Have you led or been part of a church that used Awana as its Sunday morning curriculum?

[sassenach]

I'm seriously considering starting up Awana for our k-5th grade class at church. We have a HUGE number of squirrely 5 year old boys and what we used to use stopped working for us (Gospel Project- love it, but it was too much and too repetitive). We switched to Group's Inside Out and even though it holds their attention better (fast paced, big variety of presentations), it's just way too moralistic for me. I can't take it anymore.

 

Here's what I see that might work with Awana- 1) Bible memory- always a good thing in my book, so if nothing else at least we'll accomplish that. 2) variety- I think the way awana cycles through games, bible lesson time, and workbook time might be a good thing for our squirrely boys.

 

Things I wouldn't want to do, or would want to downplay- the vests, the store, car races and basically the "club" aspects. 

 

Things I'm unsure about-

Their bible lessons, do they give you enough in the plans to make it interesting?

Managing the books and incentives- will that work in a Sunday morning setting?

 

 

If you've seen this done in real life, I would love your feedback on how well it worked or didn't work!

 

Thanks!

Shannon

[kbutton]

I can imagine Sunday clothes (even if Sunday means "nice" jeans at your church) being potentially at odds with game time.

 

I would look into the new TNT materials--they are redoing TNT one book at a time, and there are some things about it that might make it really useful for Sunday mornings, but it's very different than what the TNT material has been up until now. All the kids stay together vs. doing things at their own pace. Kind of like how Cubbies works.

 

I definitely think that Sparks or Cubbies could work well on Sunday AM if you keep clothing/game time in mind. 

 

I am not sure what would make awards different for Sunday AM vs. for an evening program--churches either do awards the same night or often on a delay of one week. I wouldn't think Sunday AM would change that.

 

The biggest thing, I think, would be enough listeners, and a long enough timeframe. Also, if your church has separate Sunday School and then church (or two services with two sets of Sunday School options), and lots of people attend only one of those time slots, that could make for a child not being able to fully participate. 

[sassenach]

Thank you so much. That was super helpful.

 

Game time would be modified, and we're a pretty casual dress church, so I'm not worried about that aspect. But it's good to consider.

 

Having enough listeners/time for listening was not something I had thought of. That's a really good point.

 

Thanks for the info on TNT. I've mostly been looking at Sparks, since that aligns with the majority of our kids.

 

Our church has one service, it's about 2 hours long. I'm imagining free play mixed with listening, then worship, lesson, games, snack (or snack then games), more free play plus listening time. Also considering a small group time for our 3-4th graders. We currently have about twelve 5 and 6 year olds, and three to five 7-9 year olds. We're heavily weighted to those younger kids.

[TranquilMind]

I'm seriously considering starting up Awana for our k-5th grade class at church. We have a HUGE number of squirrely 5 year old boys and what we used to use stopped working for us (Gospel Project- love it, but it was too much and too repetitive). We switched to Group's Inside Out and even though it holds their attention better (fast paced, big variety of presentations), it's just way too moralistic for me. I can't take it anymore.

 

Here's what I see that might work with Awana- 1) Bible memory- always a good thing in my book, so if nothing else at least we'll accomplish that. 2) variety- I think the way awana cycles through games, bible lesson time, and workbook time might be a good thing for our squirrely boys.

 

Things I wouldn't want to do, or would want to downplay- the vests, the store, car races and basically the "club" aspects. 

 

Things I'm unsure about-

Their bible lessons, do they give you enough in the plans to make it interesting?

Managing the books and incentives- will that work in a Sunday morning setting?

 

 

If you've seen this done in real life, I would love your feedback on how well it worked or didn't work!

 

Thanks!

Shannon

We did it for a few years on week nights.  Not weekends.  It worked out ok, and they did memorize a lot of scripture.  One won an award at a higher level for doing this.

 

Time will tell how much impact that had, I suppose.   They enjoyed it though.  There was a memorization component, a discussion component, and a gym time component, as I recall.

[TCB]

I don't have experience with having it on Sunday, but I really like Awana, especially the Bible memorization part. It seems that it should be fairly easy to adapt it to your needs. Having said that, there are some things that I am less comfortable with, like having a section where you have to invite someone to get it signed off, and asking kids to say when they were saved. I would just leave those sections out if I was organizing it. One of my dds is quite sceptical about things until she is able to get enough facts etc to think it through for herself, so I don't like her having to be forced to commit to something until she is ready to do so herself.

[Rebel Yell]

How long is your Sunday school class? Our former church did AWANA on a weeknight, and two hours was barely enough time.

 

Also, the squirrelly boys were the LEAST suited to it... games were great but the sit, memorize, and recite wasn't so good for them.

 

And AWANA works fine for kids to be in different places in different book and progress at different rates. How will this work if a new kid joins the class mid-year? Or next year when all current kids are in a different book?

 

I don't think it's impossible to use AWANA as Sunday school, but I do think there are better options to meet your needs.

[Guest]

I have nothing of value to add, but *I* did Awanas when I was a little critter and I still have my adorable little blue vest and patches. I remember running around *a ton*  playing various games, and it was on a week night. Is the mascot still a bear?

[TXSusan]

You might want to look at TruthSeekers by Awana. This program is for churches that want a program that is easier to use than the traditional Awana program. It does not use uniforms or their traditional award systems. It is meant to be used as a large group/ small group program, with a game component. It can be used at any time: Sunday AM, Sunday PM, weeknight.

 

Take a look at truthseekers-us.org

 

 

 

Susan (frequent lurker, seldom poster)

[vonfirmath]

I have nothing of value to add, but *I* did Awanas when I was a little critter and I still have my adorable little blue vest and patches. I remember running around *a ton*  playing various games, and it was on a week night. Is the mascot still a bear?

 

The bear mascot is for Cubbies (3 and 4 year olds)

 

 

How long is your Sunday school class? Our former church did AWANA on a weeknight, and two hours was barely enough time.

 

Also, the squirrelly boys were the LEAST suited to it... games were great but the sit, memorize, and recite wasn't so good for them.

 

And AWANA works fine for kids to be in different places in different book and progress at different rates. How will this work if a new kid joins the class mid-year? Or next year when all current kids are in a different book?

 

I don't think it's impossible to use AWANA as Sunday school, but I do think there are better options to meet your needs.

 

Our AWANAS is 1 hour and a half. I am the Secretary for 1st Grade. We have about 17 1st graders. Some in the 1st book and some in the 2nd book.  I know Kindergarten is run a little differently because the 1st Sparks book is VERY easy (I have two 1st graders that have completely finished the 1st book in 1 month -- October.)

 

We do the listening/verses for the first half hour. For 17 kids at this level (where they cannot all read independently yet), it works best to have 1 listener for every 3 kids. So I'll have 3-4 teens and 2 other adults there to help. I get the paperwork done and then go around helping with listening.  After that the teens go to a teen activity and one of the adults takes the kids on to Mission Time (the second half hour) while I work to record sections said and get awards set up.  The last half hour of the night is Gym Time.

 

We do not, however, use the bible lessons provided by AWANA at all so I cannot speak to that.

[kbutton]

You might want to look at TruthSeekers by Awana. This program is for churches that want a program that is easier to use than the traditional Awana program. It does not use uniforms or their traditional award systems. It is meant to be used as a large group/ small group program, with a game component. It can be used at any time: Sunday AM, Sunday PM, weeknight.

 

Take a look at truthseekers-us.org

 

 

 

Susan (frequent lurker, seldom poster)

 

That looks like a nice program. I hadn't heard of it before!

 

You might also like this program: http://kids4truth.com/Home.aspx 

[Anne]

Also,  you could just copy the parts of the AWANA format that you like:  games, memorizing, lesson time

 

So something like:

 

singing

lesson time (broken up into olders and youngers)

game time

memorizing time (do all together, perhaps broken up into olders & youngers again)

Snack time

free play

 

Anne