And here's a look at each section of our morning!
Exploration Stations
I have 3-5 exploration stations set up around our room each Sunday. The ideas and signs/task cards are included in each of my units. Because I teach preK, I keep the stations very simple. Two of my stations are the same all year long no matter what we teach. This helps my preschoolers know what to expect and to always have something familiar in our classroom to come in to. The other 1-3 stations are specific to our unit and are easy to explain or explore on their own. Many are role play activities, building blocks tasks or matching games that they are already familiar with! This gives my littles time to play their little hearts out and get out some of that energy before it's time to sit and listen. But it also introduces them to some ideas and concepts from our lesson that we will be learning about later in the morning.
You can read more about specific stations for my units in this post.
When it's time to transition to our Bible Time, we sing....
Clean up, clean up,
Everybody everywhere
Clean up, clean up,
Everybody do your share!
Attendance
During clean up, I lay out foam circles in a semi circle shape around our Bible Time area on the carpet. These are our "sit up ons" where kids will sit.
After we are cleaned, I count down from 10 and kids find a sit up on to sit on. Then, we do our attendance sticker chart to see who is in Sunday School. We sing...
Everybody outta go to Sunday School,
Sunday School, Sunday School,
The men and the women and the boys and the girls,
Everybody outta go to Sunday School!
{when we get to the men/women/boys/girls part, they raise their hands when it gets to them...boys raise hands when we sing boys, etc...}
Then, we read each child's name together as they come up and add their sticker to the chart.
When we have added everyone sticker we transition to Bible Story time by remind them to sit criss cross applesauce, mouths closed, ears listening, and we get our hands in the air and chant together...
Open them, shut them,
Open them, shut them,
Give a little clap!
Open them, shut them,
Open, them, shut them,
Put them in your lap! {whisper}
Bible Story
Once our hands are in our laps we are ready for our Bible story. I use the bible story booklets/posters and script from our units to tell our Bible story adding as many motions as possible to keep my little friends engaged! This story itself is no longer than 5 minutes just because of our little attention spans! :) And I'm repeating a LOT of the information multiple times!When we finish our story, I immediately start asking, "Were You Listening?" questions. I ask it in a silly voice and they just love trying to answer my questions! The questions I use are all in the lesson pages of the Sunday School units if you don't want to think of your own! :)
Prayer Time
It's super important to me to teach my preschoolers how to pray and why we pray. So we transition to prayer time, by first chanting...God is listening, God is listening,
To every word I say.
God is listening, God is listening,
Every time I pray!
Then I ask, "Who has something we can pray for this morning?" I ask each kid to share something (if they have a prayer request). Then, we chant,
Our hands we fold, our heads we bow,
So we can talk to God just now!
And we pray!
Games & Activities
After prayer time, I ask my kiddos to bring me their sit up ons and head to our table. We do a game that we need to play whole group together, or a cut and glue activity or coloring page together. I have suggestions for each lesson with our units.The best thing I've found to work during this time for my preschoolers is to play music while they are working. If we are playing a game altogether, obviously we don't. But if they are coloring or gluing, I choose a kids' bible song that goes along with what we've been learning...like "Who Built the Ark?" during our Noah's Ark unit! The music is perfect for keeping them on task!
Bible Verse Practice
When we are finishing up our activity, we move back to the carpet in front of my pocket chart that holds our unit Bible Verse. If I have friends that aren't finished coloring, I usually give them the choice to finish and come join us when they finish. I've blogged about this routine in more detail here.I have the black and white bible verse cards from our unit on the pocket chart. The color cards are in my hands.
I point to each word as we read our verse and do the motions together (included in the units). We read it 2 or 3 times and then we match the words. I pass out a black and white word card to a friend and he/she brings it up and matches it in front of the color card it matches! Then we reread the verse. We do this until we have matched all of the cards.
Once we've matched all of the cards, we read the bible verse and do something on each word. Here are a few examples: (We usually do at least 5 ways!)
1. Clap on each word as we say it.
2. Pat your leg on each word as we say it.
3. Touch your nose on each word and say it in a tiny mouse voice.
4. Claw your hands on each word and say it in a big bear voice.
5. Stomp on each word.
6. Jump on each word.
We practice the same verse all unit long and then they get a treat if they can say it at the end of our unit!
When we finish our Bible verse, we grab our papers and line up to leave! If we have extra time before we leave for Children's Church, I will ask them our comprehension questions from our story again!
Find these routines and specifics for each Sunday School Unit in my 2 Year Curriculum BUNDLE!
No comments