This spring, one of our full-day preschool classes spent time specifically learning about prayer. Katelyn Peterson, preschool teacher, shares the following:
As Lent was approaching, I wondered how we could incorporate fasting into our preschool routine. Since the concept of fasting is rather abstract for preschool minds, I decided to have the students sacrifice five minutes of playtime and replace it with five minutes of prayer time. We discussed a prayer topic and how to pray about that topic as a large group, then dispersed to pray privately to God for five minutes. We’ve talked about the throughline Image Reflecting and phrased it “being like Jesus.” Our main learning target for the Lent prayer unit was “I can be like Jesus by praying to God every day.”
After students felt comfortable in this routine, I thought it would be great for the 4th graders to come in and teach us a little bit about the fasting that they did earlier this school year. We decided to partner up as “prayer buddies.” In the first session, the preschoolers showed the 4th graders how we pray. During the next session, the 4th graders taught us how they pray. This experience has enriched the students’ prayer lives in both grade levels, and gave them an opportunity to build new relationships.
We also have a paper prayer chain hanging in our room. Each day after we pray, we add another piece to our chain. I write the prayer topic on each piece of paper so we can see what we’ve prayed about. The preschoolers have enjoyed counting how many pieces are in our chain, which represent the amount of days we have prayed together for Lent. To conclude the unit, we transformed the paper chain into the shape of a cross, so students can visually see the redemption aspect of God’s story. We plan to continue our partnership with fourth grade. It has been significant for my students and has provided the older kids a great learning opportunity as well!
Here at BCCS, faith journeys begin in preschool. Discovering the power of prayer is an important part of that experience!
