Home Archive by category "Teaching" (Page 12)

Category: Teaching

How I Write Entire Teaching Series at Once

I wanted to take you behind the curtain a bit, and share a little about how I create complete curriculum units in a short amount of time—as I’m often asked for “my secret” or for help when friends find they need to crank out an entire series in a short amount of time! I’m heading to another week of camp speaking, and I’m excited about the theme: What a FUN theme for a week of helping kids to “BUILD” their lives on the Word of God! So many applicable verses come to mind, like: You also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. I Peter 2:5 I’ve done a Kid’s Church unit in the past where we looked at our “Connections” to God, Family, Church, Friends, Neighbors and the World. But I had 8 chapels to write and that series was only 6 lessons—and while I could do an intro and a review—the creative in me said, “Time to do something new and fresh!” rather than rehash something old. I did look through them for “lego ideas” that would be transferable. Then the…

Continue reading

Ask for Guesses, Not Answers

Years ago in an inner city ministry, I had a little boy in my class named Trevon. No matter what the lesson topic or Bible story, any time I asked a question his hand shot up and he was eager to answer. The only problem was, no matter what I asked, he always answered with an enthusiastic, “Moses!” Some teacher must have hit it out of the park telling Trevon the story of Moses. Feeling badly for him always being wrong, one Sunday I thought I’d be smart and “rig” the Q and A time for little Trevon. Though it had nothing to do with my lesson, I asked, “Who did God give the Ten Commandments to?” Of course, Trevon’s hand shot up again! I smiled as I called on him knowing he would finally be right! Instead, he hesitated and then timidly answered, “Jesus?” I was as dejected as Trevon when I had to say, “No, Trevon, it was Moses.” I felt terrible. I thought I had set this little guy up for success, but instead, I had caused him to fail yet again. I shared this story with a mentor that week who told me, “Karl, that’s because…

Continue reading

¡Hola! Karlos is Back!

As I mentioned awhile ago, I enjoy the honor of contributing to Entre Ninos, a wonderful ministry for the Spanish speaking segment of the Kingdom that ministers to children. I want to encourage you again, if you know of anyone who ministers in Spanish to send them to www.entreninos.com so that they can download a copy and benefit from all that this incredible resource features. The current issue features an interview with Yancy (not Nancy) who has a new Spanish language CD out! I often hear how “there is nothing for Spanish children’s ministry workers” and often it is only that they don’t know where to look. Entreninos is a wonderful way to discover the resources available for our amigos!

Continue reading

A Fun Game with Stacking Cups

I try to use Sport Stacking cups any chance I get because they always engage and excite kids, and they can be a great learning tool too. Tonight I was tasked with teaching on teamwork and how we all must work together using our different gifts and talents. So, as I often do when I need to teach is I mine the incredible content found in DiscipleTown units and looked that the How to Discover Gifts and Talents, and found a great game! In the lesson it suggested numbered Styrofoam cups (since that is available to anyone) but I prefer to use Speed Stacks cups. I made two sets of ten cups using ten different colors. (Yeah, I own a lot of stacking cups, including many discontinued colors.) Then I made slips of papers with the colors names on them. To choose volunteers I simply passed out the slips one at a time to ten volunteers. The Rules: They needed to make a pyramid, BUT they could only touch the cup of the color they were assigned. Teamwork and communication were needed! Round One: Simple pyramid, one on two on three on four cups. Any order, but each child could…

Continue reading

My Thanksgiving Lesson

Just wanted to post what I did for Thanksgiving this year and provide a link where you can get the PowerPoints I made for the lesson – it was a lot of fun and really got the kids thinking! As an introduction we played my Thanksgiving Gimmie Gimmie Game, which is always a TON of FUN! I introduce it by telling the kids there is something that spoils our attitude of gratitude, it is something I like to call “the gimmie gimmies.” It is when we start thinking about what we want, and forget all we have! I ask the kids, “how many of you are already thinking, or maybe even asking, about what you want for Christamas?” (hands go up!) “Have you thought yet about what you want to give?” (blank looks!) Below is my quick PowerPoint I used for explaining the rules. I had about 150 kids playing, so you’ll notice I used 5 cards per kid in my rules, even though in the official game, it says 7 cards each. I modified for our large group. We played for five minutes and it was a blast. If you have never played “Gimmie Gimmie” – you have GOT…

Continue reading