Play! Listen! Talk!

“Knowing Jesus is alive is even better than getting candy in your Easter egg,” the leader at church enthusiastically proclaimed. “I’d rather have chocolate,” was one young girl’s quick response. She’s eaten chocolate and loved it! But her understanding of the words “alive” and “dead” is limited by her experience. It reminded me of another young boy who when asked if Jesus was real answered, “The Easter bunny is real. Jesus isn’t real.” He probably had just posed for pictures with the Easter bunny at the mall, but he had never seen Jesus.

These stories remind me once again that the young child’s understanding is based on what he or she can see and touch. When children repeat words that sound like they understand something, it’s easy to assume that they know the concepts behind the words. But these Easter Sunday stories are clear examples of the limited understanding of a young child. And that’s OK! It’s OK for a child to be a child. It’s OK for a child to like chocolate! Our role in teaching is to be a part of that wonderful process of discovery and learning in the lives of young children. It’s fun to teach a kid how things in the world work—what floats and what doesn’t, or how gravity works. But do you know what’s even better? Getting to be someone who teaches a kid how things work in God’s kingdom! When a young child doesn’t yet understand where Jesus is, the child will definitely understand the love of Jesus that I show him or her. When a child wonders why I’m praying to someone the child can’t see, the child, by hearing my prayers, will develop awareness that Jesus is someone I thank and on whom I depend. Sunday after Sunday, the Bible stories I teach, the Bible verses I repeat, the songs about Jesus I sing are planting the truth about Jesus into children’s lives. I know that God is at work in the life of each child, bringing each seed to harvest at just the right time.

Today I was a “guest teacher” (the preferred way of describing a substitute!) for the third-fifth graders at my church. You might wonder how a teacher of preschoolers would survive teaching elementary kids! At the start, I wondered that too! But while many things were different, I found one thing to be the same: You can never predict what a child is going to say! You know that moment when you’ve just said the main point of the lesson and you think kids are really tracking with you? Often, many of them are following along with you, but there’s always some who are off in their own world. For example, today one of the kids in the class I was teaching found it interesting, just as I was inviting the group to pray with me, to comment that two of the kids’ names were part of Bible words such as “hosanna” and “Philippians.” (Can you find the names?) And isn’t it true that when you teach preschoolers, you have the most interesting conversations about things that have nothing to do with the Bible verse or the Bible story? With preschoolers, it’s often a story of their pet, or a birthday party or a new toy. So what does a teacher of any age do or say when a child wants to talk about something off the track of where your lesson is headed? The best answer I can think of is this: Listen! I listen because sometimes there is a way to connect the child’s comment with the lesson. I listen because sometimes I think kids just need to be listened to. I listen because I care what’s going on in each kid’s mind—and because I’m building relationships with kids for the long term. Actively listening to kids most of the time gives me the ability to say once in a while “My turn for a few more minutes and then you can ask your question.” Or “You’re really excited about that party—tell me about it at the end of our story time.” Don’t you appreciate it when your friends listen to you? I think kids appreciate it, too!

One teacher recently described preschoolers as a swarm of bees. One child finds something interesting to do which causes all the other kids to want to swarm over to the interesting activity, too! In thinking about the ups and downs of life in a room full of preschoolers, I started wondering, “What is it that every teacher of preschoolers needs to know in order to be an effective teacher of what it means to follow Jesus?” How would you answer that question? Some of us might say— “Be prepared!” “Let kids know that the stories in the Bible are true—not make believe.” “Be patient and give lots of love and affection.” “Follow a routine so that the kids know what to expect.” “Pray for each child in your class.” “Remember kids have short attention spans.” “Give each child lots of individual attention.” “Establish a few basic rules.” After church today, I asked an experienced Sunday School teacher this same question: “What’s something every teacher of preschoolers ought to know?” The answer my teacher friend gave was this: “Keep something going on all the time. Don’t let the kids get bored!” This teacher has learned from experience what results when kids are left to their own devices to find something interesting to do! Wise teachers are one step ahead of kids so that the next fun, engaging activity begins BEFORE the kids start looking for something to do. This means that while I’m finishing up the Play to Learn activities, my co-teacher is beginning the Listen to Learn activities. There’s nothing like a fun puppet script, energetic repetitions of the Bible verse or an active song to motivate kids to finish up what they’ve been doing! I love this idea of being one step ahead! And the more I think about it, the biggest step ahead I can take for next Sunday is starting today to pray for the kids I’ll be teaching next week. To help me remember to pray this week, I’m making a list of prayer requests (and checking it twice!). And I’m asking God to help me plan and prepare in such a way that I’m one step ahead!

This probably hasn’t ever happened in your class, but sometimes when I’m leading kids in a Play to Learn activity that involves beanbags, it doesn’t take much for some energetic throwing to take place! Here’s what I try to do—before and during the game. Before the game, I make sure to demonstrate the kind of tossing we are going to do and why. For example, in this week’s lesson: “Let’s see how many of you can toss the beanbag into the circle. When it lands in the circle, we get to say something we want to thank God for.” Most often, the challenge of getting the beanbag into the circle target is motivation for careful tossing. (And for the kindergartner who always says “That’s so easy!” no matter what the activity is, I give him a special challenge of taking two giant steps back before tossing the beanbag.) During the game, if a beanbag sails across the room, I’m careful to treat it as a simple action to be corrected. “Oops, that beanbag didn’t go where it was supposed to. Let’s try again.” If a child purposefully throws the beanbag in a wrong way, then it’s time for “I really want you to keep playing the game. So to keep playing, you need to toss the beanbag into the circle.” Sometimes, just before the child's turn to toss the beanbag, a gentle touch on the child’s hand is a helpful reminder and no words need to be spoken. And, of course, every beanbag that makes it into the circle is accompanied by enthusiastic clapping and cheering! Games for preschoolers are best when there isn’t too long of a wait to get a turn and when every child can be successful. Games are favorite activities with the kids at my church! I’m thankful for the games, too, because they help me connect with active kids and give lots of opportunities for building relationships. What’s your favorite game to play with preschoolers?

Don’t you just love telling Bible stories to preschoolers? I do! Today I told the story of the four kind friends who carried the paralyzed man on a mat to see Jesus. What I especially love about telling Bible stories are all the different ways that kids can experience the story so that it sticks. For example, today each child started off by coloring four paper-doll friends. (The ones I cut didn’t look as good as the ones in the teacher’s guide, but the kids didn’t seem to care!) It was interesting to me how each child tried to find just the right color for the skin of their friends or family members: brown, pink, peach, tan, white and golden! From there we went to a fun jumping game with stuffed animals, and we talked about being kind by taking turns—easier said than done!

For the story, I had gathered every toy person I could find to make the crowd of people listening to Jesus, and then I cut the top off a grocery bag and turned it upside down to look like a flat-roofed Bible-times house. I also cut an opening in the roof with narrow fringes. So when we got to the part of the story where the four friends lowered the paralyzed man down through the roof, the kids could easily visualize what it looked like. One of my favorite parts of the story was the flannel figure which pictured the four delighted faces of the friends peering down from the roof. (One little boy was particularly intrigued with the idea of actually cutting a hole in the roof!)

Talking about being kind is more than a sweet story, however. In the midst of our activities, I heard, “My sister is never kind to me” and “You can’t have that marker. It’s mine!” Real-life situations in which kindness needs to stick! I’m praying that our Bible verse for today, “Always try to be kind to each other,” sticks through the whole week!

#1 Being prepared says you care! Prepare yourself by asking God for wisdom as you teach. Prepare the lesson by choosing the activities that will help the kids in your class play, listen and talk. The kids at my church seem to love games like the one in today’s lesson that used a balloon.
#2 Get down at a child’s eye level and listen as much as you talk. Ask questions to encourage each child’s participation. I use the questions in my curriculum—saves me time!
#3 Tell kids what they can do, instead of saying what they are supposed to stop doing. “If you want to sit next to your friend, I need you keep your hands to your self.” Wouldn’t you like to have a dollar for every time you’ve needed to say those words?
#4 Be a teacher of vision! See the most active, the most difficult or the most withdrawn child, not as a problem, but as a person to be loved into God’s family. Do you ever fall into the trap of thinking, “Oh, no. Here comes . . .” I need to view each child with God’s perspective.
#5 Teach respect by showing respect. Wait for a child to finish speaking before you talk. Model “please” and “thank you.” Show children the same respect that you would show to adults. Give kids a few minutes warning before ending their play activities. “It’s just about time to finish making our play dough faces.”
#6 Let your attitudes and actions demonstrate the truth of your words about Jesus’ love. The young child learns more from who you are than from what you say. Kids don’t wait for me to begin telling the Bible story before they begin learning. They are learning from the first minute they walk into my classroom.
#7 Give each child individual attention before negative behavior occurs. Use each child’s name often to get and keep the child’s attention. I want to the kids in my class to know that church is a safe place to be where they are loved and accepted.

Right after Christmas I remember hearing the kids in my class talking about the gifts they had received for Christmas. And in the describing of the gifts, the gifts got bigger and bigger! It seemed like a contest to see which child could lay claim to the biggest gift of all. In the eyes of children, sometimes big equals value.

The story of the widow’s small gift that was really the most valuable of all makes an impression on little kids. One of the Play to Learn activities for this story was a game in which kids tossed coins into all kinds of containers. Of course, the ones kids like the best are the metal containers that make a loud noise when a coin is tossed in! Anything big and loud seems to be a favorite with preschoolers!

But once again, in this Bible story, I’m reminded that God’s economy is different than mine. I went to church today not really expecting to be given any gifts, and thinking that my gifts to give were really pretty small. At the end of the morning, however, I knew that gifts of value had been exchanged.

I received a lot of “big” gifts: I heard preachers, I listened to singers and musicians, I saw beautiful banners. I was thankful to be led in worship through such amazing gifts. But I was equally thankful for the “small” gifts: I heard words of excitement from preschoolers glad to be at church, I listened to kids singing their hearts out, I saw beautiful works of art created by small hands. My small gifts of time, commitment and caring were thankfully received by kids, parents and co-workers. Some weeks I give more. Some weeks I receive more. Got gifts? Yes, I do. And you do, too!