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Jesus wants me for an orc
Jul. 12th, 2014 06:12 amI subbed in and taught the Sunbeams (3-and-4-year-olds) last Sunday (including E). This is the first Sunday School class, the one they go into right after nursery. At this age they're expected to learn to sit in chairs, listen to a lesson, answer questions posed to them by a teacher (I'm not talking calculus here, questions on the order of "Do you have brothers and sisters?") and be involved in group participation in general.
...I think my church is wildly overoptimistic. Or, okay, not wildly: four of the five kids in my class were okay with most of this. It... only takes one kid who doesn't buy into any of it to wreck the entire thing. (There's always the sigh of relief of This Time Not My Kid.) Fortunately, there was another adult in the class (she was not supposed to be there, but she got home early from vacation) to help deal, and to take the kids when others of them had to go to the bathroom, and help with supervising the washing of hands before snack. I mean, preschool teachers must deal with this all the time! The teacher who just got released dealt with them every week! (After this week, I have revised my opinion of her, by the way, from Excellent Sunbeam Teacher We Will All Sorely Miss to Possibly a Goddess in Disguise.) I myself have not acquired the essential multi-kid classroom coping skills.
Two of the kids answered the questions of "How many brothers do you have? How many sisters?" claiming way more siblings than they in fact possessed. A third kid answered almost every question with "ORCS!" sometimes adding "Azog!"
They did all (even orc-child) really enjoy, if not the actual story of Moses and Miriam, the accompanying picture (a tip I'd gotten from Previous Sunbeam Teacher), looking for the baby in the bulrushes (actual quote from my lesson: "No, it is not generally okay to put your baby brother in a basket and put the basket in the river.") and looking for Miriam hiding off to the side. The concentration-style game I tried to play with them started well but turned out as a failure when the fifth child decided he wanted to turn over alllll the cards to find his match.
If they come out of this recognizing the name "Moses" (which none of them did at the beginning), I'll count the lesson a success.
...I think my church is wildly overoptimistic. Or, okay, not wildly: four of the five kids in my class were okay with most of this. It... only takes one kid who doesn't buy into any of it to wreck the entire thing. (There's always the sigh of relief of This Time Not My Kid.) Fortunately, there was another adult in the class (she was not supposed to be there, but she got home early from vacation) to help deal, and to take the kids when others of them had to go to the bathroom, and help with supervising the washing of hands before snack. I mean, preschool teachers must deal with this all the time! The teacher who just got released dealt with them every week! (After this week, I have revised my opinion of her, by the way, from Excellent Sunbeam Teacher We Will All Sorely Miss to Possibly a Goddess in Disguise.) I myself have not acquired the essential multi-kid classroom coping skills.
Two of the kids answered the questions of "How many brothers do you have? How many sisters?" claiming way more siblings than they in fact possessed. A third kid answered almost every question with "ORCS!" sometimes adding "Azog!"
They did all (even orc-child) really enjoy, if not the actual story of Moses and Miriam, the accompanying picture (a tip I'd gotten from Previous Sunbeam Teacher), looking for the baby in the bulrushes (actual quote from my lesson: "No, it is not generally okay to put your baby brother in a basket and put the basket in the river.") and looking for Miriam hiding off to the side. The concentration-style game I tried to play with them started well but turned out as a failure when the fifth child decided he wanted to turn over alllll the cards to find his match.
If they come out of this recognizing the name "Moses" (which none of them did at the beginning), I'll count the lesson a success.
