any other Awana parents feel like chatting?

[kwickimom]

My dd9 recited all of her verses in the brochure and recv'd her book! She was the only one in her T&T class to do that in the first two weeks and she was very proud of herself. The leader commented that the other kids were in awe of her and she simply told them "I practiced everyday" :001_smile: I am glad she is a good example!

 

Both my boys, A Spark and a Cubbie, got their books and are dying to get their vests this Sunday.

 

They LOVE going to Awana and ask all the time if it is time to go!

[momma aimee]

My dd9 recited all of her verses in the brochure and recv'd her book! She was the only one in her T&T class to do that in the first two weeks and she was very proud of herself. The leader commented that the other kids were in awe of her and she simply told them "I practiced everyday" :001_smile: I am glad she is a good example!

 

Both my boys, A Spark and a Cubbie, got their books and are dying to get their vests this Sunday.

 

They LOVE going to Awana and ask all the time if it is time to go!

 

:hurray::hurray::hurray:

[momma aimee]

everyone ready for tonight? DS1 is reciting James 2:10 and actually this is the first verse he has had a hard time With.

[PRTGSw2K]

I have a Sparkie too! He just got his green wings and first red jewel. He LOVES AWANA! He begs to go and asks to memorize more verses than I require.

[momma aimee]

everyone ready for this week.

 

I have to say our daily awana work is the subject they both beg for, sit best for, and seem to really 'attend to' the best.

[momma aimee]

how is everyone doing?

 

My boys are still LOVING IT

[Chloe]

My oldest two dc have gone all the way through from Cubbies to T&T. My third dc is in his first year of T&T and my youngest is a Sparks Kindy this year even though she isn't officially a K'er yet. She had already done two years of Cubbies and complete both books, so I didn't see a need to put her in Cubbies for another year and have her redo a book. She was getting bored and was definitely ready to move up to Sparks. We may just have her take her time through the first Sparks book and have her do the K'er year twice. That's what we did with her older brother as well, since they both have fall birthdays and started Cubbies as soon as they turned 3yo.

 

All my dc have loved AWANA!

[...................]

At our new church they immediately began inviting us to AWANA. Not being ones to go out during the week, and also that we did our own Scripture Memory as part of our homeschooling we declined. In fact, we felt like it was some kind of AWANA cult, because people were AMAZED and confused about why we didn't or wouldn't join. LOL.

 

But now we have two cars, my husband is working a lot less hours, and my children are older (thus getting to bed late isn't so bad) so we joined this year. We are huge fans. I joined as a Cubby leader, and my son is in T&T and my dd is in Sparks. My dd finished one whole year's worth of verses in about 8 weeks, with retention. She has an excellent memory. My son is working very hard and is learning one or two verses every week.

 

Our church is extremely organized, upbeat, energized and committed. I don't know if every AWANA group is as amazing as ours but ours is definitley amazing.

 

As far as them encouraging kids to CRAM at the last minute, I do not like this practice. I feel the point is to learn scripture, not get signed off or earn jewels (although I am fine with motivational tactics, that's not the goal.) So I've told both of my kids, if you cram at the last minute, you can be sure that I will make you learn that verse the following week. It's up to you to either tell the Listener, "No thanks, I really don't want to cram and then end up forgetting it." or cram it, and then work on it the following week. :001_smile:

[momma aimee]

yesterday I went back though the book with my Sparks boy and he recited all the verses he has been signed off on. :) I knew he could. He stumbles a little here and there -- but that is, i feel, mostly his speech and not his 'learning of the verses' but his mouth gets tripped up sometimes

[Hedgehogs4]

At our new church they immediately began inviting us to AWANA. Not being ones to go out during the week, and also that we did our own Scripture Memory as part of our homeschooling we declined. In fact, we felt like it was some kind of AWANA cult, because people were AMAZED and confused about why we didn't or wouldn't join. LOL.

 

But now we have two cars, my husband is working a lot less hours, and my children are older (thus getting to bed late isn't so bad) so we joined this year. We are huge fans. I joined as a Cubby leader, and my son is in T&T and my dd is in Sparks. My dd finished one whole year's worth of verses in about 8 weeks, with retention. She has an excellent memory. My son is working very hard and is learning one or two verses every week.

 

Our church is extremely organized, upbeat, energized and committed. I don't know if every AWANA group is as amazing as ours but ours is definitley amazing.

 

As far as them encouraging kids to CRAM at the last minute, I do not like this practice. I feel the point is to learn scripture, not get signed off or earn jewels (although I am fine with motivational tactics, that's not the goal.) So I've told both of my kids, if you cram at the last minute, you can be sure that I will make you learn that verse the following week. It's up to you to either tell the Listener, "No thanks, I really don't want to cram and then end up forgetting it." or cram it, and then work on it the following week. :001_smile:

 

I agree with you on one level--cramming is not the best practice, but they get the opportunity to review the verses so often, that in this setting it doesn't bother me as much. My kids will go through their books twice during the year, as they aim to get the review patches as well.

[momma aimee]

I agree with you on one level--cramming is not the best practice, but they get the opportunity to review the verses so often, that in this setting it doesn't bother me as much. My kids will go through their books twice during the year, as they aim to get the review patches as well.

 

ditto

 

and I review them over and over at home -- so even if he "learns on in one night" (happen ed only once) -- i am not worried he'll loose it -- it is still on out planner at home and will be covered slowly, looking at word choices and applications.

[AnnaM]

Ask your leadears about the music CD's that go with the books. We have one for both sparks 2 and sparks 3 and even I am learning the scriptures!

 

I work in Sparks 1&2 (combined class) and we do help the children that don't get alot of help at home learn verses at church. I hate the cramming, but sometimes it is the only help they get and we want them to stay encouraged so we help them move through their books. The books review quite a bit and most of the children do retain it. Sometimes you just have to work with what you have.

[momma aimee]

Big Brother got his wings last night!! :D

 

http://scribinglife.wordpress.com/2011/12/01/wings/

[m0mmaBuck]

Ask your leadears about the music CD's that go with the books. We have one for both sparks 2 and sparks 3 and even I am learning the scriptures!

.

 

The music CD's are great. DD5 sings them all the time. She sings her verses when she recites them at Awanas as well.

[momma aimee]

how is everyone doing???

[Dustybug]

I wasn't a part of the thread the first time around, but I'm an Awana parent! :)

 

My DD is in her first year of Sparks and LOVING it. She is currently working on memorizing the books of the New Testament and has 2/3 of it done. My DS is in his first year of Cubbies, but he's still having difficulty transitioning because he absolutely adored his Puggles teacher. He only has 2 more patches to earn before he has filled up his "C."

[momma aimee]

I wasn't a part of the thread the first time around, but I'm an Awana parent! :)

 

My DD is in her first year of Sparks and LOVING it. She is currently working on memorizing the books of the New Testament and has 2/3 of it done. My DS is in his first year of Cubbies, but he's still having difficulty transitioning because he absolutely adored his Puggles teacher. He only has 2 more patches to earn before he has filled up his "C."

 

my little one is in Cubbies but sadly will not finish his book this year. :001_huh: his speech delay is really holding him back. his leaders are GREAT, but he just is not as mature as some in his class

[amayla]

My son has two more sign offs needed until he's done his Sparky's book. He's in the second book, I'm forgetting what it is called now. He has had little interest in doing the review, so I am not sure if he will do that his year or not. We have missed a lot of Awana because he's been sick a lot! I was surprised he was near the end of his book already!

[m0mmaBuck]

My DD finished her green Sparks book last week. Since she's a kindergartener, they won't let her move up to the blue book until next year so she's working on the "extra credit" book. With only 6 wks left, I don't see her finishing it but at least she's enjoying reading through the jokes and such. She loves to go early so she gets more game time and social time with her friends.

 

DS10 did Awanas for a while but lost interest once he got into TNT and the meetings were too much like school for him. They spend the majority of their time working on their verses and going over Bible passages and "sermons" with very little social or active time at that age group and he just doesn't enjoy going.

[PeterPan]

I wanna be an Awana mom. I took my boy this past fall, but his speech wasn't good enough to keep up. We're hoping this fall he'll be more ready. He would get this glazed, overwhelmed look...

[momma aimee]

I wanna be an Awana mom. I took my boy this past fall, but his speech wasn't good enough to keep up. We're hoping this fall he'll be more ready. He would get this glazed, overwhelmed look...

 

both my boys are speech dealyed -- DS6 is almost normal but still tough to understand -- and DS4 well i bet the leaders catch 1 out of 10 words. both have been made feel welcome, i am sorry you DS had a different expereince. :(

[PeterPan]

Well they were sweet to him. He just couldn't do it. He'd get overwhelmed and shut down. He has a LOT more speech now than he did then, so hopefully it will go better this fall. Last fall he was basically saying 2-3 word sentences. Now he has long sentences, basically paragraphs. It also didn't help that he was placed up in Cubbies. With his fall birthday, he's right on the line. I didn't understand the sequence (2 years of Cubbies for K3 and K4). With his birthday, he'll turn 6 the fall I call him officially K5. I realized that between the speech and his age, he'd probably do better being called K3 and starting Cubbies this fall as he turns 4. He'll be at the top of the pack then, but that's better than being swamped.

 

It was just one of those awkard things that happened really fast and was hard to understand till you were in the thick of it. They were sweet enough. I'm looking forward to when it starts in the fall! :)

[Singingmom]

My ds (5) is in Cubbies this year. It has been such a great experience for him. He started out the year really struggling with following along with the class, doing the hand motions and singing during worship time, raising his hand to talk, etc. But now, he's getting the hang of classroom structure and loving it.

 

I must admit that we don't do our memory verses every day. We usually start the day before. I know...bad mom! He always knows his verse, but I want it to go into his long term memory, so I need to start right after our Cubbies class ( on Wednesday nights) .

 

Thanks for this thread. I am excited for Sparks next year. Does the level of memorization, other work that is expected of them take a big jump up in the second year?

[momma aimee]

mine will be Cubbie again in the fall; he'll be turning 5 after the fall start -- but since he will not be in Kindy he'll stay in Cubbies. I think another year will be good for him. both my boys seem pretty "socially and emotionally" immature and i think they do better as the oldest, not youngest in their groups (anyplace) so they fit better rather than being left behind.

 

Cubbie to Sparks (kindy level) here is a real jump in memorization -- but my Kindy boy (also a fall birthday so one of the oldest) is doing fine.

 

Some churches i know have Sparks on more than grade. But our's has Kindy alone, First grade alone, and 2nd and 3rd combined. That may be because of the number of each age they had. But it is working nicely. On FB I see a lot of sparks parents and leaders addressing the 'break' between readers and non-readers in the sparks classes. the way our Sparks is set up there is no expectation of reading in the Kidy group.

[Dustybug]

my little one is in Cubbies but sadly will not finish his book this year. :001_huh: his speech delay is really holding him back. his leaders are GREAT, but he just is not as mature as some in his class

 

It can be hard. My DS doesn't have a speech delay, he just isn't used to the more formal setting. In Puggles, it was mostly play, snack, movie, with a very brief lesson. He's an antsy one, fidgets a TON, and it's hard for him to be still during the lesson in Cubbies. He also (like I mentioned before, I think. lol) really LOVED his Puggles teacher.

 

At our church, with children who struggle, they don't require memorization in Cubbies. They will recite the verse to the child and simply ask them to repeat it. They will even break it up into smaller portions if necessary. :)

[momma aimee]

It can be hard. My DS doesn't have a speech delay, he just isn't used to the more formal setting. In Puggles, it was mostly play, snack, movie, with a very brief lesson. He's an antsy one, fidgets a TON, and it's hard for him to be still during the lesson in Cubbies. He also (like I mentioned before, I think. lol) really LOVED his Puggles teacher.

 

At our church, with children who struggle, they don't require memorization in Cubbies. They will recite the verse to the child and simply ask them to repeat it. They will even break it up into smaller portions if necessary. :)

 

they play it very low key in our cubbies too -- not even asking if the child doesn't bring it to the leader. I help mine, before cubbies actually starts, when he feels ready. i say it, he repeats it, they sign him off. he has done one all alone and I cried.