•      “I enjoyed teaching God and Me. Excellent curriculum! We made a giant game board for the review and used parents and pastor for game pieces. It was fun!” – Mobile, AL Click here to see a photo
   

•      Dakota recently “caught up” to his older brothers Doug and Dalton and received his God and Me award. But being the last one in the family to make a GAMEBOX, everyone had already played the board game and knew the answers to all the questions. So Dakota made up his own set of questions. Click here to see pictures of their game board and to read their “homemade” questions.
   

•      I added a weekly memory verse for Rebecca to learn. She also made a “God and Me” bead bracelet. (See Photo at right.)
   

•      The memory game (Section 1) went over especially well. We used animal stickers instead of drawing.

•      We had 5 meetings that allowed us to spend 8 hours together on this program. Each child’s mentor was present. The children couldn’t wait to share with each other the activities they had done with their family and/or mentor.

•      Memory game (Section 1) – I took a headshot picture of each participant and made matching cards (i.e. Son and Father, the two made a match). They liked seeing their pictures.

•      We role-played the Christmas Story (Section 2).

•      A silver tray with the items from Section 3 “I Can Talk with God.” I used as many actual items as possible and pictures for the ones I could not get miniatures for (i.e. Doll mini’s for TV, computer, phone, and full size tape, CD, stamp, pen, etc.). I placed the tray with all the items on the table for 30 seconds and then we played the game.

•      We placed paper footsteps all over the room to make our PATH (Section 3).

•      We played a game of true/false using some of the questions from the last game. I would read a statement and the children would go to either the true corner or the false corner. It was interesting to see if they followed each other or made their own decisions.

•      I liked the prayer hand with the meanings for each finger (from the Mentor Workbook). I copied it and gave it to our den leader to use as a craft for the kids to make.

•      We took a break for a very active physical event. We had the boys run back and forth across the field to gather strips of paper that when assembled on a page was the “Lord’s Prayer” – a study item as well as a keepsake.

•      We drew the last game (Section 4), a board game, on the back of the game box. All we have to do is turn the game box over to play it. Since it is a hard surface, we don’t have to worry about finding a place to play.

•      We require mission projects from our God and Country participants. They may design their own or choose one of the following: collect coats and men’s clothing for homeless men, collect jars of peanut butter for homeless families, collect diapers for homeless babies.

•      My mom and I are getting the games laminated and I am giving them to the church because they are fun and I think other kids and adults will enjoy playing them.

•      I designed bookmarks for the shut-in people of my church and to give away to the congregation on my God and Me ceremony day.

•      We asked our students to read the “Songs of Praise” that they had written on page 8 during the worship service.

•      We incorporated attendance and church helping activities into the requirements.

•      We toured different churches and looked at their stained glass windows.

•      We offered the God and Me class as part of the Lenten Bible Study time for adults. The kids were in their own room while the adults held their own class. Both groups enjoyed that.

•      We had one first grader in a class with second and third graders. It was difficult for her to keep up. I asked her mom to attend. It went much better after that.

•      We want to slow down and take more time with the God and Me program. Since each lesson presents two different Bible stories, the next time we offer the program, we will take twice as long, i.e., we will teach only one Bible story at each class session and meet for eight times instead of four.

•      I thought it very helpful to have more curriculum than we needed. It was helpful to have choices -–the boys differed developmentally and I was able to adjust to their needs. The gamebox idea was fun!

•      One suggestion would be to add a simple crossword puzzle, word search, maze, or "what is wrong with this picture" at the end of chapter so the faster children have something to do while the others caught up.

•      Our church has a Wednesday evening children’s program. I led the lessons for the God and Me program over a nine-week period. There were 14 students in the class with three being Girl Scouts and one a Boy Scout.

•      Our students already knew the Lord’s Prayer, so we substituted the 23^rd Psalm.

•      For our Song of Praise we made instruments (drums) and then drummed out praises.

•      Our opening exercise for Lesson 2, we had a big box all wrapped. The person who unwrapped it discovered many individually wrapped gifts inside and then shared them with the others. We emphasized that when we have gifts, we share, and that Jesus is our most treasured gift to be shared with others.

•      I did add a lot of color (via computer graphics run on colored cardstock/paper) to the games. I added magnifying glasses as props to hunt for the sheep and stickers to use to help listen for names for Jesus in Bible passages.

•      We invited the Bishop to our last class for the children to show what they learned and be interviewed. They played the games and had refreshments.

•      Two of the five kid/parent teams were unchurched families. This was their first exposure to religion and Christian values together through scouting. We are in Seoul, Korea and are excited to use this curriculum to reach unchurched youth AND parents.

•      Our boys are really into crafts, not games. Our timing was close to Easter so we chose Christian Easter crafts to go with each lesson.

•      I think that an opportunity to accept Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior should be put into Section 2.

•      Because the children read the Bible lessons at home, it was boring to read them again in class, so I went to our local Christian supply store and bought story books to read aloud. The kids liked this better.

•      We made prayer rocks that children could keep on their pillows to remind them to say their prayers at night.

•      We went on morning prayer walks and read the Bible together every morning before the bus came to pick him up for school. It was a special time for us.

•      I wear my God and Me charm as a constant reminder for me to continue to be an example of Christ to my sons.

 These were the ideas that were submitted to P.R.A.Y. To read other comments about how children and parents responded to the program, click here.