I Love Teaching

I had the chance to teach a lesson in the Elephant Class today (older 3s to younger 5s). I LOVE teaching children. Training the teachers has been such a challenge. Im definitely out of my comfort zone with adults. And training adults makes me exercise muscles I didnt ever want to develop. But I was so happy to get to stretch my "teaching-kids" muscles today. I dont think Ive lost my touch. In case you dont know....the trick to teaching little kids is to keep them interactive and BUSY!

The theme for the next 2 weeks is MY FAMILY. Its so hard to teach about families. Each child has a different set of circumstances. Some have just mom or just dad. Some have a mom and dad is in jail. Some have grandma, but no parents. Some have lots of brothers and sisters or aunts and uncles but no parents. Or any combination of the above! And often family friends or elders in the church are referred to as Auntie and Uncle (Im Auntie Amba to the Sunday School kids). So that confuses things even more.

So I copped out a bit and focused on the story of Goldilocks and the 3 Bears (The Bible story came later in the day). I talked about the different people in the bear family. And then I introduced the concepts of big and little. The kids actually did a pretty good job of sorting big from little. There were a few who dont understand a thing I say because they only speak Zulu. But after modeling a little, they got the concept too! I love to see light bulbs turn on! With children you can see the moment when something clicks into their brains. Sometimes Im sure it is a moment that can be physically seen. Their eyes and face and whole demeanor seem to change when they realize "Ah-ha! I've got it!"

We ended with the song:
Lord I thank you for my Mom,
Yes I thaaaank you.
Lord I thank you for my Mom,
Yes I thaa-aaank you.
(Of course we changed the song by singing it with different family memebers each time. Thanks Grandma! I remembered this one from when I was in your children's choir. The teachings from our youth really do stay with us our whole lives. Proverbs 22:6)

I had a good time with the kids today. I think they had a good time too. And hopefully their teacher had a good time and learned something while observing me. What a fun day!