We know that babies and toddlers are learning and picking up new concepts all the time — why not at least try to give them something of biblical value while in Nursery? This was the question I have been thinking about for many years!
My first attempt was to try to implement a curriculum into our Nursery program. This ended up being a big mistake. The core of my nursery workers were lovely women who loved children – but hated the idea of teaching or leading a lesson. When it looked like I was going to require them to teach, many of them quit.
And it kind of made sense, too. Teaching is hard as it is, but teaching a 6month old? A busy 11 month-old toddler who keeps toddling away? Reading a story to a 2 year old is fine, but if they aren’t listening, it can feel awkward, especially when you feel when your peer (the other nursery worker) is watching you.
So, I went back to the drawing board. First, I made it clear: No lessons, no teaching. Slowly, we were able to nurse our worker list back up.
Then, I looked at our books. What books were provided in the nursery? Some were good: Bible stories, Children’s Bibles, etc. But some were DUMB, haha! All of the books were hand-me-downs and donations, and many featured TV shows characters (which is my pet peeve). So I started by filtering our books out. I tried to only keep books that I really loved. I prioritized Bible stories, but I kept some secular favorites as well. Books that were about TV characters were thrown out (with only a few exceptions — some of those old Grover books got to stay, like Resting Place and There’s a Monster at the End of this Book). I also got rid of books that were too old (or old-fashioned) to be useful.
Then, I sorted our books by age, topic, etc. and started building an actually functional Children’s Ministries library. (But more about that later!)
I took the books that belonged in the Nursery and organized them by story. It turns out, there’s a LOT of books about Noah’s Ark, and Daniel and the Lions’ Den. I think I came up with 8 different stories that we had children’s books for, and several Baby/Toddler Bibles with many Bible stories. This gave me focus for what kind of books I wanted to add to our library, as I had budget available.
Then I looked at our toys. Again, so many were donations. We had too many toys in nursery in general, and too many of them were McDonald Happy Meal style toys featuring movie and TV Characters. I went through our toys and considered which ones could be used to teach a Bible Story: Paw Patrol, Dora, and Winnie the Pooh were out, but the farm animals, fruit, baby dolls, and blocks were in!
I also prioritized toys that I knew would be durable and fan-favorites. I love Little People, so all of them stayed. I also kept the good baby teethers and lots of cars and trucks. We also bought some new toys for the Nursery, but now that we had a structure, we knew what kind of toys to look for, and what kinds of things we needed.
The next project that my nursery director (sister) and I worked on was organizing the toys and books into play themes and “Bible Boxes”. While a portion of the toys and books in our Nursery stay all the time, we are now working on a monthly schedule of toys and books that are rotated in each month.
We post the Bible Box and Play Theme of the month in the nursery, and put the new toys in special bins. As an example of our Bible Boxes and Play Themes, here is what we did this month:
This month, our Bible Box is Jonah and the big fish. Our focus in this story is that “God is everywhere”. Jonah tried to run away from God, but he couldn’t. There’s no where Jonah (or we) can go where God cannot find us. This month an added a theme verse, for the first time. I am not expecting the Nursey workers to teach the children the verse to memorize. It is just some scripture to say to them, and pray over them.
Inside our Bible Box, we have a few different versions of the Jonah story, including several children’s Bibles with the story bookmarked.
It isn’t really possible to have a formal story time in the Nursey… the kids are too small, and too different in age/ability/attention span. But often there are times when a child or two will want to listen to a book be read to them, or want some one one one play with a volunteer. These are the opportunities for the Nursey Worker to use the Bible Box. Not to collect the whole group for a lesson, but just a little individual moment as God provides.
If needed, the toddlers and babies that attend our Nursey would be able to hear a different version of the Jonah story every week this month. As the children get more and more familiar with the story, they will gain confidence in acting out the story with the themed toys.
Isn’t this whale bath toy that my sister and I found a few years ago perfect? It’s just the right size for gobbling toy Jonah up when he gets thrown from the boat. I like using our blue play scarf for water so we can put the big fish below the water and our boat above the water.
Our Play Theme this month is “Things that Go!” — all sorts of transportation! This is a great pairing with our Bible Box because when wherever WE go, God always goes with us. I pulled out some books about God’s omnipresence to underline this connection.
I also found all our fun cards, truck, train, and airplane picture books to look at and read. No matter the age, I have found that boys love things that go!
While shopping at Walmart on Black Friday this past November, I found this city map play mat and accessories to add to our rotation.
I also pulled out our race car driver little people and the bead maze. This is one of our older well loved toys that we pulled out of rotation for an awhile, and now it’s going to feel new and exciting again!
I have really enjoyed been obsessed the process of organizing and curating our Nursery. By taking top to sort the toys into categories, it feels like even the oldest and most mundane of baby toys can have purpose. I am now so excited to check out the toy section of thrift stores, clearance aisles, and garage sales for items to use in our Bible Boxes. It reminds me of the gospel: taking something unwanted and redeeming its purpose.
Stay tuned for more details and information about our Bible Boxes. Comment below any specific questions you have, but I am planning to list and feature all our Bible Boxes in the coming weeks.