Class went well. Steve and I have never taught juniors before. I've taught kindergarten, cradle roll and primary forever, but never junior, so this was a totally new. I thought I would make use of the bells and we will learn one song per quarter and do it for special music. We do it first thing so it's kind of an incentive to be on time as kids love to play the bells. These kids don't really have any trouble with being on time, though. One girl was missing and we missed her, but she was able to come for church and potluck and the baptism, so that was good. Notice we have one boy in the class. He's pretty used to that :-)
We are using the My Bible First Junior curriculum and it's really interesting. Right now the study is on the Reformation so we are making use of a lot of timelines and great stories from the life of reformers. I am speed reading through the Great Controversy to brush up on all the history. I think we are really going to enjoy this class. I hope the kids enjoy it as much as the teachers.
One of the two girls baptized today.
great!
Posted by mulberrylane on Saturday, January 3, 2009 at 06:59 - Link
I'm glad you had a good first day! Today we had nobody but my three girls. I am thinking to have a plan for the kids that come and a plan for just my three girls if they are alone (which happens quite often)... The plan for the entire class is to have an opening song and prayer, then nature study, then an active song, then Bible lesson (which is watered down right now because the kids coming have little interest in studying the Bible), then a quiz, then time for them to learn the books of the Bible with help of a couple songs and we'll get props as we go. We'll do some Bible sword drills as well so the kids can learn their Bible for study time. Then Mission time, a mission song and offering. Then closing with prayer and song. But when it's just US, the program is not enough because the Bible study is too watered down, the girls know their Bibles, and they've heard the Mission story before. The only thing that is new to them is the nature story time, but when I buy shells for 10 kids, I kinda want to use the story on 10 kids and my girls didn't even want a set of shells, cuz they heard Sally S. do a shell presentation at campmeeting two years back. But this program works well if kids do show up, it meets them where they are at and it gives some interest and my two oldest girls are the "helpers" anyways... and Megan is good at helping the kids feel more welcome and confident in class... she never tries to out-do the others. So it is a family project for class to do better.
But I think on days when we have just the three girls, I'd like to work on a special music that they can do for church together. And a study that is just for them and meets them at their level, too. They love to sing and today we began our new quarter and with scheduled songs (the last two quarters I had Kate try to pick them out, but she is a procrastinator, so she would thumb through books while at class and Chelsea felt it was very unprofessional and uncaring to not be prepared. So we are prepared now, and they enjoyed singing even if it was just the three of them.
The bells choir always looked so fun! Wish we had enough kids to do that!
Enjoy! I think I, too, love to study for class... probably more so than the kids themselves! I guess that gets us pumped for class and we can bring the lessons alive and more real to them when we've had time to mull it over.
Well, need to hit the hay! I've got a headache and really really REALLY thinking of getting some Vitamin D! LOL.
We had an interesting sermon today... Still mulling it over and trying to figure out the point/purpose of the sermon. I'm probably making too much of it, but Kate noticed what I noticed... I just said... what was the point he was trying to make and she came back with the exact thought I got from the sermon... weird... I didn't say much... just dropped it and will let God help me decide what to do with it.
