100 Best Ideas to Turbocharged your Preschool Ministry (7 page)

But studies have shown that play is vitally important in a child’s life.
Children need free time to explore, use their imaginations, and just be kids.
Play is also a learning opportunity in disguise.
Play promotes development, problem solving, and creativity.
It helps build better attention spans and encourages social development.

Is play an element of your preschool ministry?
Are you giving children the opportunity to develop and learn through play?
If we asked preschoolers in your ministry whether they get to play at church, what would they say?

An effective ministry creates a fun and playful environment for preschoolers.
Preschoolers aren’t miniature adults.
They’re children.
They need to laugh, giggle, play, and have fun.
One of the most important things you can do is make your preschool ministry fun.

Allow preschoolers free time to play at church.
Set up play centers that children can experience before your preschool ministry begins.
Let them have time to be spontaneous.
Give them time to just goof off.

Build a team of preschool volunteers who like to have fun and play.
The attitude and demeanor of your volunteer leaders will determine the atmosphere of your preschool environment.
Find people who are gifted to be in preschool ministry.
You’ll recognize them by their spirit of fun—they like to play with kids!
Research has proven that the level of children’s play rises when adults play with them.

Use play as a teaching tool.
Knowing facts alone isn’t enough.
Just because a preschooler can repeat something doesn’t mean he or she has learned it.
Everyone learns from meaningful experiences.
Play that’s hands-on, interactive, and focused promotes learning that lasts.
Companies such as LeapFrog have discovered this and are producing toys that teach.
Offer guided play opportunities in your preschool ministry that teach kids God’s Word.
Group’s Hands-On Bible Curriculum
^®
(
group.com
) provides toys and other objects to use as teaching tools.

Play is to early childhood what gas is to a car.
May our preschool hallways be filled with the sounds of kids playing instead of “shhh.”
May our preschool rooms be filled with smiling faces that come from playful activities instead of frowns from being made to sit still.
Having fun is key to a thriving preschool ministry.
Let’s play!

—Dale

Teaching preschoolers how to pray can be challenging, and using rote memorization or words a child wouldn’t normally use won’t develop an understanding of the true meaning of prayer.
We need to emphasize simple prayers that come from the heart and help preschoolers build a relationship with God through conversation.

Follow these simple guidelines to help preschoolers talk to God.

Emphasize that we’re talking to God and that God loves and cares for us.
God, as an unseen being, is a difficult concept for children to understand, so keep your explanation of God very simple.

Use plain language.
When we use language that’s formal or unfamiliar, we communicate the idea that God is formal and unreachable.

Don’t insist on a specific body position.
While closing our eyes may help us concentrate, preschoolers can become distracted by the challenge of keeping their eyes closed.

Encourage preschoolers to give thanks for things that are important in their lives.
Giving thanks for their parents, pets, food, and friends will make sense to their level of understanding.
Never tell a child that what he or she is praying for is wrong.
At this stage preschoolers are developing a relationship with God as a friend and confidant.

Don’t ask a preschooler to pray in front of others unless you know he or she is comfortable doing so.
It’s better to ask if someone wants to volunteer to pray.

Help preschoolers understand that prayer is a way of asking for help for themselves or others.
As they learn to express their hearts and concerns through prayer, children will build trust in God and a foundation of faith.

Use creative experiences to help preschoolers pray.
Preschoolers are visual learners, and teaching prayer in an abstract manner makes it harder for them to understand.
Instead have them each create a prayer book, a prayer box, or similar item.
Then encourage them to draw, color, or bring
pictures of things they’d like to include in their prayers.
Have them each keep their “prayers” in their book or box and add other prayers over time.
This simple concept will help them move into the next stage of their prayer lives as they grow in age and understanding.

—Barbara

Preschoolers are learners.
They constantly perceive and discover new ways of doing things.
Research has shown that children this age are especially receptive to learning; their brains are like sponges picking up concepts through the use of all their senses.

One of the best things our preschool ministries can do is to offer children experiences that help them truly learn God’s Word.
The beauty of teaching young children to soak in God’s Word is that they haven’t developed preconceived notions about the truth in the Bible.

Our preschool ministries should be primed and ready to help these natural learners learn.
The good news is that kids learn best with people they love and when learning is fun.
This means that when kids develop relationships with ministry volunteers and have fun experiences—they’re in their tailor-made learning environment.
Use these key elements to help preschoolers learn.

Relationships
—At our church, we create a setting that’s conducive for preschoolers to soak up God’s Word by having consistent volunteers in our preschool ministry.
Preschoolers can’t build a meaningful relationship with a volunteer who only serves once a month.
While we strongly encourage all our preschool volunteers to serve on a weekly basis, we require that they serve at least twice a month to maintain consistency for our preschoolers.
We’ve found this still allows relationships to be formed between our volunteers and our kids.
These loving relationships provide a favorable environment where preschoolers can learn and soak up God’s Word.

Fun Experiences
—We do everything we can to make the Bible come alive for our kids by incorporating games, hands-on activities, and creativity.
The last thing we want a preschooler to say as he or she leaves our church is “It was boring,” and we do everything in our power to keep that from happening.

I was in the lobby recently saying goodbye to families as they left, and I noticed a 3-year-old who was crying.
When I asked the parents what had happened, they said it was their first time to visit our church, and their child didn’t want to leave.
They’ve been attending ever since.
This should be our goal every week—kids having such a good time soaking in God’s Word that they don’t want to leave when their parents come to pick them up.

—Eric

Were you aware that at birth our brains have almost all the neurons they will ever have?
The brain continues to grow after birth, but it reaches 95 percent of its adult size by the age of 4.
A look at the incredible milestones occurring during the preschool years of life gives a whole new perspective on what to expect from these little ones with brains almost as big as ours.

Here’s some of the amazing progress preschoolers make each year.

3 Years
—Children in this age group love to talk and sing.
They’re able to answer simple questions such as “What are you doing?”
“What is this?”
and “Where?”
They also
ask
a lot of questions—oftentimes just to keep the conversation going.
By 3, a child will use sentences of three or more words and have a vocabulary of 300 to 1,000 words.
Children begin to describe what they’re seeing and doing and start using words to reason things out.
Three-year-olds can hold crayons between their first two fingers and thumb, use blunt scissors, stack nine or 10 blocks, wash and dry their hands, and catch a large bounced ball with their arms.
They like to look at books and will listen attentively to age-appropriate stories.
They can copy a rough circle or cross, and they can work puzzles with large pieces.

4 Years
—At this age children have a growing understanding of past, present, and future, and they’re able to follow familiar routines on their own.
Typically, 4-year-olds have a vocabulary of 1,000 words and use sentences of up to eight words.
They can answer the questions “Whose?”
“Who” “Why?”
and “How many?”
They jump well, run fast, hop on one foot, and climb ladders, trees, and playground equipment.
Children this age enjoy sorting objects into groups; they can form shapes and objects with clay, such as snakes, cookies, and simple animals, and build block structures that are vertical and horizontal.
They like stories about how things grow and how things operate.
They’re able to hold a crayon using a tripod grasp and reproduce some shapes and letters.
Four-year-olds paint and draw with purpose, but
when they have trouble implementing the ideas they have in mind, they may call their creations something else.

5 Years
—Five-year-olds know thousands of words and can say them clearly.
They can describe people and events in detail and use complex sentences.
At this age, children understand and use time concepts such as yesterday, tomorrow, day, and night.
They ask innumerable questions such as “Why?”
What?”
“Where?”
and “How?”
This is a stage where children make great strides physically.
Five-year-olds are in constant motion and can’t sit still.
They can skip using alternate feet, walk backward, jump or hop forward 10 times in a row, and balance on either foot.
They can catch a ball from three feet away and ride a tricycle with speed and skill.
They can count to 20 or more and identify four to eight colors.
Many children at this age know the alphabet and can reproduce lots of shapes and letters.
Most 5-year-olds demonstrate fair control of a pencil or marker, and are able to cut on the line with scissors (although not perfectly).

—Barbara

A few years ago, while she was in high school, Mary Grace asked me if she could teach preschoolers.
I was thrilled because 13 years prior she’d been one of
my
preschoolers.
It doesn’t get any better than that.