A breakdown of Wednesday night
Ten minutes until class starts.
8am class.
Yup.
That's me.
On campus by 7am.
Coffee by 7:30am.
Class by 8am.
Look at me bein' all studious and early-riser like.
The buses start back up at the church tonight. That means my nice, quiet, easy Wednesday night services will come to an abrupt end as dozens of under-loved over-stimulated children come flooding through the doors of my building.
*Whew*
It's a bit overwhelming.
But... the chaos will hopefully only continue for another month or so, at which time, our new "program" should be ready to start.
We're having people in our church act as "church parents" for our bus kids. As soon as they get off the bus, the "church parents" will greet them, sign them in, get them their name tags, ask them about their week, and play games/color with them. They will do this for the first 15 minutes of classtime. Then the "Parents" will go back up to the service. Throughout the service, if one of the kids is misbehaving - instead of having them sit on the gym stage or sending them home - they will go sit with their church parent in the service.
Sound like a good plan? I think so.
The other change that will be coming in February is that we will be breaking the extra-large group down into grades and rotating them among three stations.
There will be a "lesson time" station, a "creative time" station, and a "chow time" station (for snacks). 1st and 2nd graders will rotate together. 3rd and 4th graders will rotate together. And 5th and 6th graders will rotate together.
So... here is how the Wednesday night schedule will go.
7:00-7:15 : Church parents
7:20-7:40 : Rotation 1
7:45-8:05 : Rotation 2
8:10-8:30 : Rotation 3
8:30-8:35 : Load the buses by grade.
Sounds nice and organized, doesn't it?
Hehe... ok... well... I'm off to my EARLY class.
I just hope I can stay awake.
Peace Out.