100 Best Ideas to Turbocharged your Preschool Ministry (15 page)

• Your check-in process is part of your preschool environment. Is it parent-friendly? Check-in should be fast, safe, and easy to do with a 3-year-old in tow.
  
• The height of the sinks and the size of the potties speak volumes to parents. We’ve found that parents also like it when we place the coat hooks at a level where their preschoolers can pick up their own coats. This may not seem like much, but little things go a long way with parents.
  
• A small side note on color: Be kid-friendly without being parent-repulsive. We use fun, bright colors but our preschool space never looks like McDonald’s. We always choose colors that are at least three or four shades away from primary colors. This way preschoolers still love the color scheme, but parents are attracted by it as well.
  

Keep it fresh.
An additional way to make your preschool environment appeal to parents is to make it fresh.
Let’s be honest, preschool ministry can easily become cluttered.
Keep your area organized and clutter-free.
Insist that the facility is clean.

Regularly go through the preschool rooms and toss out old games, torn books, broken toys, and the rest of the junk that can accumulate in a preschool environment.
Then replace all the old books, games, and toys with new ones.
Buy nice storage containers for all your preschool toys.
Constantly look for ways to freshen and tidy up.

Our preschool ministry environments must be kid-friendly.
After all, it’s for the kids.
But by applying these two principles—sweat the small stuff and keep it fresh—we bring an element of appeal to our facility that attracts parents in big ways.

—Eric

Anyone involved in preschool ministry knows that smells can be a challenge, and I don’t have to be specific to bring back a few “odor associations” as you read this.
So be careful about your preschool ministry environment from parents’ and children’s point of view and smell, and welcome families by creating pleasant odor associations.
There are many ways we can do this without utilizing typical odor-masking sprays that work by creating the absence of odor or, worse, by covering an awful odor with a powerful scent.

Remember that the sense of smell transmits messages directly to the brain’s area of higher learning.
To utilize this powerful tool, create an environment that’s inviting and also intriguing.

Essential oils
—Add a few drops of essential oil, such as lemon, lavender, or rosemary, to a spray bottle filled with water.
Shake well and spray the room a few minutes before preschoolers arrive.

Food
—If your Bible lesson mentions any type of food, add a food experience.

• If you have a bread-making machine, bake bread just before children come; then focus on a Scripture that talks about bread, and let children eat the fresh-baked bread.
  
• Telling kids about Jonah? Create instant atmosphere by placing an open can of tuna in a corner of the room.
  
• If you’re talking about Noah, have kids experience the colors of the rainbow through smell. What do these colors smell like? Purple could be grape jelly, red—strawberries, yellow—lemon, and orange—an orange.
  

Nature scents
—Hunt up cedar discs at your local sporting goods store, and place them around the room for a rich aroma.
A small amount of hay in a corner sets the environment for telling kids about the birth of Jesus.

Become a habitual “sniffer,” and enhance your preschool ministry environment with one of the many fragrance options available.
Have fun and keep parents and children coming back for more.

—Barbara

Every preschool ministry needs labels.
As a matter of fact, I think labels should be as commonplace in your ministry as the preschoolers you serve.
Think about it, labels help you know what you’re dealing with.
They allow you to create groupings in your ministry.
Labels help your volunteers stay one step ahead of the kids in their classrooms.
I’m not talking about the kinds of labels we sometimes put on kids—I’m talking about the kind we create with a label maker.

In our preschool ministry we label everything.
We use labels to keep us organized.
They take the guesswork out of finding resources.
Labels make replenishing supplies a breeze.
Our volunteers love them, and I’m convinced our preschool director couldn’t live without them.

• We use labels to organize our resource room. Our resource room serves as supply central for our preschool volunteers. Everything we need from crepe paper and cleaning supplies to string and Silly Putty is located in our resource room. And here’s the key...it all has a home. Everything (and I mean everything) is placed in a bin, labeled, and alphabetized.
  
• We use labels in our classrooms. Our volunteers know where to find what they need when they need it because scissors are always in the bin labeled “scissors” and glue is always located in the bin labeled “glue.” Even our toy bins and bookshelves are labeled with words and pictures showing where things belong. This is extremely helpful when it’s time to clean up our toys and get ready for crafts or story time because our kids can help us clean up. Not only does this help the next group that uses the room, but our kids also enjoy matching the toys to the correct bins.
  
• We use labels to help us set up on Sundays. Each week we have a volunteer team that comes in and gets everything ready for our preschool ministry. They pull all the needed craft supplies, resources, and snacks for our upcoming lesson. Everything’s labeled, so they don’t waste their time searching for supplies; they can tell us what needs to be ordered, and they can ensure everything is ready to go on Sunday morning.
  

I know this seems simple, and it is.
Every preschool director needs a label maker.
As a matter of fact, a label maker will become one of your best friends in ministry.
Labels will turn you into an organization guru and eliminate the stress of looking for what you need on Sunday morning.
They’ll also free up your volunteers to spend their time serving preschoolers, not searching for scissors.

So get busy making labels as commonplace as kids in your preschool ministry.

—Eric

If we surveyed 100 parents and asked them the #1 thing they look for in a preschool ministry, it’s safe to say their greatest concern would be the safety of their children.

This absolutely can’t be compromised.
Parents must be able to trust caregivers.
Only when there’s trust will parents feel confident about bringing their children.
I’ve seen families leave churches because of one incident where a child wasn’t properly taken care of.
Kids will be kids and accidents will happen.
But we can take these steps to ensure that our preschool ministries are safe, sound, and ready for preschoolers.

Create a manual of written policies.
The more clearly and concisely you can state your policies, the better.
No one wants to read a 150-page policy manual.
Hit the most important policies, and communicate them effectively in written form.
Get input from a team of parents and volunteers to help create your policies.

Communicate safety policies to all volunteers.
Hold a meeting with all first-time volunteers, and make sure they clearly understand all safety rules and regulations.

Communicate safety policies to your leaders regularly.
Every time you connect with your leaders via email or newsletter, highlight a safety policy.
These little reminders will go a long way.
We do this seasonally.
For example, when the weather warms up, we send out a reminder about playground safety rules; when the weather gets cold, we send out reminders about health issues, colds, runny noses, and hand sanitizing.

Enlist nurses to volunteer their time.
If you have church members who are RNs, ask them to be on call when they’re attending worship or adult classes during times kids are in preschool ministry.
You need to be able to reach these volunteers quickly and efficiently.

Here are a few rules of safety that are must-do’s.

• Have safety gates or Dutch doors in all rooms. Children shouldn’t be able to exit rooms on their own.
  
• Cover electrical outlets with safety plugs.
  
• Remove broken toys, small toy pieces, toys with small magnets, and sharp objects from all rooms.
  
• Make sure furniture is child-friendly and safe for preschoolers. Ensure that large furniture items such as bookshelves are firmly anchored so they can’t tip over.
  
• Tape down rugs so there’s no hazard or possibility of tripping.
  
• Provide volunteers with environmentally friendly sanitizers for hands, toys, and surface areas.
  
• Make sure rooms have adequate heating and cooling.
  

Take these steps and you’ll be on your way to a clean, safe environment for your preschoolers.

—Gina

My wife and I took our three kids to one of Florida’s many tourist attractions on a recent vacation.
Being a first-time visitor to this particular park and a parent of two preschoolers, one of the things that impressed me was the park’s use of signage.
As you know, the last thing you want to have to do with preschoolers in tow is to stop, pull out your map, and try to figure out where you are and where you need to go next.

The park we visited was made up of five general areas.
Signs easily directed us to specific areas, and then signs within each area pointed us to the specific attractions we were looking for.
Not one time during our visit did we need to stop and ask directions or consult our map.

This park’s use of directional signage set us at ease and enhanced our family’s experience.
I think some of the same principles can help us enhance the experience of families who visit our preschool ministries.

Signs need to effectively move people.
The first principle I learned is that the main goal of signs in a public place is to direct people to where they need to go.
Efficient signage moves people from the general to the specific.
Families visiting your preschool ministry don’t have time to stop by a welcome center and ask for directions.
Remember, they’re traveling with preschoolers.
They need to be able to easily and quickly determine where they’re going and the direction they need to go to get there.