Wednesday Night Lessons 101 - Mar 12

Well, I'm a little late posting this because we had a very fun and busy weekend. More about that later....let me catch up on my lesson plans!

I had been trying to work along with the Sunday morning classes, and going from there. This month, they were learning about having an attitude like Christ. Last week we learned about SERVING. BUT, I changed up my lesson plans a little bit. I decided to do a mini series this whole month about one attitude we are supposed to have: RESPECT.

One large thing I learned and applied this past week, was to do it in little bits....to not try and accomplish EVERYTHING in ONE lesson. So, I narrowed it down to one goal: "By the end of this one hour lesson, I would like the kids to know the definition of respect. (i.e what IS respect)"

I then proceeded to form my lesson around that goal. Our memory verse for the day/month is 1 Peter 2:17 "Show proper respect to everyone." I made a construction paper crown with sticker jewels and the memory verse on it to wear. As I was preparing my classroom, I just about took off the crown I made and set it on the table before going upstairs for song service...but then something I had read recently popped into my head "Don't expect the kids to do anything that you yourself won't do." I thought about how I was going to ask the kids to make crowns and wear them around for the week, to remind them how to respect other people. Then I thought about how I didn't really wan't to wear my crown upstairs with the adults during song service. So, I realized I'd better do the right thing, and I put the crown back on. You should've seen the looks I got! ha ha. But, it was encouraging for me to know that I was doing it for God....to remind myself of respect, and to set a good example for the kids. In fact, it turned out great, because the kids stared at me while I played piano and were full of curiosity by the time we got downstairs to our lesson. It was a great lead-in to the story I had about kings and queens.

Here is the outline of my lesson that night (we had 4 kids come):

1. Read queen story/talk about visiting a palace and the manners we show while there....that is resepct
2. Make crowns/practice memory verse
3. Flow chart (for the logical learning style) - Respect in the middle - come up with other words for respect in the outside circles
4. Play Ball game to pratice memory verse (say one word of verse for everytime you throw the ball while standing in a circle)
5. Eat snack
6. Close with prayer and clean up