Engaging Preschoolers in Lesson Time

Whether you teach in a multi-aged classroom or have a separate preschool classroom, knowing how to engage that age group is important. This episode will give you some tips and tricks to engage preschoolers in lesson time.

#preschoolers #kidmin #intentionalchildrensministry #lessontime

Transcript

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Welcome to the Kidman Huddle, Amber Pi. Children's kids get equipped, courage, and power to the type of intentionality. Growing God's kingdom one child at a time.

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Welcome back to the Kidman Huddle. We are talking about engaging preschoolers, especially in a multi-age classroom. I have kids from four or sometimes two, my littlest niece has been joining us all the way through big kids. I did this at my last church. Last church I had it were seventh, eighth grade, plus my teens that were helpers. So I get it is a big gap. I love, love, love teaching in a multi-age classroom, but I also get that it has its own challenges. Not only are kids just developmentally different. I mean, you've got readers, non-readers, you get this in regular age-graded ministry as well, but the gap is really big when you're dealing with multi-age. Things that they can do activity-wise in games. Like you can play a your out game with upper elementary, but you cannot do that with a preschooler or they just cry, right? So developmentally, we've got a lot of differences. And then spiritually, you know, preschoolers are at a different place spiritually than most of your fifth, sixth graders. There obviously are the outliers on both ends of the spectrum, but it has its challenges. In small churches, medium churches, sh medium churches, um, there's not always the op the option of dividing. You know, you might not have the manpower to make more classrooms. You might not have enough kids to be able to split up and have your own separate preschool ministry. So whether you are one room like me, or whether you just want some more preschool tips, ideas, I've got a couple of ideas for you. Field tested, tried and true. They help engage preschoolers. Our goal, whether we have preschoolers or upper elementary or preteen, whatever, is we want them engaged in the learning so that we can help disciple them. We want them listening, actively participating, definitely not causing disruptions. And these tips, honestly, they're good for littles, but they're good for bigs too. So the first thing is that we need busy hands sometimes, especially during large group teaching, like your lecture time, the teaching time, which shouldn't be overly long, but sometimes our littles really, really struggle to listen or sit still or not disrupt. So what do you do? Drawing a picture absolutely helps. Sometimes we just need to have something doing with our hands. Like adults are like that too. I quite frankly do better if I'm doing something, right? I need to be doing something. Have them draw a picture of whatever they're learning. If you've got a disruptive kid, just give them a marker and paper. They're still listening, maybe not as attentively, but they're still listening and you're able to teach to everybody else. Sometimes you kind of have to pick and choose who do I want to listen if I'm only getting one. But we can draw a picture of what we're hearing if we're reading the creation account. Okay, draw what you think that garden looks like while you listen. I did one on heaven. I want you to draw what you think you hear that heaven looks like while I'm reading from Revelation. Maybe they're going to be doing something with Play-Doh during it. Now, Play-Doh, much like fidgets, like when fidgets came on scene, I ended up taking my fidgets away because I found they were more of a distraction than they were a tool to help. So you have to be aware of this with Play-Doh. Sometimes the kids want to play too much and they're disruptive. So think maybe guided. What can I instruct the kids to make that's going to help engage them while they're listening? We were doing a um kind of Christmas themed. I was talking about uh prophecies and we were talking about Jesus' birth, and I was losing control of my littles. So I grabbed the play-doh, not in the lesson script, and I had them make me a baby out of the play-doh while I was reading about the prophecies about Jesus' birth. They were engaged, but it was an intentional engagement. Other things you can do during your teaching retirement teaching time is a listen for and respond kind of thing. Or maybe you're stopping midway and saying, okay, Job just lost everything. His kids are dead, his house, their house burned down, his cattle were stolen, Job is having a really bad day. Hey, show me with your face. How would you feel if you were Job? So you're engaging them in there. Or if your lesson is on Esther, maybe you take a line from the Purim Festival, and every time we hear Haman's name, I need you to be really good listeners. If you hear the name Haman, you need to go boo. So they're listening for something in the lesson and then they're responding. Maybe you're gonna have them stand up when they hear a certain word. Or while you're teaching, maybe you grab a flag or something, and when you hold it up, they have to do something. So they're watching for something, they're engaging in something, they're gonna be better listeners because I have to do something on this. Um, and that's easy to do. It doesn't have to come in whatever curriculum that you've purchased or using, you can just add that in. And sometimes these hands-on things get added in because we're not good listeners and you want them to be good listeners. So think how can you engage them during that teaching time, which tends to be that hard time for littles to really pay attention? Another thing is I found think about how you're doing your games and your activities in a multi-aged setting, especially when our games and our activities are either introducing the topic, if they are reviewing the topic, if there's something that the kids need to have an answer for, do your littles know? Were they paying attention? Like it's no fun if it's just, okay, little Jimmy, what's the answer? Little Jimmy's four, so he doesn't really know. Not saying that four-year-olds can't know, just this particular little Jimmy didn't know. It's not that fun. So, how can they be an active participant, but maybe not have to know the answers, realizing that developmentally our preschoolers are in a different spot than our older elementary kids. I do a lot of pick something out of and we will decide. So, attributes of God. We're learning about God, the attributes of God. I'll bring in my bucket, it's a big like Walmart bin, um, full of crinkle paper, like the the present wrapping crinkle paper. I've done all sorts of things. I've done packing peanuts, like all the things, but it's sensory, like you could use sand that's messy and heavy, but whatever. And they have to dig through and find the thing, find a thing in there. So it's a piece of paper. They can't read. So what do they do? I read it, or a helper reads it, and then the whole class decides yes or no, true or false, whatever the answer is. And then your preschooler, after they've found that and we've read and we've decided, they have to go take that to the spot. So set it up again. I've got a bin full of crinkle paper with my slips of paper, my cards, my whatever for my lesson. And then at another part in the room, I've got a yes box and a no box. So they dig and they find the paper. I read the paper. Okay, son. Is there a son in heaven? Class answers. No. Okay, go run into the no box. They just participated in the activity in the review game without having to know the answers. That's way more of a win than expecting a child who developmentally and spiritually doesn't have those answers yet, doesn't feel like they can participate or they get sad because they get it wrong. So I use this a lot. I've got a couple of readers and a lot of non-readers. And this is just a really easy way to be able to do these review games, these um application, going a little deeper, whatever you want to call them, activities. I did it with my Lego thing recently. I made a giant Lego, and on the fronts of paper plates, I had a letter, and on the back I had a statement. So they had to run to the bucket and get the paper or get the Lego paper plate. We had to read the back and decide if that was true or not. And then I placed it on the board because it had to go in a certain order and it would spell a thing. Kids lined up, they took turns doing it. We all answer. It's a big win. Like big win for littles. Along the same line, we're moving to side to side. We're standing up, we're sitting down, we're putting our thumbs up, our thumbs down, we're doing a yes or any of these kind of group body games. One, we're using our bodies. So kids are engaging. A lot of kids learn better when they're involving their body. This is our kinesthetic learning, these are our body smart kids. But littles do good when they're actively participating as well. They like games, they like fun. We just made it a game and fun, but they also kind of get to read the room. And so if they don't know the answer, they still are able to participate because they see what all the other kids are doing. However, your littles might surprise you. I did one recently, I don't remember what we were doing it on, but it was a move to the side to the side. Um, it was books of the Bible. And my little four-year-old guy was getting some right that my other friends weren't. They might surprise you with knowing the answers. But by doing these kind of group things, it's not as intense for them to have to know the answer. Because just you've met three and four-year-olds before, right? Developmentally, spiritually, they might not get it. Another thing is um signs or flags. So you can see if you're watching the video version, I've laminated because I love my laminator, these thumbs up and thumbs down signs. I have A B signs, I have true-false signs, and I'll give them the sign and they get to hold it up and they have to show me the right way. And sometimes they're never even switching their flags, but they're participating. They're holding, they're holding it up, they feel like they're participating. Because their body is engaged, they are also listening. So I'm engaging their bodies and I'm able to get them listening even if they don't know the answers yet. Another thing, um, just quick if you're watching the video, is buckets. Buckets can hide teaching points, they can have clues for the lessons, all sorts of stuff. And here's a little little extra fun idea for you. I make my buckets two-way. So these are from Five Below, they're like giant solo cups, but they work great for I can put things in the bucket. I've used my machine and I've got vinyl letters on there. I go one through five. But then I can also do my buckets upside down to where something can hide under my bucket. So I've put my numbers on opposite ways, one where it's upside down to where I can flip my bucket upside down, hide something under it. Oh, look, there's the number four bucket, or my numbers are also on there right side up, so I can put stuff in the bucket and you can have them go run to a bucket. Anything with number recognition, your littles likely have number recognition. They might not have letter recognition yet, depending on how old they are, how advanced they are academically. They probably are not reading with the rare exception, but they could run to a number. So anything with numbers, four corners, they could run to those corners. They could, you know, get the paper behind number, whatever. These can be part of your teaching time. So if we're really focusing on making our teaching time interactive, you're doing better for littles. Along the same line with numbers, when you have your littles, it is still important to have them in the Bible, even if they can't read. So I, classroom set of Bibles, kids bring Bibles from home, we're in there, and then it's me turning because they can't read. I show them where it is, but I have them put their finger on. So we're in John chapter 10. All right, put your finger on the big ten. They likely can recognize the big ten and they can put their finger on there. And then I will go through and show them verse 9, and we find the little nine. That's the little one. So A, we're working on Bible literacy. B, we've just engaged them. So it's a win. Always get the littles in the Bibles, not storybook Bibles. I know I said this last podcast in the classroom in ministry time, real Bibles, not storybook Bibles. They need to see God's word, they need to begin learning to navigate it. I shared last time my four-year-old niece, she's singing the books of the Bible because we're practicing it. So, a couple of other quick tips for engaging littles. Music is often really big. Um, my kids at church, they love music. Currently, we are crazy about shaky eggs. Um, you know, it's like the you can make your own with plastic Easter eggs, rice, and tape, or you buy them, and it sounds like a plastic Easter egg full of rice. We have been singing our books of the Bible for months, like a year. And we do it with shaky eggs every time because they're not tired of it. They love the shaky eggs. So if you have littles that enjoy music, use it. Bring in some scarfs. We've done some scarves. We did a thing where we were praising through dance, and we danced with scarves, and then they tripped on the scarves. That's fine. Um, shaky eggs, there are boom whackers if you want to go crazy. Those give me a headache, though. They're loud. There are handbells. Um, I years past I had inflatable instruments that not ones that they would touch, but like inflatable guitars. Sorry. Yes, touch, but not touch with their mouth because germs are not for sharing. So I had inflatable guitars. Um, those things are very fun and it engaged kids, especially those who love music, and a lot of littles like music. So think where can you incorporate music? Can you do the memory verse through music? Moving spots is often helpful for littles. I see this when my littles are just extra squirrely. Sometimes we've just been sitting in the same spot too long. And I teach very interactively, so they're usually doing something, but still, they might have just been in the same spot too long. So sometimes we will just move to a different spot. I have even taken kids out in the hallway and met in like this little four-year thing just because we needed a different spot. We needed different walls, and we needed that. It's body re-engagement. So you're getting up, you're moving, and then you go sit back down, but your body has just re-engaged because it took a little break from having to sit. Moving spots is cle is key. Um, and then sometimes you have to define your spots. So I just kind of give you a juxtaposition on spots and kids, but little ones, that movement to a new spot house, but then sometimes if they have free reign of the spots, it's the opposite effect. So maybe you need to clearly define spots. I use yoga mats and I cut them into circles, and these are our sit-upon spots. And sometimes my little need their sit-upon spot, and they have to sit or they stand there. I use these in games as well, especially when they're getting too handsy or too a little too wild. I got one who will kind of try to tackle the little girls. Sometimes he needs a spot. Stand on your spot. Those things are good. Um, and then this should be kind of key knowledge about short segments. They're little. Now I will say too, with my bigs, also short segments, we want to be as interactive of a teacher as we can. Why? Because if we are interactive, we are engaging them in the learning. They're active participants. If we are also using all of these wonderful learning smarts and learning styles that I talk about, we are engaging as many different kids as possible because kids learn in different ways. I have one little guy who would be content if I let him draw every single lesson from now until Jesus comes. He'd be fine. And my son has always hated having to do crafts or music. Oh, my son hated doing music. He loves music, but he doesn't like to sing it. So if I made everything a song each and every week, he would be miserable. Shake it up. Add layers, add variety. If you have preschoolers in with older kids, you have to have options. We can't make everything where we don't need to read because that's a disadvantage to your bigger kids. But if we have options, so instead of do this worksheet where you're writing out your response, that's one option, but can you also draw a picture? Can you work in groups? Do you need to have a group leader? Maybe pull in some teen helpers, and they're gonna do the activity at the table with the kids, and so they can write the answers and the kids can say, you know, we're listing attributes of God. You tell me, and I'm gonna write them down, or we're doing an A-Z of thanks. Okay, write it down. You gotta think creatively sometimes when you're trying to engage small children with your older children at the same time. But I'm here to tell you that it can be done. Just think, how am I engaging them? How am I keeping their hands busy? How am I letting them be an active participant while also realizing that developmentally and spiritually they are at a different place than some of the older kids? Um, go back, I've got lots of podcasts on lesson engagement, learning smarts, learning styles. There's stuff on my YouTube channel, magic tricks and object lessons. Um, check all that because that is key to engaging preschoolers in a multi-age setting. The key is engaging them. They are not gonna hack it for a 20-minute lecture. And if I'm being honest, your first, second, third, fourth, fifth graders are also not gonna hack it for a 20-minute lecture. We want to engage them, keep it moving, keep it interactive. You can do it and see wonderful fruit. Um, I was saved at five. So not preschool, kindergarten, but my foundation had been laid in those early years. So we don't need to water it down for preschoolers. Yes, they learn through play, but we don't need to just provide play opportunities. If you are a church who does a 20-minute free play before the lesson, I'm sorry, but you're wasting time. That can be 20 minutes of intentionality, that can be books of the Bible skills, yes, with kids who can't leave, can't read and can't pronounce half the names. Yes, you can use every minute with intentionality with preschoolers because children can accept Christ at an early age. It is an individual basis. Um, it is when God speaks to their hearts, when the Holy Spirit calls them, when they respond. But that foundation, whether they respond, you know, in a year or in seven years, that foundation is being laid. So don't water it down, don't neglect, don't just make it so fluff and fun-filled that they're not getting a foundation. Rethink your teaching. How can I engage them in my lessons so that they can understand the truths of God's word? You can do it, my friend, because remember what you do matters.