What age group do you work with?

[Valerie]

Are you a helper or leader in Children's Ministry? What age group do you work with? What are your responsibilities? What would make your job easier? Let us know a little bit about your service for the Lord!

[Judy]

Hi,

I work with the preschoolers. I teach them during church on Sunday mornings and I also work with them two evenings a week while their parents attend Bible Study and Addiction Support Group meetings. The kids are aged 2-5. I would like to teach more in the area of character building, especially on weeknights when we have smaller groups. I have a few books that I could use but I haven't been able to find many worksheets, crafts etc. to go with them. Some of the areas I'd like to cover are responsibility, honesty, sharing, respect for people and the church, and kindness to one another. Does anyone have any good ideas or know where I should look for materials?

[Valerie]

Judy-

That is a lot of teaching and leading you do! That does make sense that you might need some extra emphasis on Character Building in your weeknight classes. I agree that it is sure a difficult subject to teach especially in a short amount of time. I'm sure others have some better advice for you, but I thought I'd chime in my two cents....

Puppets, if you have any puppets or access to puppets these work wonderful for teaching more abstract ideas because children can watch the puppets show qualities of "good Characters" or "poor characters" If you don't have any puppets, you can make your own, I found a really cheap pattern online and made up some of my own, and my children love them.

http://christianpreschoolprintables.com/blog1/2007/06/07/bible-pupp...

You can go to www.puppetresources.com and find free christian puppet scripts that work on teaching/conveying character skills, just type in the subject you'd like to search


Another thing I would recommend is devotionals.....We use a series called "God and Me.....Devotionals for girls age 2-4" There is an entire series for boys and with different ages.

http://christianpreschoolprintables.com/blog1/2007/06/22/preschool-...

You could easily purchase one book and stretch out each of the daily lessons to an entire evenings worth of learning....each day there is a theme, verse, activity, story, reflection, and more....(even better you could use your puppets to act out the story! )


Anyway, I hope that gets you started, and I'll make note that these types of resoruces are needed, who knows, perhaps I can come up with some fun worksheets or crafts for learning good Character skills!

In Christ,

Valerie

[Judy]

Thanks Valerie,

We have lots of animal puppets, maybe I can find a skit that will work with them. If not, I'm sure that I could borrow some of the bigger puppets from the junior group. I might ask the older kids to do a puppet show for us. My kids would love that. Thanks for the help.

Judy

[Christina]

Hi, i teach Ages 5 and 6 in sunday school. i'm having a little trouble with knowing what crafts to do with them and stuff , i'm only starting out , So far its going great and i would love some ideas, creative things and stuff to do with them . thank you so much and God bless you.

[Lori Yaklovich]

I teach our children's worship center on sundays. I really enjoy watching the youngsters create and listen to the story you tell them. The age group that I work with is preschool to kindergarten. The thing that we do in our children's worship center is tell a story with the props from a bible theme. Then, the children have their time to play and create on their own. In the room there are many opportunities for the children to explore. I think my job is easy right now, because I enjoy doing it. I have been teaching in church sunday school and taking over the quiet bags for the children in church.

[Valerie]

Oooh, could you let us know what is in your "Quiet Bags" sounds interesting!

Blessings,

Valerie

[Angela]

I currently work with ages 2-12, not all at them same time. I am involved in Wednesday Bible study for children along with Sunday school both for ages 6-12. I currently am writing programs or supplement writing programs for both Sunday School and Wednesday night. Job could be made easier if there was more programs avaiable to encompass this age range, most cover 6-9 and 10-12.

[Debbie]

During the week I work with 1 and 2 year olds at my church's daycare. .I am the co-lead teacher. So I am responsible for everything from ABC's to 123's.

On Sunday's I have the preschool class which can range from 1 to 5.

Finding pictures to color isn't usually a problem, my problem is finding crafts that are age appropriate. Simple games are a challenge too.

When I look in Christian bookstores, teacher supply stores, etc. I find things for Kindergarten and higher. There is very little for the preschool age, especially one and two year olds.

[Angela]

Debbbie,
I usually use games through play time with this age group. If you have the space you can section off your room in to areas that inculde house, reading, art and building/science. Use these as you can for your lessons. You can then also ise simple but fun things for the art section that the children can take home. You can make paperbag puppets of your BIble story so the children can share this information with their family. You can also use paperplates and art foam for alot of crafts.

[Eliszabeth Kendall]

2- 12 all at once. No it's not crazy. We basicly do 30 mins of church in a kid friendly way then there's a couple of activities.