December 5, 2010 Brief Meeting

Please meet me in room 101-102 ten minutes after the last amen this Sunday morning for a short meeting for anyone who volunteers to help children - teachers, assistants, ltc coaches, etc. Here are the plans for this meeting. Contact me with questions.

• Update on Children's Ministry & New Quarter. Things are going Well!

1. Special  thanks to everyone who pitches in to help.
2. We have our new class schedule. Get it here.
3. Be thinking about the Spring Quarter so that we can make a longer term plan.

• More Than Conquerors

1. Theme is More Than Conquerors from the book of Romans.
2. Change in the Bible Class teaching process.
3. Use of the Resource Room.
4. Encourage students to participate. Click here for more info.
5. Volunteer and/or recruit people to coach and other things. Click here for more info.

• VBS Planning Meeting.  Mark your calendars for Sunday, January 9 for lunch. We will do preliminary planning for our 2011 VBS and the Saturday event connected to it.

• Teachers Workshop In April.  Mark April 30, 2011, which is a Saturday morning for a Workshop intended to benefit us in working with the children's ministry.  Click Here for more info.

• Followup to our Teacher's Work Day. Small turn out.  We cleaned out 2 rooms and have 2 more to go. We need to schedule another work session.

• Updates on Lesson Plans and Storage. Continuing with planning and assembling pieces to map out our quarters and store materials.  Some space has been cleared above the kitchen for this purpose. We are working on equipping the resource room with a computer, scanner, and printer.

• Things To Work On 

1. Organizing and storing the curriculum. It's going to take a while to get all of this organized.
2. Van transport of VW students is having some bumps with people forgetting to do it.
3. Figure out a way to monitor the gym activities after church and class. There's too many skirmishes going unaddressed.
4. I would still like to have prayer together before classes begin.

Next Meeting will be our VBS Meeting on January 9, 2011.

November 7, 2010

Please meet me in room 101-102 ten minutes after the last amen this Sunday morning for a short teacher's meeting. Here is what the meeting will be about.


Successes to Praise God about. We are seeing attendance in class and children's worship grow - which is welcome news. A number of efforts at Center Road are assisting our ministry.

• Discovery Club
• Power Hour
• Children's Worship
• SonLight Station
• Cub Scouts
• LTC

Items we are working on.

• Staff and Helpers.  We need to know who can continue to teach and who is willing to teach for the Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall quarters coming up.

• Bible Class Planning. We are working on planning the Winter and Spring Quarters.  We would like thoughts on a quarter system that repeats with a team of teachers able to take a certain quarter and know in advance what and when they are teaching. For instance, if you taught in the Winter of 2010 about Birth of Jesus, you would that you would teach the Winter of 2012 about the same topic.

• Curriculum Storage. Related to the Quarter Idea - is a three way curriculum storage system. One is a large poster storage area. Second is a tub or bin of materials for that quarter, and Third will be an area to scan and store curriculum on our computers. Also, we have and ABUNDANCE of materials on hand, but we need to organize it for easier use by everyone.

• Teachers Workshop.  On either March 19 or April 30. I'm currently working on inviting a professor from the IUK education department as well as working on some other practical workshop classes.

• Proposed Teacher Work Day. I'm proposing November 20 as a teacher work day running from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Bring a brown bag lunch. Post in comments below if you can attend. Our goal will be to organize classrooms and curriculum. If you have a suggestion for a better way or time, please post it below.

• Tween Worship.  I'm resisting requests to expand our jr children's worship to include older kids - as believe the age span is already too wide. However, I would like to explore adding a 3rd-5th or 6th grade tween worship 2 times per month. This would give them exposure to the meeting with older Christians and still provide time to worship more on their level. Bottom line is that I must have help with this one.

• LTC is cranking up. I would like to incorporate LTC into our classes and activities so that it helps our body grow. New This Year: will be a change to Bible Class teaching. Instead of teaching a class, students will be understudies to teachers in classrooms. I'm excited about this change, and more will come.

• VBS 2011. It's time to start thinking about our VBS for next year. If you are interested in helping me with the planning, please contact me comment below.

Areas of Improvement.

• Being ready on time. I would like to meet with teachers 10 minutes before class time to pray about our classes. There is nothing better than a teacher with a huge welcoming smile ready to receive our little ones.

• Sense of joy and mutual encouragement. There are multiple fingers to our efforts - and we are seeing God move. However, let us guard against allow our responsibilities or challenges to rob us of the pure joy of serving these little ones.  We are fulfilling the great commission in what we are doing (Matthew 28:19-20) and Christ point blank said we need to become like children to enter heaven (Matthew 18:3-4).

Next Teacher Update: December 5, same time and place.

October 3, 2010 Brief Meeting

Short Teachers Meeting

After AM Services, October 3

Classroom Management

1. Classroom management / expectations reduces behavior distractions and allows for effective learning.
2. Classroom management in schools varies from room to room, but children are there for long periods of time.
3. Our children are not here nearly as long, and have different people each time.
4. I believe we need a common management system that provides rewards, consequences, and allows us to track attendance.
5. I believe we need a common “get quiet” signal.
6. Requirements:

    + Simple - must be easily taught.
    + Consistent - able to be used by many people.

ACTUAL MEETING NOTE

Had really good attendance... good discussion for the amount of time we had. There seemed to be a general agreement that the common classroom management idea would be helpful. It seemed to be best to give some time to think and pray about it.

Work Day

1. Organize curriculum so we know what we have, what we are doing, and what we need to get.
2. Paint classrooms primary colors.
3. Possible Dates: November 20, December 4, December 11

ACTUAL MEETING NOTE

A work day needed. Painting the rooms got head nods - just so the kids don’t feel so “temporarily placed” in class. Dates will be offered at our next “short teacher meeting” to be held in about a month.

Workshop

1. Professional development is critical in schools.
2. I believe that helping attention deficit children learn the best they can is an important topic.
3. Possible Dates: February 26, March 12, March 19, March 26

ACTUAL MEETING NOTE

Suggestions for the teacher’s workshop included:

Helping kids with attention issues learn.

Breaking down Bible concepts into pieces that children can understand.

Rusty will work on developing a date in the spring.

WE WILL HAVE ANOTHER BRIEF MEETING LIKE THIS IN A MONTH. THIS SEEMS TO BE THE BEST WAY TO EFFECTIVELY COMMUNICATE AT THIS TIME.

Next 15 Minute Teacher Meeting
November 7, 10 minutes after last amen in Room 102