Do you have a Shepherd who could work with the early arrivals?
Also, check out some of the Rotation.org Writing Team lesson sets that are posted in various areas of the exchange. Many of them have opening time suggestions.
You could also search the board by "opening suggestions."
Hello
It sounds as though you and your co-teacher might benefit by asking the pastor or coordinator for some training support!
In the meantime however, if the two of you can sit down and decide on a lesson format that will be the same every week, and establish a time range for each part of your lesson, I think you will find it much easier going.
In terms of opening time, I am assuming you are meaning arrival time, as opposed to a "formal" opening time when all the kids are present?
Kindergarten children like routine, and knowing what to expect, so perhaps this arrival time can be used to help the children transition to the class room setting.
Word finds are beyond most kindergarten children, at least in the very beginning of the school year, but you could have some music playing as children arrive, and have tables set up with various activities that are more or less self-directed.
Puzzles are good, play-doh is good, and perhaps a bunch of scrap paper and materials for creating a collage of some sort.
You could ask the children to use the play doh or scrap materials to create something that God made that they saw when they came to church that day.
If you have someone available who could gather the children for a simple story, greeting, and a little conversation about how they are and how their week was, that is a really nice way to welcome children as they are arriving at different times.
This may be something that you could ask parents to do on a once a month basis, or once every two months, depending on how many children you have in your class.
This might be an especially nice option if you and your co-teacher are really needing that time to prepare and make sure you are ready for the lesson of the day.
Singing is a wonderful option, and you might want to see if there is a middle school or high school student who could come to the room and lead some singing time. Singing could be once or twice per month, and then have stories once or twice per month.
The other thing you did not mention was whether the children arriving up to 30 minutes early was really acceptable? Is the expectation that teachers/volunteers are in charge of supervising children for 30 minutes before and/or after the actual Sunday School time?
If that is not the expectation, then perhaps you can get some help in establishing clear arrival and pick up times.
I hope that helps, and that you and your co-teacher will soon have a great routine in place!
The beginning of the program year is always stressful~ hang in there!
Blessings
Jan S
It sounds as though you and your co-teacher might benefit by asking the pastor or coordinator for some training support!
In the meantime however, if the two of you can sit down and decide on a lesson format that will be the same every week, and establish a time range for each part of your lesson, I think you will find it much easier going.
In terms of opening time, I am assuming you are meaning arrival time, as opposed to a "formal" opening time when all the kids are present?
Kindergarten children like routine, and knowing what to expect, so perhaps this arrival time can be used to help the children transition to the class room setting.
Word finds are beyond most kindergarten children, at least in the very beginning of the school year, but you could have some music playing as children arrive, and have tables set up with various activities that are more or less self-directed.
Puzzles are good, play-doh is good, and perhaps a bunch of scrap paper and materials for creating a collage of some sort.
You could ask the children to use the play doh or scrap materials to create something that God made that they saw when they came to church that day.
If you have someone available who could gather the children for a simple story, greeting, and a little conversation about how they are and how their week was, that is a really nice way to welcome children as they are arriving at different times.
This may be something that you could ask parents to do on a once a month basis, or once every two months, depending on how many children you have in your class.
This might be an especially nice option if you and your co-teacher are really needing that time to prepare and make sure you are ready for the lesson of the day.
Singing is a wonderful option, and you might want to see if there is a middle school or high school student who could come to the room and lead some singing time. Singing could be once or twice per month, and then have stories once or twice per month.
The other thing you did not mention was whether the children arriving up to 30 minutes early was really acceptable? Is the expectation that teachers/volunteers are in charge of supervising children for 30 minutes before and/or after the actual Sunday School time?
If that is not the expectation, then perhaps you can get some help in establishing clear arrival and pick up times.
I hope that helps, and that you and your co-teacher will soon have a great routine in place!
The beginning of the program year is always stressful~ hang in there!
Blessings
Jan S
We have a check-in station as the children and parents enter our children's building. Kids get a name tag and parents get a pick up tag that has a code that matches.
Next kids and parents do a 3 question Bible Trivia card (size of a postcard.) We make these questions multiple choice so that even the Kindergarteners can do them. The questions are based on the story we are using for the rotation, which helps the kids get into the Bible as they arrive. Parents leave at this point. As they are moving into the great room students do offering. We use envelopes so that children who don't bring offering can draw a picture of a gift they will give God that coming week - something like being kind to others, helping parents, etc.
In the great room kids, shepherds and teachers sing - we mostly use the Uncle Charlie DVD's but also pick Youtube video's and other DVD's that fit with the theme. The shepherds and teachers spend this time casually talking with the students between songs. When it appears most students have arrived we do an opening prayer with prayer requests from the students and then work on the Bible memory verse.
The Bible Trivia has really helped the kids internalize the story better than I ever anticipated! We don't do pencil and paper busywork in our workshops but this little bit of time is well spent.
We have a large age range (3 - 16), a small number of students (6 - 8) and a short Sunday school time (usually 45 min max), so we have changed our opening structure to a simple candle-lighting, song and prayer.
We save discussion for the individual lessons, which allows the leader to tailor it to the appropriate age range and maximize their time (e.g. discussion while things are cooking instead of at the beginning) but kept the common opening so that all of our kids get to know each other and feel comfortable with each other.
We keep the song and prayer the same for the entire rotation, so that the kids know the song fairly well by the end.
Our minister tries to incorporate as many of the Sunday school songs in her worship as she can, allowing even the non-readers to have some songs that they know during worship.
