Awana Forums

Welcome!  6-7 cubbies per leader is a lot  ideally the cubbies director is a supervisory role but just like the older clubs that doesn't always happen.  The est advice I can give you is to pray and ask God to send you one or 2 more leaders.  Ask parents of cubbies if possible.  Where are you going to move the table from?  I'mjust asking because maybe if the extra table won't be in the way you could just leave it there unless you are borrowin it from another classroom that will need it on sundays.

Talk to your commander and explain to him/her that it is a more cohesive learning enviroment if you participate in booktime.  Most Commanders want the club to run smoothly.  I think most directors on these forums will tell you that they do dual duty wearing both the directors cap and a leader cap.  Supervising chaos is not very productive use of your time but being part of a small group learning environment is better for the children and your leaders.  I agree with Alexandrite about the extra table.  Maybe the teacher that uses that class wouldn't mind it being there.

Another solution would be to have those children sitting on the floor play a game (with you supervising) while the other two groups are doing book time.  The first leader to get done would then switch kids with you.

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Romans 15:13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

I agree with what has been said. Another idea is to have them eat their snacks while the leaders go around to each kid and work individually with each clubber and the other kids are distracted by their snacks.

It worked for us last year (in sparks this year) and helps especially when short on leaders.

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Sparky leader for the AWESOME 1ST GRADE RED TEAM SPARKS!!!!!!!!
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"that's a really old.. CAR!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Thanks for your replies!  I have talked to my Commander about needing more leaders.  We are in the process of maybe finding a parent or two for that role. 

As for the table and chairs, they will have to be moved in from another classroom and would have to be moved in and out each week.  I have asked about splitting the Cubbies into two groups (3's and 4's) if we get more leaders.  By doing that, we could use another classroom and not have the issue of having enough tables and chairs.  Deifnitely praying for more leaders!  Some of our other clubs need more leaders, too.

I do like the idea of having one group play a game.  If moving a table in doesn't work out, I'll consider that option. Until we do have more leaders, I'll continue with taking a small group myself.

I certainly can sympathize with your problem.  Last week we had 28 (!) Cubbies.  Including me (director) there were 4 leaders, 2 volunteers and 1 secretary.  I would love to have at least one more leader.  I have thought about splitting the club, but we don't have the space.  We also don't have enough chairs.  I went to Toys R Us and bought some small plastic resin chairs until the church can buy sturdier replacements.  What we tried last week was as the Cubbies finished with their verses, the volunteers guided them to a designated area to play with puzzles and picture/activity books.  We have Play Time right after Book Time and I think instead of waiting for everyone to finish their verses before we go to the gym, once half have finished their verses we will take them to the game director.

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That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved - Romans 10:9

If during your book time, you're just listening to verses ... why do you need tables & chairs for everyone?

Last year, my group divided into 3 groups for this part of club. Each group had 4 kids - kids just sat on the floor at our feet.

Then we returned to tables/chairs for craft. I do prefer tables for that, but I've heard about some preK and Kindergarten teachers doing away with chairs, just having the kids stand at the tables to work. You can fit more kids to a table that way, since the chair legs usually angle out and take up more room.

If your craft time is just coloring (no glue!), kids could sit/lay on the floor with their papers on clipboards or large books (or just on the floor, if you have tile) to work.

Several years back, I had 25 PreK kids for Sunday School in a room so small that if I put in 25 chairs, you couldn't walk in the door! So I kept one table for anything that couldn't be done while sitting on the floor, ditched all the chairs except for mine, and we did everything from the floor. Kids this age are usually just as comfortable (perhaps more comfortable) on the floor rather than in chairs, so they were fine with this arrangement.  Sometimes it's harder for us grownups to think "outside the box"!

Tigmarflash, I agree that table and chairs can get in the way when you are dealing with limited space.  Handbook time is done with the kids on the floor.   However we have found that during story time they pay attention better when they are in chairs.  I may try craft time without chairs though.

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That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved - Romans 10:9

One thing we have done for the past several years is have craft time and book time at the same time, we will start crafts (one or two leaders) and then one leader will call one Cubbie at a time to another area of the room and do their book book. we averaged 10 cubbies and had three leaders, it seemed to work well for us.

 

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Mr. Wayne
Proverbs 22:6

If you are able to split into 2 groups I would highly recommend that you mix the 3's and 4's together.  Having the presence of older Cubbies helps greatly with the younger cubbies.  We have done it both ways.  When we had all 3 year olds together it was more difficult to manage them.  Now that we have the 2 ages together the night goes much more smoothly and the little ones can learn a bit from the older ones, and the older ones can be the big kids which helps them, too.

Just a thought. 

Also, we have similar situations where we have to change around a room and change it back every week.  It definitely makes the night longer, but there is no way around it. We just budget the time in and expect it every week.  One thing that has helped us is having the custodians set up the room for us-we made a room plan for them-so they can at least set up the room for us, then we take everything down and return it the way it needs to be for the next program.  We use to have a school in our church so everything had to be vacuumed, swept, and returned spotless weekly.  That was tough!

Hope you get the leaders you need, or that parents volunteer for you. I'm a director and also the secretary.  So I think there are alot of people that have dual roles in AWANA programs.

Julie, in IL

We do book time a little different in our club.  We have on average 24-28 Cubbies, all in the same room.  We do have lots of help though.  We generally have 7 leaders that help during book time.  We do book time as they come in.  We have three stations set up with listeners and as the Cubbies check in they funnel in to one of the listeners.  After they are finished they go on into our coming in time activities.  This is the second year we have done it this way and it has worked very well for us.  We originally did it later in the night as groups but have found that this runs much smoother.

Jones0615,

Do most of your Cubbies work on their verses at home?  We do Book Time after Story Time.  I think it is especially helpful for the Cubbies that don't get a chance to study at home.

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That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved - Romans 10:9

Dividing clubbers into Handbook Groups with at least 2 leaders for each group is a worthy goal to try and achieve. We maintianed a maximum of no more than 4-6 clubbers per group. If more clubbers joined, we would begin another handbook group. As a Director, I was involved in these mostly to assist when a leaders was absent or we had extra clubbers during the club night. Handbook groups are ideal for working with your clubbers reciting and also doing activity. Staying in one room the full night can be most difficult with that age group without some changes in the format and location.

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We do have great parent participation in our Club.  I also send an e-mail each week that includes the verse and a general sumery of the story for the next week along with Club news.  We have also used the refrigerator reminders to send home with our Cubbies.  Most all of them know the verse when they come in, if not we work with them, understanding that not all parents are as envolved as we would like them to be.

We have used carpets instead of chairs.  3 ideas: 

Have a larger carpet or blanket, sheet, for each group-Cubbies must stay on the carpeted area during book time.

Go to a carpet store and ask for their samples.  They are small rectangular carpet pieces and each Cubbie has his/her own carpet to sit on.

We have used sitting on carpet for story time with no problems, but have used a long strand of colored ribbons to sit on that matches your colored team.  We talk about how "Mr. Ribbon" likes to lay still on the carpet and not be bothered.  So we don't pick him up or twist him, we just let him lay still. 

 

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