Multi Age Bible Lessons: Adapting Curriculum for Your Mixed Age Sunday School (or Homeschool!)

Struggling to find the right Bible curriculum for your mixed age Sunday School class? If you feel discouraged and defeated and as if you’ll NEVER find multi age Bible lessons for your one room Sunday School, try these 3 simple tips for adapting curriculum to suit your mixed age group! This is the perfect children’s Sunday School curriculum solution for small churches with multiple ages in one classroom. Scroll down to read the tips!

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Multi age Bible lessons are hard to find

Discouraged because you just can’t find Sunday School lessons for multiple ages?

Frustrated because no curriculum properly fits your one room Sunday School?

Or perhaps your problem is that you want to teach at home, but you can only find Bible lessons for children’s ministry.

I know the struggle.

I’ve always been a part of small churches with mixed age Sunday School classes. And as I’ve searched online for multi age Sunday School curriculum, I’ve realized that very few resources are designed specifically for one room Sunday School classes.

It truly is discouraging!

Ultimately, I’d love to create some multi age Sunday School lessons that are perfectly designed for the unique challenges of teaching Sunday School for mixed ages.

But in the meantime, I’ll share a few practical tips for teaching a mixed age group at church or at home.

These tips all focus on ADAPTING Sunday School lessons for multiple ages. So whether you’re a teacher of a one room Sunday School at a small church, or you’d like to teach the Bible to a mixed age group of kids at home, these tips will help you know how to adapt normal Bible lessons for mixed ages.

Adapting Sunday School lessons for mixed ages

Instead of feeling like your multi age Sunday School is a constant challenge, you’ll realize that you actually have a remarkable opportunity to personalize each Bible lesson you teach. You’ll know exactly how to tweak your lessons for a mixed age group. And your kids will respond to the individualized instruction!

And instead of feeling constantly discouraged about your multi age Sunday School, you’ll feel excited and full of anticipation for the next lesson!

Plus, you’ll be able to make curriculum work for YOU, instead of frequently skipping over or throwing out curriculum because it just isn’t well-suited for your small, mixed age group Sunday School class.

3 easy tips for teaching multi age Bible lessons

If you’re looking for a solid Bible curriculum to start with, I’d recommend the ABC Sunday School curriculum from Answers in Genesis. It is biblically sound, creative, and thorough. And of course, it comes from a company that I personally love and trust and frequently purchase from myself. Learn more about the ABC Sunday School curriculum–and download a free month of sample lessons, too!

Or for more options, check out this list of Bible curriculums for a “one room” multi-age class.

After you’ve purchased a curriculum to use as your basic framework, begin to apply the ideas I’ve listed below to adapt your Bible lessons for multiple ages. There are definitely more fun one room Sunday School ideas, but hopefully these three tips will get you started!

1) Include all the kids in your mixed age Sunday School

When you teach multi age Bible lessons, you have a unique opportunity that teachers of large classes don’t have–you can purposefully include every single child.

You have the chance to engage each kid in your class–both the older and the younger.

Simply think through your lesson ahead of time and note the moments when it’s appropriate to include various children! Have a Scripture verse to read? Instead of reading it yourself, ask one of the older kids to do it. Using a stuffed animal as a visual aid? Invite your preschooler to hold the stuffed animal for you.

These simple things don’t take much extra work on your part (if any). But your children will love getting the chance to be involved. You’ll find it’s easier to keep them interested and engaged when they’re involved. And they’ll remember the lesson even better!

So take advantage of your small class size and your mixed age group, and involve the kids as much as you possibly can.

2) Personalize your mixed age Bible lesson

Again, this is something that a teacher of a large class simply can’t do. But when you have just a few kids in a small mixed age Sunday School, you have the chance to make each Bible lesson personal.

Snatch moments throughout your lessons to ask questions and get to know your kids. Know what your eight-year-old thinks is funny. Know which character issue your twelve-year-old struggles with. Know whether your two-year-old prefers dolls or trucks. Then work that knowledge into your lessons.

Instead of teaching generic Bible lessons, personalize your lessons to your multiple age group.

Use the humor that your eight-year-old loves in the middle of your lesson. Make reference to how this lesson applies to the issue your twelve-year-old struggles with. Use a truck instead of a doll as your visual aid or illustration.

Instead of complaining about the limitations of your mixed age Sunday School, embrace the opportunities to make your multi age Bible lessons personal. Your kids will be even more interested in your lessons. And as a result, you’ll increase your odds of making a real impact in their lives.

3) Tweak activities in your Sunday School for mixed ages

The most overwhelming aspect of adapting Sunday School curriculum for multiple ages? How to adapt activities for a mixed age group.

Some activities seem impossible to do with a small group of kids. But you can try a couple of things to make the written activities “doable” for your mixed age Sunday School class:

• Use time challenges. This is a good tweak for Bible games or activities intended to be competitions between two large groups or teams of kids. If you don’t have enough kids to make two teams, try a time challenge instead. Let the entire group work together to complete the activity in a race against the clock.
• Compete against yourselves. This idea is very similar to the first. If you don’t have enough kids for completing the activity as written, let the kids compete against themselves. Give them a chance to complete the whole activity. Then do it again–except challenge them to do it better or faster the second time.
• Participate personally. Get in there and do activities together with your kids! If you have assistants or volunteers, encourage them to do it too. You gain extra people for the activity, and your kids will LOVE that you’re playing with them.

Adapting Sunday School lessons for multiple ages can be easy

If you’re discouraged because you just can’t find multi age Bible lessons, I pray that you found these tips helpful.

You might not be able to find Sunday School curriculum for mixed age groups, but you can certainly tweak them so that they are suitable for your one room Sunday School class or homeschool Bible time or anywhere else you teach Bible lessons for mixed ages.

Remember that your mixed age Bible lessons are an opportunity more than a challenge. And instead of throwing out the curriculum, make it work for you and your class.

• Include the kids.
• Personalize.
• Tweak activities.

And have fun “passing the faith along” to your kiddoes! 😀