How to Communicate with Visuals | Sunday School Solutions

by Aubrey Kyle

Think about your favorite school teacher. Why was he your favorite? Maybe he was really intentional. Maybe he was the first person who finally made math understandable to you. Now think about your least favorite teacher. Why was he your least favorite? Maybe it was because he just stood behind the podium and didn’t walk around or make class interesting, or you could just never focus when he taught. How can you avoid being that “least favorite teacher” to the kids you teach in Sunday school? One great way is by using visuals!

Visuals are a huge help in making any class more interesting. Visuals can help clear up confusing concepts and be used to emphasize important points. They also give the kids you teach new things to look at, which will help them stay focused on what you’re teaching.

Visuals can help clear up confusing concepts and be used to emphasize important points. 

Visuals are great because there are both many types you can use and times you can use them when teaching kids. You can use flashcard visuals when teaching Bible lessons or missionary stories. Be sure to practice with your visuals ahead of time so you know which way to turn the pages and so you are not revealing pictures ahead of time. Not only does revealing pictures ahead of time distract the children from what’s currently being taught, but it also gives away part of the story!

When purchasing visuals, notice if the publisher you purchase from has art with high contrast for good visibility and ethnically appropriate skin tones for the characters. You can easily find such visuals for Bible lessons, missionary stories, and more at CEF Press®.

If you’re teaching a large group indoors, it is helpful to have your visuals on a PowerPoint® to show the children. Not only does this enlarge your visuals so all the children can easily see them, but using PowerPoint also frees up your hands for you while you teach. Child Evangelism Fellowship® has lessons with both flashcards and PowerPoint Resource CDs  available from CEF Press.

If you’re teaching a large group indoors, it is helpful to have your visuals on a PowerPoint® to show the children.

When teaching a memory verse, you can show a visual with the verse written out in large letters. If there’s a main point you want to draw out of the lesson, you can write it out on a card to have the children shout at random times throughout your class whenever you hold that card up. Your curriculum may even already come with some of these. Child Evangelism Fellowship has resource packs available for purchase with most of their lesson series, all of which are available at CEF Press.

Finally, visuals are surprisingly easy to make if you don’t have them. If you have a computer and a printer, you can type up the words, add a border and maybe some pictures, and print it out. Even simply writing the words on poster board or a dry erase board goes a long way.

Now, I’m not promising that using visuals is a sure way to become the favorite teacher, but they will certainly help the children you teach to stay engaged and have fun in your class. So go on! Get visualizing!