Play! Listen! Talk!

"Here I am" were the words I heard this morning as one confident little girl came to Sunday School. And while she was the only who said those words aloud, all the kids announced their arrival in their own unique ways: a glance from a shy one, a stare from a new one, a sad face from one whose morning wasn't going quite right, a smile from one happy to see friends at church. In between, I was busy helping kids make shakers and blow ping pong balls on water!

What I learned today: shakers can be very loud--next time I'm going to look for some soft things to put inside our water bottle shakers!

But I also learned that following my "schedule" isn't nearly as important as responding to each child's feelings. After all, our lesson today was about the people God gives to care for us and keep us safe. And in Sunday School, God has given me the privilege of caring about each child's feelings and making our class a "safe" place to be.

Have you ever read the label on something and it said “washable” but it turned out NOT to be washable?

Well, in the art activity I led today (making fingerprint paths on butcher paper to show that God is with us wherever we go), I was very grateful that the ink pads really WERE washable. Both boys and girls were intrigued with this activity. I had wondered if some kids wouldn’t want to get messy, but that didn’t turn out to be a problem at all! In fact, several kids enjoyed the messy factor so much that they made handprint paths! So we drew roads and houses and our church and connected them all with a multitude of colorful fingerprints.

Other small favors from today’s lesson:
*the challenge of “Let’s see if everyone can put away 7 things” continues to work to help kids quickly clean up the blocks, the play dishes and more.
*the shout-out of “I love these” from a boy who spotted the dot-to-dots on his TalkTime paper

My favorite small favor continues to be, however, the small children who come to Sunday School. For them, I am very grateful!

No matter how many Sunday School classes I've taught, the first day of a new wonderful group of kids always gives me first-day jitters. That must have been the reason I woke up at 4:30 to go over the puppet script one more time. (Really, how many people do you know who are up at that time of the morning having an imaginary conversation with Buddy the cute, cuddly dog puppet!)

The class started off enthusiastically! Our first kid came headlong into the room yelling, "Sunday School!" with a huge grin on his face. And we were off and running! What fun we had!

What I learned: Next quarter I'm going to cut off the Fridge Factor in the Family FunTime paper, laminate it and give it out separately to parents. (I gave out way too much paper yesterday!) And I learned to follow the kids' lead in getting started in the activity of their choice (I'm so grateful for a curriculum that gives me enough activities from which to choose so that every kid can find a place of comfort and discovery.)

Oh, and my conversation with Buddy? When I started the script with one or two kids at my side, I thought, "Well, this isn't really going to work." But as soon as Buddy popped up his head, child after child joined the group. They even laughed at the jokes! Best of all, the boys who couldn't wait to play with cars and trucks, fell silent in their play so they could watch and listen, too. Best of all, they "got it" that God cares about them.