Augustana Lutheran is moving to a new style of doing Sunday School for the 2009-10 school year: the Rotation Model. For 4-6 weeks at a time, youth will focus on a single Bible Story - using a different learning style each week. One week, they might act out the Bible story, the next week work through a computer program and yet another week create a piece of art. In this way, our youth really learn their Bible in depth - a focus on quality instead of quantity!

Here's how the Workshop Rotation Model Sunday School website explains it:

"Here's the Workshop Rotation Model in a nutshell: Teach major Bible stories and concepts through kid-friendly multimedia workshops: an Art workshop, Drama, Music, Games, A-V, Puppets, Storytelling, Computers, and any other educational media you can get your hands on. Teach the same Bible story in all of the workshops for four or five weeks rotating the kids to a different workshop each week. And here comes the extremely teacher friendly part: Keep the same teacher in each workshop for all five weeks -teaching the same lesson week after week (with some age appropriate adjustments) to each new class coming in. The results, says Linda Beckham, D.C.E. at Tampa's Palma Ceia Church are astounding. 'The kids love it, the teachers love it, and we can't ever imagine going back to the old way.'"

For more details, check them out at www.rotation.org

At Augustana the classes arae divided up into three groups: Preschool, K-3rd Grade and 4-6th Grade. The Junior High class will be following its own schedule, not based on the rotation model - and will include a major unit of visiting other churches and religious services throughout the year. If the classes become too large for this grouping, an advantage of this model is that it's very easy to adjust it!

The name of our curriculum is Spark. It's written by Augsburg Fortress, the publishing house for the ELCA - you can find more information about the program at their Activate Faith website!