First I was able to have an afternoon by the pool with a friend who had recently returned from the Childlight conference. Eager to hear all she had learned we planned a swim day. During our discussion she shared a classroom format based on CM. I had a chance to hear a similar lecture on www.childlight.org from Nicole Hutchinson. It was so helpful to hear her teach and to "be the student." From that I set to work on our Sunday school class.
This week we were introducing the concept of regeneration and rebirth.
1. We started with a question. It can be simple but it is designed to intrique the children and peak their interest. For us we started our lesson with a butterfly that the children could color. We gave them time to talk with us about the process of going from caterpillar to butterfly. We will draw from this discussion at the end of our lesson.
2. We quickly reviewed what had been taught last week. We only kept them on topic. The children did most of the talking.
3. We then asked the children questions and had them look up the answers in the Bible. Each child was given a sheet with the questions written on it. After reading the Scripture and discussing what it meant we then instructed them to write their answers down.
4. We also introduced our memory verse. After finding the verse in their Bibles we asked one child to read. From this the children were given a final sheet which had part of the verse filled in. They were to complete the verse for copywork.
5. At the end of the lesson we had children tell us about the butterfly and how that might apply to our verse that we just learned. We then instructed them to write the word "regeneration" at the bottom of the butterfly paper.
All of these items will go into their Sunday School notebooks.
