Join Lynne as she shares the importance of repetition in learning and gives you ideas for how Wonder Ink can be used all week long!
Using Wonder Ink Multiple Times Each Week
We are going to talk today about tips for using Wonder Ink in multiple services a week. And I don’t know about the rest of you, but I know that this is a big time for camps, VBS, family fun days, and all the fun summer events. But we also are thinking about the fall, back to school time, fall kickoffs, and midweek programming. And so, this is the perfect time to start thinking about and planning how you’re going to use Wonder Ink for multiple services a week.
Now some people are using it for Sunday School and Children’s Church on the same day, and some people are using Wonder Ink for their Sunday programming and their Wednesday night or midweek programming (or maybe Sunday night). So, I’m going to give you some tips, but I first want to start by saying that you can most definitely use one Wonder Ink lesson in multiple services. And we do have a lot of users who are doing this, and they’ve shared tips with us.
We have some blog posts about it. We also have several threads in our Wonderfilled Facebook group with tips and ideas for how other people are doing it.
But the biggest thing you need to know is Wonder Ink is customizable, so you can tweak it to make it work for you. What works for one church may not work for your church, but there are lots of different ways that you can customize it. And so, we’re going to share some tips.
Repetition is Good for Learning
The first thing that I want to talk about is the fact that repetition in children’s ministry is a good thing.
So, a lot of times we might think, “Oh, the kids are going to hear the same Bible story two times in one week. They’re going to get bored or they’re not going to like it or they’re not going to learn anything.”
However, studies show that repetition is a key learning method for kids. And that’s one of the ways that they actually do internalize what they’re hearing is when they hear it multiple times in multiple different ways. So do not feel like the kids are not getting as much out of it if they’re hearing the same story in Sunday school and children’s church or in children’s church and Wednesday nights or Sunday night or however your church does it.
Studies show that repetition is a key learning method for kids.
With Wonder Ink, you can teach each Bible story in multiple different ways. And there are plenty of different activities available to stretch it between two services.
Not only are the lessons editable, but you can make multiple copies of the same lesson in the portal for different services. You can have unlimited number of copies. When you go into the portal, you can have a lesson called Sunday Children’s Church, and then you make a copy of it, and then name it Midweek Lesson or Sunday Night, or whatever you want to call it.
You can copy the lesson multiple times and name it whatever is most helpful for you. You can also edit things however you want. One of the ways that you could do it is maybe on Sundays, you do the opening activity, the curiosity activity, and then you do worship.
We have several different options of time limits for the lessons. So, the 75-minute lesson is the full lesson, everything is included. We also have a 60-minute version in the portal. So if you click the 60 minutes, then that is already cut down for you, so you don’t have to decide which things to include. And then we also have a 30-minute version. So you can use the 30-minute version, the 60-minute version, or the 75. Or you just start with the 75 so you see everything, and then you cut out the things that you don’t want to use for that lesson.
Start with your 75-minute lesson, and you could do the opening activity, the worship, and then the Bible story.
Hear It, Watch It, Experience It
Keep in mind that we do recommend three different ways for kids to experience the Bible story to really help it stick with them. We have a Hear It, Watch It, and Experience It strategy for the Bible story teaching.
Hear It includes the kids opening a Bible, and they’re learning how to look up verses, about the context, and things like where the gospels are, who wrote them, and things like that. So, they’re opening a Bible, reading from the Bible, hearing it read aloud from a Bible, and then they’re watching it on a video.
You could maybe red it from the Bible and watching it on the video on Sundays, and then they’re also experiencing it through a live interactive Bible teaching script. So, maybe you do your Experience It on Wednesday nights. So, they’re getting that Bible story multiple different ways in multiple different methods each time.
If you add a few more worship songs with the average kid’s worship song being about three to three and a half minutes, you just add a few more, and then you’ve got 10 to 15 even more minutes added to your children’s service. So, you could do worship on Sundays and different activities on Wednesdays, such as your Word of Wonder activity. And then you could do small group time on Sundays, and then your worship response on Wednesdays. There are tons of different options.
There are small group questions. There are preteen activities. We have early childhood lessons. So, some churches actually pull the craft out of the early childhood lesson, and they do crafts on Wednesday nights. Or one of the churches said that they have an art teacher who comes up with a craft every Wednesday for the kids to do.
You could also add in things like an offering time or a mission’s moment, so that the kids get to take it one step further. And then, there’s also some bonus games that you can add in. So, those are not even included in your 75 minutes. Those are the elementary bonus games.
You can pull those and throw those into your Wednesday night program to up the energy, which is especially fun on a Wednesday night after kids have been in school all day, get some up and moving. And then there are also worship response activities that you can use. Now, if you want to, if you like those types of activities, like the interactive prayer stations and spiritual disciplines for kids, you can actually pull some of those out of our Wonder At Home sheets for the parents.
We have weekly Wonder At Homes, and we have a series Wonder At Home pages, that you can pull some of those worship response and spiritual practices out and add those into your service, too. That would be a great thing for Wednesday night. And then adding in worship as well can add a lot to it, adding in your crafts from your early childhood lesson.
Wonder Ink’s 3-year, 52-week children’s ministry curriculum offers kids space to fully find their place in God’s Big Story. Children discover they are Known by God, Loved by Jesus, and Led by the Holy Spirit.
Wonder Ink’s 3-year, 52-week children’s ministry curriculum offers kids space to fully find their place in God’s Big Story. Children discover they are Known by God, Loved by Jesus, and Led by the Holy Spirit.
We also have a toddler lesson, if you want to do that with your preschoolers, maybe on Wednesday nights. So there are lots of different ways that you can do this, but there are two different videos as well. We have an elementary version of the Bible story video and an early childhood version. So, some churches have done the elementary version on Sundays and the early childhood on Wednesdays. Like I said, some are splitting up the teaching methods and using the videos for one service and the live teaching for the other.
So, there are lots of great options. And then we also have coloring pages, printables, and activities that you can use. We also have a Bible story picture. One church said that they print the Bible story picture and then have the kids hold it up and retell the Bible story themselves for one of the services. So, there are tons of ways that you can use the lessons, lots of ways to stretch out. We have 75 minutes on there, but anyone who’s been in children’s ministry knows that depending on your conversations with kids and the discussions and the activities, there are so many ways to make the activities fill more time and be intentional rather than just being time fillers or free time or just fluff.
Letting the kids have a strategic time where they’re connecting with one another and responding to God through worship and prayer. It’s just a really great opportunity for you for your Wednesday or your midweek services. Look at the lessons, decide how you want to split them up.
Curiosity, Belief, Faith, Identity
There are four sections in every lesson. There’s Curiosity, which is your opening time, getting them excited, STEM experiments, activities, and things like that. Then there’s the Belief section, which is your worship, prayer, and Bible story teaching. That’s the depth. That also includes them learning a memory verse. Next there’s your Faith section, which is your small group time. So, there’s small group questions and activities and prayer times. And then the last section is your Identity section where the kids are applying what they’re learning and connecting with God through worship response and a blessing.
The For Leaders page also includes Foundations, which is Bible background.
So, some churches are using this section with preteens, because they go a little bit more in depth on the Bible story and take the kids one step further. So, you can use those with your kids during maybe their small group time, asking them some questions. One of the churches said that they were using journals and letting each kid journal about the wonder truth each week and how God is working in their lives. There are tons of resources and different ways to edit and customize these lessons.
But we want to hear from you, too. If you are using the Wonder InK lessons in multiple different services, why don’t you leave a comment with [email protected] and let us know how you’re doing it and what ideas or questions you have. We’d love to hear from you.
Thanks for watching. We will be back again next time to talk about the next series that’s coming up, which is the Known, Loved, Led lesson.
