VOTE
Please choose from the following.
Please give a first and second choice and your reasons.
1. Faith Inkubators/GIFT
2. Potter's Workshops
3. Lifeway/G-Force
4. Group/Faith Weaver/Kid's Own Worship
5. Augsburg Fortress/Witness/Firelight
Thanks!
posted by Skipper Don @ 1:03 PM
4 Comments:
Kathy here... My first choice is GIFT because I am familiar with the publisher and their style, and because I think it is flexible enough to work with our unique situation. I do not think our relatively small size is a problem, nor do I believe the fact that it is supposed to be used with parents and teens as well as children will be an issue. The fact that we have multi-age groups is enough to pull it off right now. We can move forward with this curriculum as our church grows. Also, the choices of curriclum topics include church basics like the Apostles' Creed, so we can satisfy members like Trish who long for something more traditional in our contemporary setting.
My second choice is G-Force because it looks fun. However, I did not find that it is truly a "turn-key" Bible study - there IS prep work involved in making backdrops, posters, culling craft supplies, etc. I found this to be true of all the curricula we looked at. Also, I do agree with Trish in that flashy is not always best. Based on her experience with other kids' comments on our church being "weird," we definitely don't want to alienate anyone in our strivings to be cool.
Lastly, I liked the journaling aspect of The Potter's House and wish we had more time in our morning to include this activity. I am not a journaler and I know it won't appeal to all the kids. However, as a former teacher, I can say that it is a great tool for aiding memory and helping kids to make connections on a personal level between what they're learning and their everyday lives. If we chose a curriculum which repeats the theme over a period of weeks, could we possibly include our own version of this at the end/wrap up?
HI ! This is Lisa Belding. I'm doing this anonymous because my last two comments didn't post. I like Gforce the best because I think it's the most like a VBS setup which I think is what we were trying to go for. My 2nd choice is Potter's Workshop(which I actually really love) but it doesn't have any musical opening or closing or really any DVD's or CD's with it. Also, I just wanted to say that whatever we choose we don't have to do every single thing, we can adapt it so there isn't quite as much prep time. I always find you never have enough time to do everything anyway so it's proabably fairly easy to pick and choose what we want to do. In response to the question about children's offering, we always had an offering basket for the kids in our Sunday school classrooms at HUMC and I think the kids really got into it. They usually only put in a quarter or something but to them that's a lot and I think it was a great way for them to feel like they were truly contributing.
Hi
I had trouble downloading a couple curriculum examples, The Gift being one of them so sorry Kathy can't help you out there with my vote since I was unable to view it. The one that did stand out for me was G-Force. Like others that have already commented I too think this looks like a fun program. I liked how it was layed out with a possible craft in the beginning and then the bible story and how it all fits into today. The power cell cards (although I didn't see one) I liked the idea of the kids having something to take home to reinforce the lesson. I agree with PD in that a lot of families do not do the lessons at home (sorry to say that I fall into that categotry) but we do talk about what the kids learned at Sunday dinner and the cards could be helpful to myself and to other parents as well. I also feel this would be a good multi age program.
Second choice would be Potter's workshop because the curriculum is geared towards the thought that we learn by doing, through repitition and by reinforcing the lesson by having the same concept but changing the learning experience somewhat. Since it is hard for me to write I did not like the journaling to much, just because I know I wouldn't do it and I think that a lot of kids will not either. I do however think it would be awesome if they did and would learn to love journaling. It also seemed to require more creativity on the teachers part and this could be time consuming as well as if materials are needed costly.
Hope you have a productive and good meeting tonight. Please let me know how it goes, since I will not be there ... and Don just wanted to say I think your doing a great job, I am looking forward to a fun and educational Sunday's cool program!
Karen
It looks like we will be using G-Force.
However that doesn't mean we can't incorporate the best of the other curricula. For example:
Becky J. and the PIPs will help us look beyond just a Kid's world and realize that others can bless and be blessed by us. We hope to form a relationship with firefighters, seniors, Reeb kids and others through the PIPs monthly projects. Please pray for this!
The small GROUP program (9:20 a.m.) might be a place to satisfy our longings for more traditional, historical Christian worship -- like old hymns (Amazing Grace, Jesus Loves Me, The Old Rugged Cross, etc.) Also we could work on some of the creeds and prayers that kids should know. Please let me know if you want to work on this with me.
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