I have taught in Sunday schools/junior church/VBS etc. for 11 years! And, I have tried a variety of methods for lesson planning, but below, I will show you the fastest, most comprehensive and efficient way I have found that works for me!
I am a pretty goal-oriented person, so I love being able to check off to-do lists, fill-in blanks, and keep records of what I have been able to accomplish. This is the method behind the madness of creating this Lesson Planning Template to hopefully help you not only be able to organize your thoughts in one place, but to also provide you a spot to check off your to-dos, and keep a record of all your lessons in case you ever need to look back or repeat one!
This is also the ultimate brain-storming sheet to help you bust out those late-night, last-minute preparations!
- The first thing I like to do is write down what day I’m teaching, what age group I am teaching, and how much time needs to be filled. These are important questions to ask yourself: first, because you need to know how much time you have to prepare, who your audience is (so that the lesson is on their level – not too simple or not too complicated), and secondly, it helps you determine how long you should teach/how many other activities you need to include.
- When you have answered these questions, it’s time to stop and pray for God to lead and guide your lesson planning time! Pray for your students, pray for good ideas, pray for strength, pray for wisdom, and pray for safety! Stopping for prayer only takes a second, and it never hurts!
- Thirdly, I like to figure out the topic of my lesson or the takeaway. In other words, when class is over, what thought/concept/idea do I want to stick out in the children’s mind? Honesty? Forgiveness? Trust? Kindness? Write it down! You should be able to summarize this in a single word or sentence!
This will help keep your lesson content, memory verse, and activities centered around one main goal. Keeping a unified idea or goal throughout your lesson will not only make your time with the kiddos more effective, but it will keep you organized and focused as a teacher. Too many ideas or just one vague concept will create a confusing lesson.
- Once you have the main object of your lesson in place, you can jump right into preparing your lesson! If you already have a Bible story or other kind of story in mind, jot that down! Or, if you are not sure what story would best exemplify the takeaway concept, start consulting your Bible concordance, Google, or Pinterest for ideas – there are so many good ones out there! Also, keep an eye out for new lesson and memory verse ideas on my Blog here and my Pinterest page here! Lots more lesson planning cheat sheets are rolling out weekly!
Pro Tip: A good guideline for length of a lesson or activity is to shoot for about one minute of attention per age of the student. So, if your student is five years old, plan on only having about 5 minutes of attention before you need to change up the activity. If you are teaching a ten year old, you may only need about ten minutes of lesson material! Time will speed by in a lesson, so whether you’re writing out your lesson word for word, creating an outline, using notecards, or telling a story from memory, find what works best for you so that you make every minute count!
- After you have a lesson fleshed out, the next question to ask yourself is if you are going to need any visual aids or props to support what you are saying. Great ideas I have used in the past are flashcards, flannel-graph, costumes, and stuffed animals – it all just depends on your teaching style and the children’s ages.
- When you have your lesson and visual aids finished up, then you can start working on the fun stuff! Choosing a memory verse from here should be simple – you can either choose one from the scripture passages you used to prepare for your lesson or use this cheat sheet that I have created to pick a memory verse that corresponds to the object of your lesson!
- Next, check out my article here to find some memory verse games that work great for any age group! I love playing memory verse games because they reinforce the lesson, help children to hide the Scripture in their heart, and are a super profitable way to spend the remainder of class time!
- If you think you will have enough time for other activities, you can decide whether or not to do a craft, sing some songs, add in an object lesson (like a science experiment – tons can be found from Google or Pinterest), play a game, or share a snack! I definitely recommend planning for more activities than you think you’ll have time for – this will ensure you have enough supplies as well as things to keep your busy students occupied in case things don’t go as planned! One of my favorite games is an original one called Choices which you can read about here!
- Once you have written down all of your ideas, don’t forget to make a list of supplies you may need to buy/bring! Here is a Sunday School Checklist Template for you to use for this!
And, now, you are all done! Your lesson is written out and organized, you have chosen a topic to teach on, you have activities all planned, and a list created so that you don’t forget anything the day of! Great work – now you can sit back, relax, knowing your lesson is organized and complete!
If you’ve found this article helpful, please like and comment below! Also, subscribe for tons more lesson planning ideas, materials, and printables coming soon. What is your favorite way to create a lesson – writing it out word for word? Outline? Notecards? I would love to hear from you below!
You can also find all of these free templates at our Free Shop here under the categories “Organization” and “Posters & Visual Aids.”
For more lesson helps, including How to Fill an Hour of Sunday School Time and tips if you’re New to Being a Sunday School Teacher as well as tons of other guides, inspiration, and resources check out my blog page here!
