I want to dedicate as many posts as I can to my personal experiences with our products. As the education director I feel that it is my duty to try out the material that I put in the product. One main goal that we have for BSFK is to give new ways to teach and to have ways that the children can teach themselves.
I wanted my Sunday school class to experience all that goes into preparing a good lesson. They are 4th to 6th graders and can all read. We are blessed to have been able to scrape together enough archaic equipment to have a computer lab in our church. I had eight regulars in my class so I put them in groups of two and had one group for each of the weeks’ lesson.
I did the activity over a whole quarter (three months) so that saved the church money on educational resources and allowed me to have the students complete many tasks.
The tasks that I had each group complete were:
• Making a task list
• Choosing their lesson material from the teachers guide
• Typing up a script
• Photocopying their activities and worksheets
• Teaching one week’s lesson
Task List
The first week we had a guided discussion of what pieces there are to a lesson each week and how a teacher has to plan for those things. I took notes as we discussed and at the end of the lesson we had a good list of tasks for them to complete before their presentation days.
Lesson Material from Teacher’s Guide
The teacher’s guide has more information than they could cover in one lesson’s time so I had them choose what they were going to cover and who was going to cover it. Some of the groups typed their script right out of the material while others chose to hand write a list of what they were going to say and type from that.
Typing up the Script
I didn’t feel that my students would be able to present from just an outline, so I had them type a full script. I showed them how to put the name first followed by a colon and then what they would say after that. An example is below:
Sarah: God said, “Let there be light”
Ian: We know light as coming from the sun but this was God’s light. The sun had not been created yet.
It took them several weeks to get this done. Some of the groups finished before the others so I let those students explore some of the suggested activities in the teacher’s guide.
Photocopying Activities and Worksheets
This was the last step before they presented. They had to make enough copies for the class and a key for each of the presenters/teachers. They all thought it was neat to get to go to the office and use the copier.
Teaching
I brought my laptop each week for their presentation. We used the manual advance version of the Creation lesson. One of the presenters advanced the slides and the other held the script. They were a little slow because I didn’t have a good rehearsal week. That would be something that I would do differently next time.
The kids had a great time with this unit. They learned a lot about their content area and also that there is a lot that goes into presenting a lesson. When they were getting weary I reminded them that their Sunday school teachers had to do this every week and that their school teachers had to do it five times a week!
This was a wonderful experience for the students and I both. We all really enjoyed the new approach to Sunday school. They had to do a lot of problem solving and collaborating. I also feel that the more presenting children do at a young age the better they will do at speaking when they are adults.
This week’s reflection verse is 1 Samuel 12:23. It says, “As for me, far be it for me that I should sin against the Lord by failing to pray for you. And I will teach you the way that is good and right.”
This is how we should feel about any of the children whose lives we touch by teaching them. It touched my heart and sums up how I feel about all of you educators who take the time to read my reflections and visit our site!
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