Why does preschool have to follow the same order of service as the adult worship service?
I began thinking why does the typical church preschool classroom reflect the typical worship service. The typical program looks like this.
1. Kids come into the room
2. Free Play
3. Kids are focused and sing generally 2 – 4 traditional worship songs.
4. Next kids sit down and hear the lesson often times with flannelgraph Jesus.
5. Craft
6. Snack
7. Free Play or unrelated to the lesson video time.
To me there was a time when this was effective. But now I think we need revisit this model. The problem I have with this format is that it is how we learn not how kids learn.
Currently I am working on a non-traditioanal one year curriculum for our preschool classes.
How is it different.
1. Kids love music use it to your advantage. Instead of 2-4 consecutive worship songs, do 1 theme song, 4 small transition songs (that reinforce each segment) and 1 worship song at the end.
2. Have familiar segments that child driven.
3. All segments teach one story that is part of one truth. Connect everything. You don’t have that much time each week do your best not to waste it.
4. The last things that happen in class are what kids remember most. Make that last part of class more powerful.
