www.creativeladiesministry.com

[Adamsgirl]

Hi, I was wondering how everyone else handled their nursery ss....let me explain, the kindergarten class has always been apart of the nursery department. Until recently it was fine, but now we have about 20 kindergartners as well as several younger kids. We are looking at splitting them up but we are also limited on space. I was wondering how other church handled this type of issue. A friend of mine and I are going to be taking turns teaching and doing crafts with them. But I still feel as though it is chaotic. I am looking for a way to reduce the chaos so that the kids will still learn valuable lessons, and we all already know how short an attention span of a 4 or 5 year old is. Any Any Any ideas are welcome!

[joshuasmom]

I know just what you're going through. I teach nursery ss which consist of 2- three year olds, 3- five year olds, 4- six year olds and it is full of chaos. With my three year olds I just pretty much let them play quitely while I teach the lesson. But I do include them in our crafts but I always go for help by grabbing my sister-in-law or one of the older youth girls. Our space is also limited and we can't divide them at all. Our childrens church is the same but we are more three to five year olds for church then sunday school. And like you I'm not quite sure how to solve the problem hope some one else reads your post and can come up with a solution.

Stephanie

[Oma]

I have been teaching Sunday School and Children's worship for over 20 years. Admittedly I enjoy 4-6th graders the most. But a number of years ago I felt I needed to learn how to reach younger children (my grand daughter was 2 and my D-I-L was pregnant with twins).

One way that I have found to reduce the chaos (sp?) is with structure. Even 3 and 4 year olds can sit still if they understand that this is expected of them and WHY (We are in God's house and He has something important to tell you today - or something like that). I do not have my curriculm or classroom guidelines here at work so I will give you some of that info later, if you like.

Currently I am teaching in limited space as well (our church and another share the elementary school ). When our class is mixed with toddlers and older children our young teen girls volunteer on a rotation basis to help. They keep the toddlers still or occupied while I teach.

Children's ministry is a true passion of mine.

I'd like to share something I learned a number of years ago; This was when I was attending a fairly large church with LOTS of Children's Ministry workers. During a monthly "training/fellowship/update" meeting our Pastor of Children's ministry asked us how old, we thought that, little children begin to understand about Chirst. He went on to tell us that in Mark 10:13-14 the word for "children" is one that refers to toddlers (18 mos.)! That really changed my view of what "little children" can learn, as did watching my grand daughter learning from her classes.

At that church the Children's ministry begins the moment they are carried, as little tiny infants (my grand daughter was a week old) into the nursery. The workers pray for the parents and sing christian nursery songs to the children. When they are crawling they move up (I know you folks don't have room - I just wanted to share some of the stuff that I have seen done with little children) One of the songs the children begin to learn is called "I love to pat my bible" May sound silly but this is the way that we began to teach them to respect God's word. AND IT WORKED!

As soon as she could talk my grand daughter would search for books with people praying in them and then in her little baby language say "Jesus" and then pat the picture.

I was walking down the hall with a 2 year old (potty break don't you know). The halls had huge banners, with a handprint in primary colors, hung at intervals along the way. The two year old stopped dead in her tracks and looking up at the wall hanging said with awe in her voice "That God's hand?"

Take heart that amidst your chaotic classes those little hearts are being touched with the love of Jesus.
_________________
ysiHn&l;
Deb