Play! Listen! Talk!

Have you noticed that with preschoolers the best lesson plans and preparation can suddenly take a turn—into real life?

In our classroom that happened when a spider was discovered in the bathroom! The kids were delighted, but you can imagine the scene as every child in the room crowded into the bathroom to see the spider, and then shrieked in pleasure or fear! And later, as part of an activity where kids were supposed to be drawing themselves to show that God loved them, two little boys turned the activity into drawing monsters instead.

What’s a teacher to do? How do you connect spiders and monsters to following Jesus? Actually, real-life experiences are one of the reasons I enjoy teaching preschoolers so much. Their honest responses give me a perfect opportunity to talk about the things that matter to them. “Look at this cool spider God made!” “God loves you and He made you able to do so many things—you can draw cool monsters!” So I’m glad when real-life experiences take place in my classroom—although I’m hoping there won’t be too many more spiders!