Some tips for using this lesson plan outline:

During the Development Activities and Practice Activities, take time to play and even get a little silly. Use snacks and short games to break up the longer lessons so that the main points of the lesson can be expressed while the students are most attentive.

During the Checking For Understanding portion, it is tempting to prompt the students to the correct answer. Resist the temptation. The point of this exercise is to see if they have grasped the points you are trying to get across. Our prompting them simply makes us feel that we have succeeded when in actuality, we probably need to re-examine the lesson. This is easy to do simply by recapping the main point with a puppet or by making up a silly song on the spot or by stating the point incorrectly in a ridiculously silly way—such as “Entering into the promised land is like being in a banana!”

Tips for teaching student songs, chants, etc.:

1. For students over the age of 5, have them repeat after you instead of singing with you. (You can make it a game of repeating everything you say and sing.)

2. Unless the students are very young, do not sing with them—if they are having difficulty remembering the portion of the song, teach it in smaller sections. It is very tempting to sing with them in an attempt to “help” them.

3. When a song is long and possibly difficult to keep their attention. Sing it in silly ways—pretending to cry, while holding your nose, pretending to be excited and then bored, as soft as possible, pretending to be scared, etc. (Have them come up with different ways to sing it.)

4. When they are fairly confident with the song, challenge them to sing it while you try to mess them up. Flash the lights on and off; start singing a different song; make silly faces; point to some imaginary object behind them. If they are able to sing in spite of your every effort to hinder them, they will automatically learn to be able to perform in front of anybody at any time. If a student is unreasonably able to sing a very difficult song in spite of the fact that they are merely 7 years old, insist on seeing some ID…surely they are at least 12!

Quick Games:

(For energy release) Have all the students sit on the floor in a circle. Call out sitting positions in quick succession. (You will probably have to do it with them, but it’s good exercise!) Find one who is quick to respond, and allow that student to call out the positions:

Long Sitting: Both legs extended in front

Short Sitting: Both legs drawn up with the knees under the chin

Half Long-Half Short: One leg extended, one leg drawn up

(Switch): The leg that was extended is drawn up, while the leg that was drawn up is simultaneously extended

Long Crossed: Both legs are extended but one leg is crossed over the other

(Switch): Both legs are still extended but switch which leg is on top

Short Crossed: Both legs are drawn up but the feet are crossed

(Switch): Legs are still drawn up but switch which leg is on top

Earthquake: Legs are crossed and both arms are hugging the head down into the lap

Wheel of Fortune (variation of Hangman):

On a Dry Board, put lines to represent the missing letters of a verse or statement. Then have students take turns calling out letters which you fill in. The student that is able to solve the puzzle first wins. (What they win, if anything, is up to you.) For example:

__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __

B E I N G I N T H E L A N D I S L I K E

__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __.

B E I N G I N C H R I S T .

Another variation for larger phrases or verses:

Write the phrase or scripture on a Dry Board, cover each word with a piece of construction paper. Number each piece of construction paper. Put the students into two teams. Allow the first team to choose one of the words to be revealed. That same team can solve the puzzle or guess what one of the other words is. If they guess correctly, they get another turn. If not, the second team is allowed to reveal a word and then either solve the puzzle or else guess what one of the other words is. The first team to solve the puzzle wins.

Snacks:

Some snack ideas are obvious while others are not so easy. You can use labels with the scripture or point of the lesson stuck on cracker packages, juice boxes, cups, snack-size candy bars, etc. You can also use business cards printed with the verse and tape or tie candy to it. (I’ve used this for Halloween hand-outs as well. Some ideas for candy bars: Snickers (when Sarah laughed at the idea of having a baby in her old age), Butterfinger (when Moses dropped the 10 commandments), Pay Day (Jesus paid the price.), Baby Ruth (genealogy of Ruth and Boaz—David’s great grandparents)

Crowd control tips:

There are always those students who have difficulty sitting all the way through a lesson without becoming a distraction. Many times, they simply need to be stimulated rather than directly corrected. When in a particularly lengthy or complicated lesson, if a student or students become restless or disruptive, I often will do something bizarre and silent to redirect their behavior. Putting on funny glasses or a hat, pretending to be pulled behind the dry board by an unseen object, etc. Silent ones work the best since usually you’ve been talking and they need a different type of stimulation. However, sometimes breaking into song—the sillier the better—works quite well, sobbing over the hole in your sock will send the kids into uproarious laughter. Having a puppet reading over your shoulder works well, because you can correct the puppet for being restless and disturbing the other students or getting too close to the book preventing other students from seeing. Pointing out another student for the puppet to see directs attention to one who is helping the class all hear and see the story. Lavish prizes for class participation is a lot of fun. Students love to win (drum roll please) a trip for two to Tahiti, a Corvette full of Snickers, 32 pair of brand new Nike shoes, a free subscription to Time-Life magazine…and that’s not all…a year’s supply of Rice-a-Roni—the San Francisco treat! Many times these will correct the problem when it’s not really a discipline issue—sometimes even when it is.