100 Best Ideas to Turbocharged your Preschool Ministry (9 page)

3.
Keep kids active.
Kids shouldn’t be sitting in circle time or at tables during most of preschool ministry; they should be moving.
So push back those chairs, and keep your kids on the go.
Keep them active in worship— don’t just have them repeat a Scripture verse; come up with motions.
Active games are another great way to help preschoolers learn.
The truth is they’re going to move anyway, so you might as well incorporate it into your programming.

4.
Stimulate the senses
—Provide preschoolers with learning centers where they can hear, see, touch, smell, or taste an element connected to what they’re learning.
For example, if you’re teaching about Creation, take preschoolers outside, and let them see, hear, and touch what God has made.
Let them smell frankincense at Christmas.
Let them taste unleavened bread when you teach them about the Passover or Lord’s Supper.

Incorporating these principles of play into your preschool programming will make better teachers.
Your preschool ministry will be more fun; the kids will learn and have a blast doing it.
And you’ll enjoy coming up with new and creative ways to play.

—Eric

Every preschooler wants to be a big kid.
Three-year-olds want to be 4-year-olds.
Four-year-olds want to be 5-year-olds.
Kindergartners want to be in first grade with the big kids.
In just a blink of time, the preschoolers in your ministry will transition into elementary ministry.
Parents get anxious as they see their “babies” getting older; some preschoolers are fearful about moving into a new environment.
It’s important to have a strategic action plan to help your preschoolers become big kids.

1.
Start at least two months before the transition with “transition touches.”
The more you can acclimate your preschoolers beforehand, the less anxious they’ll be.
For example:

• Eight weeks out—Have someone from the elementary team visit the kindergartners, introduce him- or herself, and tell kids about the upcoming transition.
  
• Six weeks out—Have the elementary team member visit the kindergartners again to build excitement about the upcoming transition.
  
• Four weeks out—Have the elementary team member visit the kindergartners and lead a small part of your preschool ministry session.
  
• Two weeks out—Have the elementary team member visit the kindergartners and lead the entire session.
  
• One week out—Take your kindergartners over to the elementary ministry for part of the session.
  

2.
Communicate with parents about their children’s transition.
Inform parents well in advance about the upcoming transition.
Invite them to an open house in their children’s new ministry environment.

3.
Have a graduation ceremony for kindergartners who are transitioning up.
It’s great if you can incorporate this into an adult service.
Present kids with a gift, such as a Bible.
This is also a great opportunity to speak into the lives of parents and encourage them to lead their children spiritually.

4.
Work closely with the elementary team to help children transition smoothly.
In many churches there’s disconnection between the preschool and elementary ministries.
Develop a close partnership, and work as one team to build children’s faith foundation.
This partnership can be especially beneficial when it’s time for kids to transition.

If kindergartners are included in your elementary ministry, you can follow this same plan with the preschoolers who are transitioning into kindergarten.

God is at work in preschoolers’ lives.
As they become big kids, let’s ask God to give them a big faith foundation.

—Dale

Churches usually overlook preschool ministries when it comes to special events.
But this omission represents an immeasurable loss of opportunity to develop relationships and outreach into the community.
Families with preschool children often feel isolated and alone—they need opportunities to connect to a church and develop Christian friendships.
Special events can open the door.

The first thought that comes to mind when you think of hosting a new event is probably,
Where would I find more volunteers?
But you’ll likely only need a few helpers because children won’t be unaccompanied; they’ll be with parents, grandparents, or other adults.
This is also a perfect time to enlist the help of your church leaders so they can acquaint themselves with preschoolers and their families.
Remember to keep everything simple, fun, and child-friendly.
Set your sights on the following goals for these events:

1.
Provide parents with inexpensive bonding time with their children.

2.
Help young families in your church get to know each other.

3.
Give parents a chance to invite neighbors with preschoolers to a nonthreatening church event.

4.
Give yourself and other leaders an opportunity to get to know the children and families in your ministry in an informal atmosphere.

When deciding on events for preschoolers, look for inspiration from Disney, holiday seasons, birthday parties, and popular games or cartoon characters.
Create a theme and play it up.
Many of these can be translated into Bible experiences—or just design them as fun experiences for preschoolers and parents.

Create events that can be repeated every year.
Keep costs down by shopping garage sales and asking church members to donate items.
If you don’t
have a budget for these events, charge each family a small fee to cover the cost of food—but be sure visiting families come free.

Below are several suggestions for special events, but the sky’s the limit, and the only rule is to have fun!

Princess Tea
—What little girl doesn’t want to be a princess?
This event includes having everyone dressed in their Sunday best, a photo opportunity, activities such as the girls getting their nails painted or faces glittered, and a special “princess” menu.

Western BBQ
—Put on the country music and get out the lassos because the boys will love being cowboys for a night.
A menu of barbeque, chips, and root beer is perfect to begin a night of roping the calf (a painted piñata) and playing Pin the Badge on the Sheriff and Tin Can Shootout.

Bible Times Dinner
—This event is a simple dinner where preschoolers and families meet people from the Bible.
Children each get an autograph book and an opportunity to meet the people they know about from the Bible, hear their stories, and have them sign their books.
This is a great way to bring the Bible to life!

Drive-In Movie Night
—Show a movie on the side of your building for this summertime event, and have families bring lawn chairs or blankets.
For extra fun, provide a few games for the families before the movie begins.

Kids Care
—Create an event to help preschoolers learn to serve.
They can do simple projects such as filling diaper bags for foster care programs, drawing pictures to send to those who are shut-in, or sacking groceries for a food pantry.

Special events for preschoolers are offered so rarely that you’ll be overwhelmed with appreciation from families and quickly find that these fun times become permanent features of your ministry.

—Barbara

Growing up, my teachers and parents were constantly telling me to “pay attention” and “focus, focus, focus.”
Now that I’m an adult, I realize my problem wasn’t the inability to pay attention—my problem was that I paid attention to everything!

I wasn’t very different from the children in your preschool ministry.
You probably find yourself struggling, as my teachers did, to get the kids in your preschool ministry to pay attention.
The majority of the time it’s not that they’re ignoring you or being disobedient; they’re just paying attention to everything around them.
Preschoolers naturally have short attention spans and are easily distracted, so we need to implement some best practices to help them stay focused.

• Change often. To maintain kids’ focus, you have to keep things moving. Don’t spend too much time on any one thing. The majority of your preschoolers can only focus on one experience for three or four minutes, so if you’re planning to spend 10 minutes on a Bible lesson...don’t. Seriously, don’t do it. If you do, you’ll spend more time trying to keep kids’ attention than you’ll spend teaching them anything.
  
• Plan More Than You Need. You must be well-prepared if you want a chance at keeping your preschoolers’ attention. This means you need to plan more than you can possibly use and move seamlessly from one game or experience to another. There’s nothing worse than running out of things to do on a Sunday morning in preschool ministry. Staring into the eyes of those children, knowing that you’ve completed your lesson and you have eight minutes left to go before parents arrive can be daunting. So always have an extra game, a fun song, or a simple craft ready to go at a moment’s notice.
  

—Eric

“The leading priests and the teachers of religious law saw these wonderful miracles and heard even the children in the Temple shouting, ‘Praise God for the Son of David.’
But the leaders were indignant.
They asked Jesus, ‘Do you hear what these children are saying?’
‘Yes,’ Jesus replied.
‘Haven’t you ever read the Scriptures?
For they say, “You have taught children and infants to give you praise.”
’ ”

—(Matthew 21:15-16)

Preschoolers can praise God!
It’s awesome watching them worship God in innocence and wonder.
Here’s how to lay the foundation for preschoolers to become lifetime worshippers.

• Choose fun, energetic worship leaders. People who have lots of smiles will set the atmosphere for the children. Middle school and high school kids make great worship leaders for preschoolers.
  
• Use lively worship songs. Many great songs are available on DVD. Some of our favorite praise DVDs are
  Play-n-Worship
  and
  Shine!
  (
  group.com
  ),
  Praise Party—My Best Friend
  (
  yancynotnancy.com
  ), and
  Believin’ On
  (
  janaalayra.com
  ).
  
• Use the same songs frequently. Preschoolers love to sing the same songs again and again. Pick at least one song each month to repeat every week so they can learn it. Introduce new songs as they learn current songs.
  
• Give preschoolers opportunities to worship with their parents. Once a quarter we have a worship experience for children and their parents. Part of the service involves the preschoolers coming up and singing worship songs. Parents love to see their children worshipping.
  
• Make preschool worship songs available for parents to purchase. Preschoolers enjoy singing worship songs with their parents in the car and at home, so purchase copies of the CDs and DVDs, and make them available to parents. When you partner with parents and they begin worshipping with their children during the week, you multiply the power of worship in preschoolers’ lives.
  
• Teach preschoolers the purpose of worship. Let children know they’re praising God when they worship. Teach them they’re sending their love up to God when they sing to him. Take a few seconds to remind them of this truth each week as they prepare to sing.