Oh my god you guys. I volunteered to help with Sunday school ONE TIME because they were desperate and now somehow I'm the person who shows up every week to wrangle a bunch of seven-year-olds who apparently consumed nothing but pixie sticks for breakfast. Last Sunday I walked into class and immediately knew I was screwed. My carefully planned lesson about Daniel and the lion's den? Took exactly four minutes. FOUR. These kids colored faster than I thought was humanly possible and then just... stared at me. Waiting.
And I still had like twenty-five minutes left before the parents came back.
So if you're like me and somehow got roped into this and have no idea what you're doing, here are some things that have prevented complete chaos in my classroom. Most of the time.
The freeze thing saved my life
I don't know who taught me this but FREEZE is magic. Kids are climbing on tables, fighting over crayons, one kid is licking the wall for some reason - just yell FREEZE and they all stop like little statues.
Then you can say literally anything. "Everyone wearing sneakers jump three times." "If you know who Jesus is, touch your head." "Anyone who can see the color blue, sit down immediately."
I have no idea why this works but it does. Except for Mason who never listens to anything and just keeps doing whatever Mason does, but that's a Mason problem.
Last week I said "freeze like you're hiding from a big scary giant" and they all crouched down and it was the quietest my classroom has ever been. I almost cried from joy.
Bible telephone is insane
So you whisper a Bible story to one kid and they whisper it to the next kid and by the end it's completely bonkers. "Moses parted the red sea" becomes "Moses parted his red hair" or something equally ridiculous.
The kids think it's the funniest thing in the world when it gets messed up. Which is good because it ALWAYS gets messed up.
Yesterday "Jesus walked on water" somehow became "Jesus walked on a hamster." I don't even know how that happens but the kids were dying laughing.
I stopped trying to correct them. Just let the chaos happen. They're happy, they're thinking about Bible stories sort of, and nobody's having a meltdown. That's a win in my book.
Hand clapping because I'm desperate
You know that thing teachers do where they clap a pattern and kids clap it back? I can never remember actual patterns so I just make them up.
Clap clap stomp. Kids do it back. Clap stomp stomp clap. They copy that too. Sometimes I throw in some finger snaps or hand wiggles or whatever.
This kills SO much time and they love making noise. Plus their hands are busy so they're not poking each other or trying to eat markers.
Sometimes I pretend it's a Bible thing like "clap for Jesus" but honestly they just want to make noise and I'm not gonna stop them.
Musical chairs without the trauma
Regular musical chairs always ends with someone crying because they got out. I do not have the emotional bandwidth to deal with crying over chairs.
So now when the music stops they just have to sit down and yell out something from today's lesson. Or something they're thankful for. Or their favorite animal from Noah's ark. Whatever.
Nobody gets eliminated so nobody cries and I don't have to pretend to care about who won. Everyone's a winner or whatever.
I don't even use chairs anymore because moving furniture is work. They just sit on the floor when the music stops. So much easier.
Two truths and a lie but kids are bad at lying
I give them three things about a Bible person and they guess which one is fake. Like "Moses talked to a burning bush, Moses had a pet dinosaur, Moses led people out of Egypt."
The fake ones are always super obvious but kids love trying to figure it out anyway. And then they want to make up their own which is even better because then I don't have to think.
Their lies are usually something like "Jesus had blue skin" or "David fought a unicorn." But they're engaged and using their brains so mission accomplished I guess.
Charades but nobody knows how to act
Bible charades should be easy right? Wrong. These kids cannot act anything out without talking. So I just gave up and let them make sounds and talk and do whatever.
"Act out David fighting Goliath" - kid makes whooshing noises and throws invisible rocks. Good enough.
I wrote a bunch of easy Bible stories on pieces of paper and stuck them in a jar. Noah's ark, baby Jesus, Jonah and the whale. Stuff they actually know about.
Made it once six months ago and I'm still using the same papers. Half of them are probably missing or illegible by now but whatever. If they pick a paper that says "Mose" instead of "Moses" we'll figure it out.
Singing but I can't sing
I try to hum "Jesus Loves Me" and they guess what song it is. Problem is I cannot carry a tune to save my life so it sounds more like a dying whale than actual music.
But the kids think it's hilarious when I mess up. Sometimes they just start singing random songs and I pretend that was totally what I was humming. "Yes! You got it! I was definitely humming the Frozen song!"
Last week I attempted "This Little Light of Mine" and somehow it sounded like "Happy Birthday" and the kids just rolled with it. We sang Happy Birthday to Jesus. Sure. Why not.
Twenty questions about Bible people but kids ask weird stuff
I think of someone from the Bible and they ask yes or no questions to figure out who it is. Should be educational right?
Wrong. Kids ask the most random questions. "Did this person like chicken nuggets?" "Were they good at basketball?" "Did they have a pet hamster?"
I just say yes to everything now. Sure, David probably liked chicken nuggets. Moses was definitely good at basketball - have you seen him lead all those people? Of course Jesus had a pet hamster.
The kids don't care if it makes sense. They just like asking questions and I like not having to think of real answers.
Bible bingo but I'm lazy
Made bingo cards with random Bible words once. Jesus, cross, fish, love, sheep, whatever I could think of in five minutes.
During story time they mark off anything that gets mentioned. I've been using the same five cards for months because making new ones sounds exhausting.
Kids don't care that they've played with the same card before. They just like marking stuff off with crayons.
Prizes are whatever's in my purse. Fruit snacks, hair ties, loose stickers. Kids are not picky about prizes.
When I give up
Sometimes I just put on a Bible song and let them dance around for ten minutes. Call it worship time or movement prayer or whatever sounds educational.
Or I give them paper and crayons and call it reflection art. They draw whatever they want and I sit in the corner questioning my life choices.
I keep a deck of regular cards hidden in my bag for emergencies. Go Fish can kill twenty minutes easy and requires zero biblical knowledge.
The real truth
Nobody told me that volunteering for Sunday school meant becoming a professional chaos manager. I thought I'd read them a nice story about Jesus and they'd sit quietly and color and ask thoughtful questions.
Ha. Hahaha. HAHAHA.
These kids have the attention span of goldfish and the energy level of caffeinated squirrels. My carefully planned lessons get demolished in minutes and then I'm left standing there like "uh... who wants to play a game?"
But you know what? The kids don't care if I have no idea what I'm doing. They don't care if my games make no sense if I mess up the Bible stories or if I accidentally say Moses built the ark instead of Noah.
They just want someone to pay attention to them and not be boring. And apparently I am not boring, even when I'm panicking inside.
So if you're stuck in Sunday school too and wondering what the heck you signed up for, just remember: nobody expects you to be perfect. The kids certainly don't. They just want to have fun and not fall asleep.
And if all else fails, there's always freeze tag. Works every time.
