I hope that everyone's weekend is off to a great start. I look forward to seeing my church family Sundays, Wednesdays and any other I chance I get.
I will be making several reminder posts as I have already alluded to, concerning the new curriculum. I do not want to be redundant, but with sickness and the like, one announcement at services most likely does not reach everyone. With that said, I want to thank you for your patience.
As you may already know, we are implementing a new curriculum in our Bible school classes. It is Bible-based, of course, However, is is structured to be a longer-term approach to what we are used to and organized to cover the entire Bible in four years.
That way, if we are blessed to get a child at four years or younger and they remain with us, he or she will have had the opportunity to go through the Bible three entire times before reaching adulthood.
Even if we do not have them for that long, hopefully we can expose them to God's complete word once.
As discussed, we will be using the curriculum on both Sunday morning and Wednesday night Bible classes. The original idea was for one teacher in an age group to take even-numbered lessons and the other teacher take odd-numbered lessons. After some discussion, while it may very well still occur that way, we want to make sure that we do a thorough job in covering the material. Therefore, if a teacher finds that he or she needs extra class time to adequately finish a lesson, we want to be able to allow for that time.
The primary goal is to present God's word.
While our teachers are on quarterly schedules, please understand that our curriculum is not on a schedule.
cWhy is keeping everyone together in the material important?
We have the opportunity to use this material to instruct the entire family. If we keep everyone together, then all siblings within a family will be learning the same material and can study together at home. We can make materials available to families that they may base their home study and devotionals around the current lessons.
I am also working with Bobby on possibly bringing the lessons to the new Sunday night Bible class in the future so that we cover all ages
Also, fathers, please remember that you are the spiritual leaders off the house. We encourage you to take advantage of this material to aid in your task.
Student books have been provided for all age groups. There are teacher guides or keys for the teachers. Initially, there was one teachers guide or key for each age group. We are working on getting one for every teacher. We do ask that you turn these back in to me when all of the lessons have been covered so they may be reused. While teachers keys are optional, the teachers guide for the 6-7 age group is described on the website as required. The following was taken from the publisher's website:
Your first graders and second graders can study through the entire Bible with Primary Student Pages while the teacher uses the (required) Primary Teacher Guide.
The Primary Student Pages, along with the Primary Teacher Guide, take the teacher and students, step by step through the lesson. Because students in the first grade and second grade differ so widely in reading level, we have created a Teacher Guide/Student Page combo that works in situation where the students barely read at all or where students read well OR in situations with a mixture of the two!
There is a master teacher's guide with all 104 lessons. An outline, instructions, recommended aids, etc. for each lesson are provided. You may access the guide through the following link
Bible Study Guide For All Ages - Teachers Guide Unit 1 (Lessons 1-104)
http://bit.ly/2AyQKcB
The information is arranged two ways. One folder contains the entire teachers guide. The second arrangement is lesson-based and pulls together the outlines, visual aids, drills, etc. for each lesson in an effort to make it easy for you to have the information you need in a quick and easy manner.
Also, please reference the publisher's website at the following link:
Six and Seven Year Olds
http://bit.ly/2m54V4L
The link takes you to an instructional video on how to use the teachers guide. The rest of the website may be accessed from there as well.
Please remember there is nothing more valuable than one's soul and only the word of God sets a path for one's soul to a part of the body of Christ. There is nothing more important than our teaching God's word.
I know I have been lengthy, but I do appreciate and love you all. I know our elders love and appreciate you all.
Thank you for the time you invested in this and the time you invest in the church.
