Teaching Little Ones 2: Learning about God

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)

Learning about God sample lessons (zip file)

Learning about God: 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.

Learning about God—where it fits

In the first three Teaching Little Ones programs you have a syllabus of lessons for pre- schoolers. There are a few syllabus options available to you, depending on what age children begin attending Sunday School in your church—there is First Steps, Learning about God and Introducing the Bible.

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.

If you have already used First Steps last year, you may notice some degree of similarity between Learning about God and the early units of First Steps. This is intentional, as I am conscious that some churches will begin their Sunday School program with Learning about God, and not First Steps (because they don’t run a ‘transition crèche’ class). However, the children in those classes that have done First Steps will only benefit from this repetition in the second year.

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.

These lesson notes for Learning about God do not do all the work for you. 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. When telling the stories in the units ‘God made’ and ‘God loves’, if you have children with a physical disability, a single parent, or a family member with a chronic illness or disability, some stories might need to be modified.

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. 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