What is it with Sunday School curriculum??

[Sarah CB]

I don't like it.

 

Is anyone else totally uninspired by the choices out there? There were a couple that looked fairly twaddle-free and I'm going to take a closer look, but more and more I keep thinking that the homeschool choices are so much better.

 

Do you think the Sunday school teachers would all rebel if I introduced some homeschool Bible and worldview programs? I'd much rather choose solid Bible curriculum and pair it with real books and discussion rather than use a typical Sunday school curriculum. It seems as though a lot of the SS curriculum shoot for the lowest common denominator, are full of twaddle and are meant to fill the time.

 

Our church has Sunday school between 9 and 10 and then Kids' Church between 10:30 and 11:30. Kids are in the service for worship with their parents between 10 and 10:30. So, the SS materials can be a little more in depth. Most families who come at 9 are looking for some depth.

[rookie]

When we attended a church (we have not in a really long time), I gave up on SS because it was basically Disneyland instead of actual Bible/Christian instruction. The kids learned some really watered down lesson and played lots of games. THEN, they did a ton of cheap/sloppy arts and crafts that I was then obligated to take home and display for my dc's sakes. UGH..

 

If you are gonna do SS, why not actually teach something? How about Bible verses, hymns, character lessons, service to humanity, the tenets of the faith, and have a helpful NON-arts and crafts activity (like stuffing enveloped for the church office!) so that parents do not have more STUFF in their house.

 

Oh, and another thing that made me nuts was the attempt to talk to the kids like you're down with it! We had adults who were saying things like "Math is hard , school is boring, but we are only going to have fun here!"

:confused::confused::confused:

 

For goodness sakes, kids in SS need to be encouraged to NOT cop the attitudes of the world but rather do their BEST to the GLORY of GOD. If you are a student - STUDY HARD, LEARN SOMETHING, AND ENJOY SERVICE! None of that was being taught. It was all FUN & GAMES with no actual substance.

 

Now, again, this is all coming from a no-longer-church-or-religion-bound- person, but I still have an opinion on the purpose of SS and the diservice churches are doing kids by entertaining them rather than actually educatiing and exhorting them.

 

:001_smile:

[Ellie]

I never found any twaddle-free S.S. materials from any of the major publishers, including my own denomination, especially none that would work for a short class, or a multi-grade/age class.

 

Our children's church teacher does her own thing, although she does have something that she uses for a guideline. The dc memorize lots of scripture; for the past couple of months they've been learning a simplified version of our church's basic statement of faith. Next month she's going to start using the free curriculum from Bible Study Guide for All Ages (the *curriculum* is free, on-line; she isn't going to use the hand-outs), as well as the timeline. She doesn't use any print materials for the dc at all.

 

I've used a combination of BSG and my own activities, such as sword drills, for 5th and 6th graders.

[BikeBookBread]

You are not alone in this thought. Sunday school for my girls is similarly "lite" (I'm being kind), and we go to a supposedly theologically sound church. Where is the BIGNESS of God? The AWESOMENESS of His character? It's all KID centered (unfortunately it's just a reflection of what the Church is teaching the grown-ups...). I think that churches just really underestimate what a child can understand. EVERY lesson seems to be distilled down to "show love to your friend" or some variation upon this theme.

 

There are glimmers of hope every once in a while. There is one young lady in particular who subs in PDG's class. She creates her own lesson, and even though she may use the silly cartoon characters provided by the published lesson, she goes beyond what the lesson plan outlines (I know this first-hand, because when she subs I'm usually the helper sub). When I've subbed as a teacher before, I've changed lessons before because they were SO LAME or DOWNRIGHT WRONG. Often I will bring in the Jesus Storybook Bible to supplement, or simply read straight out of the Bible, etc.

 

Sooooo, we teach Bible 5 days a week at home using Sinclair Ferguson's Big Book of Questions and Answers About God and supplement that with The Jesus Storybook Bible. Granted my children are only 5 (almost 6) and 4. When we are done with this we will move onto his book, Big Book of Questions and Answers About Jesus and the others in the series. We might even repeat the series again, as there are activities for older children that we have adjusted down for our kids, and they aren't "getting" all of the catechism.

 

PDG is in church with us during the sermon. We have chosen not to send her to the "Kid's Church" which is just more twaddle, PHD (piled higher and deeper). LLL is in the 3's and 4's during the service, but we will bring her in with us when she turns 5.

 

ETA: Anyone remember sword drills? How about the Books of the Bible song? My girls have NEVER done this. They aren't encouraged to even bring a Bible!!! GRRRRR....I'm starting to get righteously angry.

Edited January 19, 2010 by BikeBookBread
memories of ss

[amy g.]

I've given up on Sunday school for the reasons you have described, but here is one class my older children had, and one class I taught that were very good.

 

http://www.cgsusa.org/

 

http://www.godlyplay.org/view.php/page/index

[NancyNellen]

That is why my church created it's own. It is very thorough, and much better than anything else I've seen.

[Nicole M]

I've given up on Sunday school for the reasons you have described, but here is one class my older children had, and one class I taught that were very good.

 

http://www.cgsusa.org/

 

http://www.godlyplay.org/view.php/page/index

 

I was going to suggest Godly Play as well. Excellent program.

[Rosy]

.pdf"]http://www.koinoniakids.com/pdf/kids-church/third-month/Feb%2021%20Mary%20and%20Martha[NT249].pdf

 

Our church uses this one by Calvary Chapel Modesto that is really good. Really, it has enough substance for an adult to read it and be fed. The activities are a little weak and there aren't many crafts, but it covers the entire Bible and does a very thorough job.

[BikeBookBread]

That is why my church created it's own. It is very thorough, and much better than anything else I've seen.

 

My good friend uses this for her homeschool Bible curriculum. If I didn't already have the Sinclair Ferguson "Big Books..." I'd use GOG.

[Harriet Vane]

Yep. What is out there is truly dismal. That is why I write my own SS curriculum, and that is why I specifically train the teachers on my staff in inductive study and in modifying curriculum for accuracy and for depth (when I am the director--I have been in the past but am not presently).

 

A fabulous book that explains this really well is Follow Me As I Follow Christ, by Cheryl Dunlop. Excellent perspective.

[Hockey Mom]

Have you looked into this one?

 

I used to be in charge of our SS classes (toddlers thru PreK) for a non-denominational church, located in a high school. So basically, we had to have something that was engaging for the kids, AND easy to tear down every week.

 

My PreK kids LOVED this program. I organized everything for my teachers (took about 20 hours per week to organize for two services), and all they had to do was run with the program.

 

It operates on the small group mentality, and I broke my classes down into three groups (Warriors, Knights, Gladiators). The group leaders really got into it with the kids, and it was so much fun for everyone that we all actually looked forward to working SS!

 

The down side is that it CAN burn you out if you're the only person organizing it. But if you assemble a team to assist you monthly, you can really create an amazing program for your kids.

[Sarah CB]

Yep. What is out there is truly dismal. That is why I write my own SS curriculum, and that is why I specifically train the teachers on my staff in inductive study and in modifying curriculum for accuracy and for depth (when I am the director--I have been in the past but am not presently).

 

A fabulous book that explains this really well is Follow Me As I Follow Christ, by Cheryl Dunlop. Excellent perspective.

 

Thanks. I think you recommended this book on a thread a few days ago when I asked about favourite SS curriculum. I ordered it and am expecting it any day now.

[Sarah CB]

That is why my church created it's own. It is very thorough, and much better than anything else I've seen.

 

That's one of the ones I'm taking a closer look at.

[Chris in VA]

Fan of Godly Play here, esp if your church is at all liturgical. Fabulous.

[FlockOfSillies]

We've used this too.

[AndyJoy]

When I was teaching 3rd-4th grade Sunday School at my church, I encountered the same problem with shallow Sunday School materials. I was sickened by the low level of material that these kids were supposed to "learn" from. Since our Sunday School was comprised of mostly church kids who knew all the basics anyway, it was not challenging at all. I also hated the shallow little "discussion questions" to which 75% of the answers were "God", "Jesus", and "prayer." I knew the kids were capable of deeper thought than that. Instead, I modified and used homeschool Bible unit studies from Heart of Wisdom. We did units on Creation and Wisdom.

 

Unfortunately, in my experience some Sunday School teachers spend 15-30 min. Sunday morning prepping for their lessons, so a curriculum with meat probably wouldn't work. If you have teachers who are properly motivated and willing to actually prepare, however, I bet you could sell them on a good homeschool curriculum.

 

One thing I also changed with my SS class was the format. We had a nice long 1.5 hour block, but they were used to spending 30 min. of that playing around with no purpose, 15 min. snacking, and a large chunk doing a coloring sheet with a short lesson thrown in.

 

I changed it to:

 

5 minutes of attendance, getting settled, reciting last week's memory verse

 

10 min. of soft worship music playing while they sat around the room in corners, under the table, etc. and had a quiet time with God--reading the Bible, prayer, and & writing or drawing in prayer journals

 

45 minutes of lesson time which was varied enough in activity that it didn't seem too long to them

 

20 minutes of a game, project, or exercise related to the lesson. Some of these were ongoing from week to week, as we were doing unit studies instead of individual lessons.

 

10 minutes of memory verse practice games

 

I completely removed the snack time, as they would have presumably just had breakfast, and there was a whole-church fellowship time with sweets immediately following. There is no way that an 8-10 year old needs graham crackers and apple juice to get them through 1.5 hrs. of Sunday School!

Edited January 20, 2010 by AndyJoy

[angela in ohio]

Our church uses materials from Great Commissions Publications, which fits our denomination. They are excellent. I teach the 2nd/3rd graders, and I think the topics are very solid.

 

If I were designing Sunday School classes, though, I would either teach our church's catechism through, or I would teach through the Bible in one or several years, so that dc knew the grammar.

 

There is always that temptation to entertain the children so that they like you. I see that in all sorts of places, not just Sunday School classes. :001_smile: But I don't want them to like me. I want them to see my face reminding them of Bible lessons when they are about to sin. :D

[the4Rs]

Wow! This post could be mine. I am also getting fed up with light weight sunday school materials. We are hardly attending sunday school anymore because between my two kids I literally get a stack of coloring pages and art projects every week and they go immediately in the trash because I have no where to put them.

 

I teach sunday school half the year but I won't teach the younger grades because of the curriculum we must use for those ages. So I teach the junior high. I finally got the courage to tell the pastor just what I think of the materials. They were using the same stuff for junior high and this age group was giving us a lot of behavioral trouble and caused a lot of problems in our church. I finally told him they were bored with this stuff because most of them have heard it for many years....it is time to move past simple bible stories and dig into the meat so to speak. He listened and we changed things up. I love that my pastor is always willing to make necessary changes.

 

But we are getting grief from some people in our church that we aren't attending sunday school very often. It got to the point where the lady teaching the younger grades grabbed my kids and brought them individually to my husband and then to me after church one week and told us each that we needed to make sure our kids got to sunday school. EXCUSE ME??? I was offended. Part of the reason we homeschool is to instill our faith in our kids...and they think we aren't doing our best by our kids? Argh!!!!!

 

Anyway, I pray you find something that works for you.

[Harriet Vane]

When I was teaching 3rd-4th grade Sunday School at my church, I encountered the same problem with shallow Sunday School materials. I was sickened by the low level of material that these kids were supposed to "learn" from. Since our Sunday School was comprised of mostly church kids who knew all the basics anyway, it was not challenging at all. I also hated the shallow little "discussion questions" to which 75% of the answers were "God", "Jesus", and "prayer." I knew the kids were capable of deeper thought than that. Instead, I modified and used homeschool Bible unit studies from Heart of Wisdom. We did units on Creation and Wisdom.

 

Unfortunately, in my experience some Sunday School teachers spend 15-30 min. Sunday morning prepping for their lessons, so a curriculum with meat probably wouldn't work. If you have teachers who are properly motivated and willing to actually prepare, however, I bet you could sell them on a good homeschool curriculum.

 

One thing I also changed with my SS class was the format. We had a nice long 1.5 hour block, but they were used to spending 30 min. of that playing around with no purpose, 15 min. snacking, and a large chunk doing a coloring sheet with a short lesson thrown in.

 

I changed it to:

 

5 minutes of attendance, getting settled, reciting last week's memory verse

 

10 min. of soft worship music playing while they sat around the room in corners, under the table, etc. and had a quiet time with God--reading the Bible, prayer, and & writing or drawing in prayer journals

 

45 minutes of lesson time which was varied enough in activity that it didn't seem too long to them

 

20 minutes of a game, project, or exercise related to the lesson. Some of these were ongoing from week to week, as we were doing unit studies instead of individual lessons.

 

10 minutes of memory verse practice games

 

I completely removed the snack time, as they would have presumably just had breakfast, and there was a whole-church fellowship time with sweets immediately following. There is no way that an 8-10 year old needs graham crackers and apple juice to get them through 1.5 hrs. of Sunday School!

 

:iagree: You made the kinds of changes that I train teachers to do as well. Good for you!!!

 

The only point I will add to is what is highlighted above. Over many years of directing programs and training teachers, I have found that most people can be trained to a better standard, and that, when trained, they believe in and enjoy what they are doing. All too often the church throws people into the arena without even a one-hour seminar on how to use the materials or what is expected.

 

Any teacher on my staff is not allowed to teach until they have been trained in inductive method, and in applying the method to church curriculum. It takes two hours. After that I sit in on each class for the full hour+ at least once per semester, and also do a lot of quick little check-ins here and there. After I sit in on a class, we talk about what went well and what needs improvement. The feedback and accountability has marvelous effects on keeping the lessons high quality.

 

At the first church at which I directed programs the leaders above me told me that doing what I described above would drive people away, that it was too much work to expect of volunteers, that the scrutiny would feel like micromanagement. I have found the opposite to be true. When people are trained for the job they feel the job is easier and are able to enjoy the process. When people receive smiling feedback (with plenty of encouragement along with talking about areas of improvement) they feel supported. They appreciate the care and attention. They like being able to move beyond babysitting at church to teaching in a meaningful way.

 

It really is a matter of training and attention. Set the expectations high, provide the tools needed to achieve those expectations, and people will not only rise, they will find joy in that journey.

[BikeBookBread]

[....]between my two kids I literally get a stack of coloring pages and art projects every week and they go immediately in the trash because I have no where to put them.

 

I especially can't stand the take-home fliers with the parenting advice...not even a suggested day by day devotional to do with your children to support the so-called lesson, but a whole page of advice on how to "connect" with your kids. Advice like, "really listen to them..." Grrrrr.

[Jana]

I love Godly Play.

 

But there is also Following Jesus. Same idea, different stories.

[abbeyej]

I remember being deeply unimpressed with SS materials even when I was a child. And complaining vociferously about it! ... Actually, the best couple of years we had (in terms of depth of SS curriculum) were at a very small church in TX where most of the families home schooled. ;)

 

Anyway, just to say, even the *kids* might be happier to have something that's not just fluff. Kids do tend to know when they're being talked down to and their time wasted.

[Jami]

The materials from Bethlehem Baptist (John Piper's church) are supposed to be pretty good. Much more God-centered rather than child or man-centered.

 

My children have primarily been taught from the Great Commission materials that Angela in OH mentioned and we've found that teaching to be solid, particularly with thoughtful, prepared teachers.

[Elohcin]

Our church uses Desiring God materials from Piper's church and I think they are really meaty. Our kids are learning tons and coming home with great questions. I figure SS is only a suppliment to what they are learning at home, but I appreciate that they are getting meaty stuff.

[Guest Dulcimeramy]

nm

Edited January 21, 2010 by Dulcimeramy
nm

[Sarah CB]

You are not alone in this thought. Sunday school for my girls is similarly "lite" (I'm being kind), and we go to a supposedly theologically sound church. Where is the BIGNESS of God? The AWESOMENESS of His character? It's all KID centered (unfortunately it's just a reflection of what the Church is teaching the grown-ups...). I think that churches just really underestimate what a child can understand. EVERY lesson seems to be distilled down to "show love to your friend" or some variation upon this theme.

 

There are glimmers of hope every once in a while. There is one young lady in particular who subs in PDG's class. She creates her own lesson, and even though she may use the silly cartoon characters provided by the published lesson, she goes beyond what the lesson plan outlines (I know this first-hand, because when she subs I'm usually the helper sub). When I've subbed as a teacher before, I've changed lessons before because they were SO LAME or DOWNRIGHT WRONG. Often I will bring in the Jesus Storybook Bible to supplement, or simply read straight out of the Bible, etc.

 

Sooooo, we teach Bible 5 days a week at home using Sinclair Ferguson's Big Book of Questions and Answers About God and supplement that with The Jesus Storybook Bible. Granted my children are only 5 (almost 6) and 4. When we are done with this we will move onto his book, Big Book of Questions and Answers About Jesus and the others in the series. We might even repeat the series again, as there are activities for older children that we have adjusted down for our kids, and they aren't "getting" all of the catechism.

 

PDG is in church with us during the sermon. We have chosen not to send her to the "Kid's Church" which is just more twaddle, PHD (piled higher and deeper). LLL is in the 3's and 4's during the service, but we will bring her in with us when she turns 5.

 

ETA: Anyone remember sword drills? How about the Books of the Bible song? My girls have NEVER done this. They aren't encouraged to even bring a Bible!!! GRRRRR....I'm starting to get righteously angry.

 

See, this sounds good to me. I would love to approach SS in more of a WTM way. The grammar years can focus on memorization and immersion in the stories of the Bible. I have the Truth and Grace memory books and I am going to use some of their suggestions to come up with a scope and sequence of scripture and general Bible knowledge memorization.

 

I'd love to see K-2 look kind of like this:

 

Lovely read alouds - The Jesus Story Book Bible as the spine.

 

Supplemented with quality children's lit - I'm thinking other Bible stories (picture books with beautiful illustrations) or stuff like Max Lucado's picture books.

 

Catechism - I could use the Truth and Grace memory books for this, but I want to take a closer look at the Big Books you mentioned.

 

Memory - scripture and Bible knowledge

 

Play - I loved the posts and links to Godly Play. And then I wonder why our Sunday school classrooms have cars and trains but not Noah's Ark :001_huh: I'd like to create an environment where they can't help but learn about God - where everything they come across is another opportunity to learn.

 

Instead of crafts, they could do narrations. Or even draw a picture of their favourite part in the Bible story. Or they could do copywork for their memory verse.

 

I wonder if this would be possible...

[TXSusan]

My church is currently using Discipleland curriculum. I teach the 3rd and 4th graders and we dig deeply into the Bible each week. In Level 3 we study the life of Christ for a full year, and in Level 4 we study the book of Acts for 9 months, followed by a 3 month study of Daniel.

 

This is the 3rd year that the 1st-4th graders have used this curriculum, so I am teaching the material for the 2nd time. I'm enjoying it just as much. Recently all of the classes pre-K - 6th began using Discipleland curriculum too.

 

It has full color take-home sheets and it can be used with any version of the Bible. There is a main lesson, and lots of other ideas to choose from. We do very few crafts, and if the extra activities don't appeal to me we play books of the Bible bingo or have a Bible drill.

 

The take-home sheets are undated, so that makes them more flexible. The teacher material can be reused, and the pages of the take-home sheets are nested, so you don't have to have one book per child that might have several unused lessons when the child was absent.

 

Good luck finding curriculum materials that meet your needs and develop your students into devoted Christ followers.

 

Susan

[KrissiK]

I'm glad someone else mentioned Great Commission Publications because that's what we use and it is really good curriculum. It is Reformed/Prestybterian and it really hits home the holiness of God, our need for a Saviour and Christ's perfect atonement.

[Kimberly in IN]

I am a huge fan of Catechesis of the Good Shepherd. (am trained to teach the first 2 levels.) Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a church of any denomination that utilizes it where we live currently. I like it so much that we have incorporated much into our hs.

[Sebastian (a lady)]

The Young Peacemaker by Sande is also a cool program. It is application of biblical principles to life conflicts, rather than instruction in Bible stories.

 

 

We've done it at home and my kids really like it. It would be best if you could get the church to spring for the student books. But you could also adapt the scenarios for skits (with older kids assisting) or puppet shows.

[myfatherslily]

I'm going to save the ideas in this thread for future use :) I taught 4-5 year old Sunday School for two years at my church. I did NOT like what we used at first, and ended up just reading straight through the Bible with a Tomie dePaola Bible book that I found at a thrift shop! It was the more common stories told with straight scripture, condensed to be kid-friendly. Then we'd color a corresponding picture. It wasn't much, but the kids did like it and it was super easy to prepare. When we finished that, we started reading The Big Picture Story Bible, which they really liked, but we didn't get through it before I stopped teaching. I still would have liked to do alot more, though. Someday I'd like to take on a class again, and I'll take your ideas along with me!

 

My DD now watches Bible cartoons in children's church :glare:

[G5052]

When I was teaching SS, I wrote my own for the reasons you describe. Then the church got a black mold problem in the basement that began to make me physically ill, and we pulled out the kids out when I resigned over that. Ever since then, they have come to the adult class and love it.

 

Over time the church did fix the problem with the mold, and two families came along who believed in family church (i.e. no Sunday school) and they kept their kids with them too. So mine aren't the only children in the adult class now and it's fine. :D