We are AWANA Cubbies

I have been involved with our church's AWANA program for over ten years now.

Most of that time has been in the 3/4 year old's class - the Cubbies. This year, I have also been teaching the 2/3 year old Sunday School class.

I love the 2-4 year old age range. Everything is new and exciting. I get so excited by the fact that when I tell my kids a Bible story they are hearing it and understanding things about it for the first time. Since I have invested a good deal of time and effort into making the stories and crafts I use each week accessible and interesting and understandable for preschoolers, I thought I would attempt to post them all here as a resource for me for future planning, but also to help any other parents and teachers of preschoolers that might be interested.

Today I want to post about the ways I tell a Bible story. I like to use lots of different resources when I tell a story because kid's learn differently and because preschoolers have a short attention span.

Our church has a set of Betty Luken's Felts that I like to use occasionally. These take some time to set up and put away so I don't use these every week. When I do tell a story with them I try to pick one that uses LOTS of pieces of felt so I can give each child one to hold. Then, as I tell the story they get to come and put their felt onto the board. This works wonderfully for helping more active children listen and be involved in the lesson. I also keep the felts at the kids level after the story so they can play with them and retell the story to each other.

Puppets are a wonderful way to explain more abstract concepts to kids! I have a Cubbie bear, Lamb, and Elephant puppet.

Occasionally I use books such as 3 in 1 to explain big concepts like the Trinity.

I have a box of large realistic Bible Story Pictures, that Abeka makes that are fabulous, realistic ways to tell the story.

Every week I provide a coloring page for the children who have finished reciting their memory verses. I try to reinforce the theme or story I will be teaching on. The Bible Story Coloring Pages book has been wonderful for preschool appropriate coloring pages that are so cute!