I teach child Sunday School at my church (except we call it Primary). I, along with two other ladies, teach all the kids that started the year 4 years old, and at some point have/will be turning 5.
When I was first called to this position, I had only five kids in my class. They came every week, stayed in their chairs (mostly), and we had a good little class. The other two teachers worked with everyone else. Their class size ranged from two to eight kids on any given week, and as such, the class dynamics changed accordingly. Their two kids that came every week are also the two that have the hardest behavior issues. (They had the more complicated class because there were two teachers.) But the differences, which we thought we understood when the class was split, ended up being much bigger in practice than on paper. So three weeks ago we combined the classes (and teachers).
Because Babs was sick, then I was visiting my grandma p, last week was my first week there. We had eleven kids. That is a huge number of kids of this age. They really did quite well, and we had a pretty good lesson. Most of the kids do want to be engaged, and try to learn and participate. But eleven! It means that it's harder to get to know them, it's harder to involve them, and behavior expectations went up, because things that work with five kids do not work with eleven.
I will miss my intimate little class. But I think this is good for them for right now. And we'll have a chance to shuffle them up again in a few months, when they move up a year for their new class in January.
