who has never seen the material cannot support a child through it, and will not enjoy the competition much either.
In addition, as a grader myself, I've seen children first hand answering every single question correctly in the game, only to see their parent fail their own questions, so make sure the parents are getting ready as well.
Expect studying to drift to the last minute. It is the single most reliable pattern of the season, and it is not a sign that anyone has stopped caring.
The fix is unglamorous: check in regularly, ask specifically which chapters a family has covered rather than whether they are on track, and start early enough that a late start is still a recoverable one.
Every Bible Game team is built the same way, up to six children, each one alongside their own parent, and nobody swapped in halfway through.
Fifty questions in two halves, multiple choice throughout, every fifth question for the parents and six Help Me Cards per team to spend how you like.
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