With all of the energy and work we pour into each week of curriculum at Starting Blocks, one of our greatest hopes is that you as parents are engaging with your children each Sunday about what they learned in class that day. You may not be aware, however, of how those Sunday lessons fit together or of all the great things those lessons are teaching your kids. Here are some of the questions we get often and a general overview of our mission and purpose for each and every lesson we teach your children.
What Curriculum Do We Use in Starting Blocks?
Our curriculum is called The Big Picture and was written by our staff here at Watermark. The original version was written about twelve years ago, but it has been completely updated and reorganized within the past two years.
What is the Goal of The Big Picture?
The goal of our curriculum in Starting Blocks is to give preschoolers a solid foundation of Bible knowledge by the time they reach elementary age. We cover 50 major Bible stories on an annual cycle. The same cycle of stories is repeated each year as a child moves up through our classes. Each successive year adds different activities and additional depth and application of the story. A child who goes all the way through Starting Blocks will go through this cycle three to four times.
How is it All Put Together?
The individual stories are now organized chronologically from Creation (on Promotion Sunday in August) through Revelation (at the end of May). This school year schedule is supplemented with summer units on the Parables of Jesus, Serving Others, and additional Old Testament stories.
Using the chronology of the Scriptures, the curriculum emphasizes to preschoolers the big picture of the story that God is telling in the Bible. The connections from one story to the next as well as how each story fits in The Big Picture are new aspects to this curriculum. Our desire is for preschoolers to not only have a solid knowledge of the key stories of the Bible but also an understanding of how they all fit together.
Teaching truths drawn from the Scripture are presented with each week’s lesson. As God’s Story unfolds through the year, those truths are repeated again and again. For example, starting with Creation, preschoolers hear about God’s plan to rescue the world from sin, and then at Christmas that Jesus was the Promised One who rescues us from sin. Finally, in Revelation they learn that God’s plan for rescuing us includes a wonderful place called heaven.
Parents Play the Most Important Part
Though we believe we are teaching your preschoolers great lessons here on Sundays, we know that our part in the discipleship of children is very limited. Your part as parents is the critical one. Our goal is to set you up for success! That is why we provide the Starting Blocks Playbook as a resource for parents every week. The Playbook includes a summary of the week’s story along with activities you can do to reinforce the lesson at home. You can find the Playbook every Sunday on this blog or sign up to receive it as a weekly email.
We hope your kids love coming to Starting Blocks classes each Sunday and we pray that what they learn here helps to build a foundation of faith in each of their lives.