As I’m putting together starter kits for Accessible prayer, Divine Liturgy, and Church/Sunday school (or home Christian education), I have decided to print up a few of the lesson aids that I have used in the past with different age groups. This one is for younger kids. As I have mentioned before, usually when I do story sequences, I print some of the readily available free or low cost Bible art from one of the great online illustration projects like those on Free Bible Images (not affiliated, but I have found some of their sequences useful). If you want to add sequencing to your Sunday school routine, just print out the images of that week’s story and have the children put them in order as you tell it. For this sample lesson aid, I have included a sequence set made in Boardmaker and shared freely with their permission.

The Pictoral Language in This Set

The particular set I’m sharing here uses the language symbols in speech output devices in order to form a bridge for children who are learning visual language in the rest of their lives. This sequence activity looks more like regular school or therapy sequences, so it helps for generalizing early skills.

The Cut Out Activity in This Set

The second part of the activity helps children to remember that the women disciples of the Lord whom we hear about during Holy Week and the Paschal/Easter season were His disciples all along. When Jesus fed the 5,000 and had the disciples help distribute the loaves and fishes, the women disciples helped to feed the women and children, as the men disciples fed the men. Children can work on gluing or taping loaves and fishes into the hands of the men and women disciples as take-home activities.

What Else Would You Need for a Full Lesson?

Use This Universal Accessible Church School Group Plan for a Pattern

In addition to visual aids for story sequencing (especially helpful when some of the students have short working memory challenges) and the craft that could be used at the next part of class or as a take-home, the best practice would be to ACT OUT THE STORY in class. When you use a visual sequence, it’s a very short precursor to acting out the story. You will therefore be reading and hearing the Gospel at least two to three times in class, once with the sequencing (or twice, depending on abilities) and once as you act it out along with references to saints’ lives and church customs and prayers. The acting out could be done by children sitting as the 5,000 men plus women and children, acting out Jesus’ thanksgiving, breaking, and distributing the food, standing with Jesus to receive bread and fishes (made out of felt, for instance), and gathering scraps into baskets. Use cloth pieces or play silks to dress up as the disciples or Jesus or the people being fed. As you act out the story, point out/help the children notice that this food was already cooked! It’s not like just making plants grow, which God also does. God can miraculously make more of what is already provided. You can remind the children of the Artoklasia service (the Blessing of the Five Loaves) if your parish celebrates it, and how we keep this tradition in gratitude for God’s kindness when we experience abundance. It’s also a good time to bring up related saints’ lives of generous saints, like Saint Brigid of Ireland. Saint Brigid (February 1st) was known for her devotion to God and her generosity even when she was a child. When the poor would beg for butter from her mother’s dairy, Brigid would give it away freely, and God would miraculously replace whatever butter Brigid gave away. If you do this lesson during a penitential season, you can make sure that as the children act out the story that you tell them that this is why we also give from whatever we have, even if it’s one meal, because God will increase whatever we give freely to help people.

End your lesson time by being the bee!

What other needs do your Sunday school students need accommodating? Let me know, and I will answer with more resources! Thank you!

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