Teaching Little Ones 3: Introducing the Bible

Teaching Little Ones is a superb Bible-based curriculum for young children in your Sunday School or Kid's Church. The syllabus provides six years worth of material for 3-8 year olds, and contains everything you'll need for one creating and teaching compelling lessons—including lesson plans, story scripts, action rhymes, prayers, activities and craft ideas. You won't have to worry about recurring licence fees or buying workbooks—all the material is available as PDFs, so that you can distribute individual lessons to teachers via email, allowing them to prepare in advance and print off only the sheets they need. Each of the following six modules has 40 lessons:

1. ‘First Steps’ (Transition Crèche; 2 to 3-year-olds)
2. ‘Learning about God’ (Preschool 1; 3 to 4-year-olds)
3. ‘Introducing the Bible’ (Preschool 2; 4 to 5-year-olds)
4. ‘Promises’ (5 to 8-year-olds)
5. ‘Kingship’ (5 to 8-year-olds)
6. ‘Salvation’ (5 to 8-year-olds)

Introducing the Bible sample lessons (zip file)

Introducing the Bible: Sunday School material for 3–5 year olds

Why a curriculum for pre-schoolers?

What better time to start teaching children than when they are young. Paul reminds Timothy that he had the privilege of knowing the holy Scriptures “from infancy” (2 Timothy 3:14-15).

So what is the goal of this syllabus? We want to help young children learn about God so that they can develop a relationship with him at their level. We are not wanting just to increase their head knowledge, but focus on a relationship with their Creator.

Introducing the Bible—where it fits

In the first three Teaching Little Ones programs you have a syllabus of lessons for pre-schoolers—there is First Steps, Learning about God and Introducing the Bible. How you use them depends on what age children begin attending Sunday School in your church.

The First Steps syllabus is written with a particular group of children in mind—namely, the 2-3 year olds who are too young to join the traditional Sunday School, but are ready for a bit more Christian input than they would normally get in a typical crèche. (I sometimes refer to this age group as ‘transition crèche’.) The aim of First Steps is to teach these children simple concepts: helping them learn about God and develop a relationship with him at their level, learning that God is great, that he made the world around them, and that he loves them. They are also introduced to Jesus in the Christmas story.

The Learning about God syllabus is intended for pre-school children, aged 3-5 years. It is a syllabus that begins with foundational truths about God—God made, God loves and God knows—and introduces the Bible, prayer, and God’s son, Jesus.

The Introducing the Bible syllabus is also intended for pre-school children. It is a syllabus that begins with Jesus as God’s son (leading up to Easter) and then moves from Genesis (creation, Noah, Abraham, Joseph) to Moses, Samuel and David in the Old Testament. In the New Testament we are introduced to Peter and Paul and then we learn more about God’s Son, Jesus, at Christmas.

What follows the pre-school syllabus? There are three year’s worth of lessons which will build on characters and themes which are introduced in this Introducing the Bible syllabus: Promises, Kingshipand Salvation.

The lesson notes for Introducing the Bible do not do all the work for you—you will still need to set aside some preparation time. The visual aids will not all be made for you, and there is no activity book to be handed out each week for the children to fill in. The lessons are varied and include as much craft as possible. In order for the children to learn, we want them to understand and remember what we teach them. Therefore, the Main Message is important and the take-home activities try to reinforce this.

Please consider the children in your class when preparing these lessons. If you have a child with a physical disability, please make allowances in the lesson, and try to bring as little attention to the child’s disability as possible. Similarly, if you have a child whose skills are less developed than others, think about how best to assist them without drawing attention to their difficulties.

What follows are notes for the teaching component of your Sunday School class. If your Sunday School includes a singing time or a time for activities when children arrive, you will find suggestions in my book, Their God is so BIG (Matthias Media). Also, if you would like to understand more about the age group you are teaching or about how to manage a class or tell a story then, again, the fuller picture is explained in my book.

Introduction to the syllabus