Play! Listen! Talk!

In Sunday School, our preschoolers were builders today--but instead of blocks, we used frosting and graham crackers. We built houses, churches and schools--a little crooked, a little sideways and a little wobbly.

Our teachers were builders today, too. Not with frosting and graham crackers, but with smiles, Bible verses, Buddy the puppet, a Bible story and lots of playing, listening and talking. We were building hearts and minds and lives. And just like our graham-cracker buildings, the lives we're building are a little imperfect. But, just like the song we've been singing, "Every day I'm growing up, a little bit more, a little bit more."

What I learned today: Playing the Bible Story Review Game "What's Missing?" was a big hit! First I took away a storytelling figure, and then once the kids got the hang of it, I let them take away a figure or two. We could have played for an hour!

Our room was full of many things today:

• flour, salt, measuring cups and mixing spoons all in a jumble
• a rainbow of crayons carefully sorted by color into paper bags
• blocks and cars and railroad tracks
• cotton ball sheep, a little toy David and even a lion oh my!

Most of all, however, our room was full of smiles and laughter from the excited children happy to be at Sunday School. It was a whirlwind of helpers! "With love, help each other" (our Bible verse today) was lived out from start to finish.

What I discovered (again!) today: Learning is best when it's part of really fun play! Our Play to Learn time segment is getting longer and longer as our teachers get better and better at connecting the fun play to the learning goals for the day.

OK, I'll admit it. I'm a clock-watcher! During Sunday School, I'm the one checking the clock to see if it's time to clean up the play activities, if our group time is too long or too short, or if the church service is running short or long. I'm the one who always tries to keep the class moving along at just the right time so that our planned activities end just as parents begin arriving to pick up their children.

But, as any of you who teach small children know, things often don't go along according to schedule. Today, for example, we had whole fields of water and grass being built in the Blocks Center. And several kids decided at the last minute that they just HAD to make a fall wreath.

So as we finished our TalkTime pages, parents were already on their way to pick up their children--except for one little boy who ended up waiting and waiting and waiting for his grandma to come. But for once, watching the clock didn't seem so important to me. Because while we waited, we played. And even more important, we talked! And those were the first words little Benjamin had said the entire morning. So while I'm still going to be the one who keeps an eye on the schedule, I'm also going to keep an eye out for the unexpected opportunities to play, listen and talk--even when the clock says we should be doing something else!

What I learned today:

• Buddy is a favorite friend (along with Daffodil) who should never miss a Sunday, even when he doesn't know all his lines!

In Sunday School, it's okay

• if you're new and shy and want to stand behind the table and just watch when we gather for our large group time
• if you want to put your stickers on the "wrong" side of the TalkTime paper
• if you want to keep your eyes open when we pray
• if you ask over and over "When's my grandma coming?"

All of those things and many more are okay because God doesn't require any of us to be perfect before we can receive His love and hear His voice. As we learned in today's Bible story, it even took Eli three times to figure out that the voice Samuel had heard was God speaking!

So it's okay if I didn't get the words of the puppet script just right, and wasn't as attentive as I should have been to parents when they arrived. God's love is for me, just as I am.

What I learned today: I can invite parents to help their children "Come and listen to the words of the Lord" (today's Bible verse) by using the PrayerTime suggestion on the take-home paper. It's just right for bedtime!

What jobs were on your To Do list this weekend?

My list included trim the bushes in the backyard, pay bills, collect candlesticks to help kids picture the story of Samuel helping at the Tabernacle, go grocery shopping, dust the furniture, make a birthday cake, practice telling the Bible story, go for a walk! And now, I'm adding take a nap!

Sometimes my job list just seems like so much never-ending work. But this morning as I played with kids pretending to polish candlesticks, listened to kids tell how they are helpers, and talked about how doing our best work shows our love for God, the lesson's Bible verse came alive for me: "Whatever you do, do your work for the Lord" (Colossians 3:23). I'm ready to face my To Do list with God's perspective, not mine.

And I'll defnitely remember Cameron wearing his decorated dusting sock and dusting EVERYTHING in the room. (Cameron, can you please come to my house?)

So there I was, sitting on a too-small chair, pretending to eat plastic chicken and to drink invisible coffee. It was a busy morning in the Dramatic Play center at Sunday School!

Suddenly a little girl snuggled up next to me and whispered, “Teacher, I prayed for you.” At first, I wasn’t sure what she meant. But then I remembered that when I was recovering from a broken wrist, her mom had told me that my little friend Lily had prayed for me every night at bedtime. That was a year ago!

The friendship we have built over many cups of invisible coffee has continued to grow. In Sunday School, we play with each other, we listen to each other and we talk together. We do all those things so that teachers and kids can learn about loving God and loving others.

With all the talk about what's fair and what isn't these days, it was an unexpected joy to watch the kids in my Sunday School class have such fun playing a game today. They eagerly and cheerfully took turns hiding and finding pretend manna as they acted out the story of God's people gathering His provision of food. It didn't seem to matter if the "gatherers" watched the "hiders" set out the manna around the classroom. And then the "hiders" were more than happy to point out to the "gatherers" exactly where the manna had been hidden! There was no thought of who was winning or not as this fun game was played.

What I learned today: everyone's a winner when the sheer delight of playing a game trumps competition. And I hope the kids came away knowing that in God's eyes they can be winners every day as they depend on God's provision for them.