Adapting Lessons for the Nursery
Sometimes teachers feel overwhelmed at the prospect of teaching the written lessons to their little nursery students. The manual is written for the children who are three years old, but nursery children are eighteen months old to three years old. How do you teach a lesson to a toddler that will also appeal to older children? How do you take the lessons that are written, and adjust them, while remaining true to the inspired plan?
Although the little ones in your care may not fully understand the lesson you are presenting, you are introducing a concept. The more often the children hear the words you teach, the stories you tell and the doctrines you introduce, the better they will understand them. So, even if a child won't understand the word repentance, it is perfectly acceptable to use it, so that it becomes familiar.
Lectures serve little purpose when teaching small children. Keep explanations short and simple, a few sentences at best. Concepts can be reinforced through participatory activities or through methods using as many senses as possible. The more ways you teach an idea, the more likely it is a child will learn it. For example, imagine teaching a child to pray. First, you might show pictures of people praying. In a few carefully selected words, you will explain prayer while showing the pictures. You can point out what the people are doing as they pray–-their eyes have closed, their arms have folded, and so on. You can show the children when the prayers happen and what is being said. The children are both listening and looking. Now you might have them demonstrate the positions for prayer, both kneeling and standing. They are participating now. When they give their own prayer, they are actually living the lesson. Later, they might even make a craft based on prayer, sing songs and do finger plays. They won't just listen for more than a moment. Let them do.
The lessons are divided into sections, shown by bold headings. Study each section individually. Think about how to use the sense in presenting the material. How can you reduce the words, but increase the action? What can they look at, touch, and do? Imagine yourself teaching a class filled with children who don't speak English. How will you help them learn the lesson?
Since you have the children for an hour and forty minutes, you don't need to teach the entire lesson at once. Think about the complete schedule, as outlined in the front of your manual. Which portions of the lesson can be taught later? Finger plays can be done while waiting for parents to arrive. Songs can be taught during a separate singing time. Games can be played during group play. Crafts can be completed during individual play, as you bring one child at a time to the table to make the item. When I teach the nursery, I try to teach nearly everything in the manual in a shortened way and spread throughout the day.
In most cases, your nursery has children who have been in the nursery for some time and understand how to behave in a lesson. If you are starting with a young nursery, or if you inherit a nursery where the lessons were not taught, you will need to start fresh. Lessons will be short at first. Gradually increase them until the children are handling a fifteen minute lesson. This does not mean fifteen minutes of sitting still and listening. This is fifteen minutes that includes a great deal of standing, moving and participating. It will include games, finger plays, flannel board stories, songs and pictures. Children will stand, sit, dance, imitate something...whatever needs to be done to put movement into your lesson.
These children are not too young to learn. It is amazing how sensitive children are to the gospel and its teachings. They may not entirely understand what you say, but as you repeat it and as it is reinforced at home, the children will learn to love their Heavenly Father and gain a first understanding of His plan for them.
By Terrie Lynn Bittner
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