A Teacher’s First Experience with Young Sunday School Students
Motivating young children isn’t easy. Especially in a Sunday school that occurs once a week.
This is the first year I took on the challenge of teaching students both Qur’anic Studies and Islamic Studies. In this post I would like to focus on the tactics I use and have been taught from elders on how to get my young Qur’anic Studies students interested in their work. the group of twelve consists of students mostly ages 5-9.
Every child is different, and this goes without saying. Some love attention and others are more shy. This is something I came in to class knowing. However knowing and experiencing kids’ personalities in real life are two different things.
During my first few weeks, I observed my students and became accustomed to their personalities. They would want to play games all the time–hangman and jeopardy, with categories relevant to class of course, but with a “special” one too. Usually movies, sports, or books.
I’d split the class into boys and girls. Those have become our set teams for the year. However motivation to score points in order to be declared that Sunday’s winning team simply wasn’t enough.
I figured: Kids love candy.
Lollipops, Hershey kisses, and Smarties became the prize for the winning team for the next few weeks, but then I heard the dreadful words coming out of one of my student’s mouths.
“This is the candy class!”
A label I was neither satisfied with or proud of.
The next week, I made sure to cut down the candy. I bought colorful markers to use on the board and called up students to practice writing on it.
Right now, our curriculum has us focusing on the joining of letters to make words–their different forms and such. A fellow teacher gave me laminated cards I can use, each with an Arabic letter on it in a different form–what a particular letter looks like at the beginning, middle, and end of a word.
Bringing something a little different, creative, and hands-on like that keeps a child interested, rather than lecturing each week. So it’s definitely true what people say, “A little bit of effort goes a long way.” People do say that, right?
What do you do to keep your children/students motivated and interested in their subjects? Please share your experiences with us in the comment section below!
Category: Homeschooling 101
