Showing posts with label sunday school. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sunday school. Show all posts

I don't know that there is much that I love more than teaching Preschool Sunday School.  Teaching kids about Jesus is beyond rewarding.  But also, preschoolers are the absolute BEST!  


And I learned eons ago when I started teaching PreK Sunday School that my preschoolers were going to need some hands on engaging activities to help us all survive and thrive our Sunday School hour! :)


Here's a look at 5 of my favorite Sunday School lessons for kids.  (Yes, it was HARD to narrow it down.  So, if you're like me and want to see the entire list, download the free Sunday School pacing guide for all of my lessons PreK - 2nd grade)




The 7 Days of Creation

Well, if we're making a list, we might as well start at the very beginning!

I think I love teaching preschoolers about the seven days of creation because there's so much "preschool stuff" in there.  Counting, the world around us, sequencing...

And while I know my main goal is teaching kids about Jesus, if we can work in some other content with it, my teacher heart calls that a win!

You can read all of the details about these lessons and activities in this 7 days of Creation blog post.


God Gives Family

This families of the Bible unit is another one I love because of the extra content we can add in there.  I love teaching these lessons in between Mother's Day and Father's Day.  And any Bible unit that can teach kids more about their world--like family--is a big win!


These family units have all of the favorites: family Bible stories, handprint crafts, and engaging exploration stations.  Read more about these Family Bible lessons in this blog post.

Moses & Manna Games

Games are another HUGE hit for my preschoolers.  This Manna game during our Moses unit goes down as one of the forever favorites for my littles!

It's super low prep, and has such a huge impact!  Find out how to play in this blog post on the Manna game from our Moses unit.

The Fruit of the Spirit

If you can't teach 'em with games, teach 'em with FOOD!  This Fruit of the Spirit unit was one of the first Bible units I ever wrote.

I love how well the Fruit of the Spirit goes with character education that we do so much with younger kids.  And adding fresh fruit snacks made it even better and more engaging!


This Fruit of the Spirit stamping book is one of my all time favorites and is sure to have you kids licking their lips and learning how to be more like Jesus all at the same time!  Read our routines for the stamping Fruit of the Spirit book here.

Love One Another

Another thing I love to do with Sunday School lessons is connect them with holidays.  Christmas and Easter are obvious ones for Sunday School.  But I also love making Bible units for Thanksgiving and for Valentine's Day.

Why is Valentine's Day not a more religious holiday?  I mean, God's greatest two commandments are LOVE God and LOVE others.... how have we missed this opportunity?!? :)


In Preschool Sunday School, exploration stations are one of our favorite routines.  This is a time for kids to come in to the class and start playing and exploring with something related to our lesson or unit. 

And this Love One Another unit is no different!  Read more details about this Love One Another unit here.

What is your favorite thing to teach in Sunday School?



When I was a kid in Sunday School, we had felt pictures to go with our lessons.  Anyone else remember those??  My first few years teaching preschool, we also used felt pictures, but I was looking for something a little more up-to-date that we could use over and over.  That's when I started writing Bible Story Booklets to go with our lessons.


Each Bible Story Booklet closely matches the Bible Story script in the lesson plans, but is written in a little more kid-friendly language depending on what age it is for.


The kids love listening to the books being read and they pay attention more too!


But you may be surprised to learn that reading aloud the Bible story isn't the only way we use the Bible Story Booklets in the classroom!  Let's talk about 3 ways to use Bible Story Booklets in your Sunday School classroom.


Read Aloud the Bible Story

The first one is obvious: We use the Bible Story Booklets to read aloud the Bible story.


But first, you need to know that I'm a stickler for using the actual Bible with my preschoolers. I always have a real Bible with us when we sit down to read a story.  You can see in the photo below, that I literally keep a real Bible right there in our carpet space.


I have a Bible story script that comes almost word-for-word from scripture included in our lesson plans, but the booklet is a more kid-friendly version of that script.  The booklets are written to whichever age group the unit is for (anywhere from Preschool to 2nd).  


When I am reading the booklet, I do add in other details from the script that I think are important so they are hearing a detailed Bible story.


Retell the Bible Story

At the end of our Sunday School hour, we retell the Bible story if we have time.


To do this, we reuse the Bible Story booklets.  But, we use separate pages so that we can order them.  


No, I don't staple and unstaple and restaple the booklets.  We either make a separate copy of the booklets (sometimes half the size to save paper). 


Or, you can hole punch the books and add rings so that it's easy to take apart and put back together.


Once we have the separate pages, we are ready to order the story and retell.


With my preschoolers, I show them the page and tell them what is happening in the pictures since they cannot read yet.  Then, we lay it out in order together.  It is definitely more teacher-led for younger preschoolers!  But just remember, they are getting another chance to hear a story from Scripture. :)


For older kids, they may be able to read their page on their own and work to order it and retell.



Classroom Library Exploration Station

Just like in my first grade classroom, our Sunday School room has a classroom library.  It's one of the exploration stations I have no matter what unit we are learning!


There are tubs of books--both Bible stories and fiction trade books.  On the top shelf, I usually place the booklets from our unit or any trade books that go with our unit.  I add a new booklet to the shelf after each lesson, so that there are only books out that we have read the Bible story for.


The kids love to grab our unit Bible Story booklets, get a stuffie and "read" or orally retell the story in our cozy corner to their stuffed animal friend. :)

Are you needing fun and engaging ways to talk about character education in your classroom?  Or are you a Christian teacher wanting to use the Fruit of the Spirit to help with classroom management?  Whether you are teaching in a religious or non-religious setting, this interactive bulletin board is great for encouraging positive student behaviors.


The Fruit of the Spirit is one of my favorite units to teach in preschool Sunday School.  Not only is it fun and yummy, but it is so helpful in encouraging appropriate behaviors.  This bulletin board set goes perfectly with this unit (the fruits even match!) and it's so easy to put up.  


Let's talk about 3 things I absolutely love about using this Fruit of the Spirit bulletin board in the classroom!

1. It's An Easy Peezy Set Up (Cut, Trace, Staple)

Having the templates ready to go make this bulletin board display a breeze to set up.  The bulletin board shown in the video above is a 48x36 board and I used the small size template from the bulletin board set and got to cutting and stapling.

After I stapled it up, I colored in the tiny spaces with black marker (dry erase marker is actually my favorite for this task because it's just so dark) to make it seem like I cut out those way teeny tiny spaces even though my fingers couldn't handle it. :)  It blends in so perfectly that not even my find-every-mistake-I-make 9 year old has found it yet! #winning


Next up was the tree.  I just free handed this one.  But ya'll, don't be impressed.  I'm a terrible artist.  Like way bad.  I can doodle and handletter, but drawing? Nope!  All I did was pull up a cute tree clipart picture and drew with pencil so I could erase a bunch of times and then went over it with marker.  It's not perfect, but it's cute enough!


Still don't have confidence in your free hand skills?  Do what I did in the classroom and pull up your favorite tree clipart on your interactive white board, tape the poster board to it, resize the image to the size you need and TRACE.

  


2. Flexible Wording Options

I have heard from sooooo many of my Christian teacher friends that they want more scripture based bulletin boards that are easy to set up.  But so many of you can't use a Christian based board (or don't want to and that's okay too!)  That's why I'm making each bulletin board in this monthly bundle with lots of wording options.  

There are 3 versions of this bulletin board in this fruits set.  Only one is Christian based.  When finished, it looks like this!




The other 2 are non-religious, Character Ed based like this!


One of the wordings is shown above and the other wording is, "We can bear fruit."


3. It's Interactive!

I love LOVE bulletin boards that I can make interactive with the kids and we can add to or change along the way instead of a bulletin board that's just a wallflower or decoration. :)


This character traits bulletin board set has apples for you to fill out when you see kids showing a specific character trait.  I love using these at the end of the day when we are reflecting on the day.  Maybe we have really focused on one trait a lot, OR maybe we have really struggled with one character trait! So, I will find someone who didn't struggle with that trait and talk about it positively to encourage others to work on that more!



You can find this Character education bulletin board set here and the year of bulletin boards here!




The beatitudes are a must unit of study in Sunday School or children's church.  And honeybees just make the first part of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount that much more fun and engaging!   Here's look at my go to review games and crafts for our BEEatitudes unit from our Sunday School curriculum.


Bee-Atitudes Hive Craft

I love a good craft to work on and add to each week during our Sunday School units.  And this one is UH-dorable, ya'll and soooooo easy!


All you need is yellow paint, an old pencil with the eraser still in tact :), a yellow ink pad and a thin, black marker pen.


The first week, we paint the hive using the yellow paint and the pencil eraser.  We just dot the hive without painting over the words.

Then, each week, we add a bee to the hive.  We find the blessing we learned about that week and add a bee beside the blessing to show the beatitude that brings that blessing.  We used a thin, Sharpie pen to write the beatitude by the bee.

For this example, my son used the directions from Ed Emberley's books for making the bee!

Here's a look at the finished hive!



The Beatitudes Review Game

I love this review game because we can use it during the whol Beatitudes unit long and just change out the questions for each lesson.  Print, laminate and post the flower cards around the room with velcro dots on them.  


Then, I cut the circles out for the lesson we were working on and put velcro on the backs of those.  


I attached all of the circles to a flower around the room and we were ready to play!

To play, I partner kids up and say, "Bees, Buzz!" and they buzz around the room.  A few seconds later, I say, "Bees, Land!" and the bees "land" near a flower.  

Next, I ask the review question from the Beatitudes unit game and the bees with the correct answer buzz!  If they tell us the correct answer, they get some sort of honey-themed snack like honey teddy grahams or honey nut cheerios! :)

The next week, I just change out the circles, and we are ready to play again without my having to reteach how to play!

You can find these activities and more in the Beatitudes Unit.



I love finding games to play in our Sunday School class that are engaging and help kids remember the Bible story.  The story of Ruth and Boaz is perfect for acting out with games.


Today, let's talk about the game we use to learn about Ruth gleaning from Boaz's fields!


Materials and Preparation

All you need for this Ruth and Boaz activity are...



If you are using wheat stalks, put a colored dot sticker on each stalk.  Use 3 different colors and have 10-20 of each color.  


If you are using wheat cards, copy them on 3 different colors of cardstock.


Directions

Scatter the wheat on the floor around the classroom as you are retelling the story of Ruth working in Boaz's field.  You are pretending that you are a harvester and dropping some of the extra wheat as you go, just as they did in the Ruth and Boaz Bible story.

Now, it's the kids' turn to glean the wheat.  Divide the kids into 3 groups.  Each group is assigned a color.  When you say go, they will glean only that color of wheat from the field.  Give them 1 minute to glean. 

The group that gleans the most wheat of their color during the 1 minute wins!



We love this quick and low prep game so much and you can find the paper materials if you need them here!

I'm always looking for simple crafts to do during Easter season that are quick, cheap, and easy to do with any extra kids that may come on Easter Sunday.


Crucifixion Easter bracelets are my new favorite craft!  And all you need are beads and pipe cleaners!  Here's how we made them.


First, we used a black pipe cleaner.  We put 12 beads on the pipe cleaner and put a space so that one side had 5 beads and the other side had 7 beads.


Then, we cut a pipe cleaner in half.  We twisted it around the space between the two groups of beads.


Next, we put 3 red and white beads on each side of the half pipe cleaner and pushed the 12 beads next to the middle of the pipe cleaner cross we'd just made.  We put the extra pipe cleaner behind the red and white beads...


...and twisted it in an "X" pattern around the middle of the cross.


Last, we twisted the remaining black pipe cleaner into a circle to make a bracelet!  Easy, fast, and great fine motor practice too! :)

You can find the Easter Bible Story unit this craft goes with here as part of my Sunday School curriculum.




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