You may have come to this page looking for my Kid Pix & Play & Learn lesson plan, if so, scroll down.

Or, you may have come to this page because you have a Windows 7 installed computer and wish that Play & Learn Children's Bible CD would work on it!  Unfortunately, Play & Learn doesn't work on W7. 

There are no great alternatives to Play & Learn CD when it comes to scope and quality for preschoolers and non-readers. (Charlie Church Mouse preschool CD has only 6 stories).

What's a teacher to do? 
Here's what

The solution is actually an "old computer lab trick" learned from the days when many computer labs had little software to choose from and too few computers (or when one of our computers didn't work!).

Instead of deploying the CD to all your computers (which you can't do because it won't run on Windows 7), you simply gather all the preschoolers around ONE screen on an older PC, and run Play & Learn Children's Bible CD --as if you were reading a book and showing the pictures to the class.

This participation format is very familiar to Preschooler-K/1. They won't balk at it like older kids might. See my lesson example below for doing this, and then following up the "story time" with a Kid Pix drawing project.

Following the "showing of the story", the lesson plan below has the kids discussing and illustrating a scene in the story.

Of Course... this approach requires that you have at least ONE Windows 98/Me/Vista desktop or laptop. A nice big monitor is great for this, but it works EVEN BETTER if you have an LCD projector plugged in to that computer --so the story appears 5 feet high on the wall.  When it comes to visuals, bigger is usually better.

For more of my teaching tips about STRETCHING your Older Kids Software "DOWN" to Younger Kids, go to www.sundaysoftware.com/adapting-down.htm.  Many of us have long used our older kids software with our younger children, just gotta help them through it.
 

Now on with the lesson plan concept!

A lesson plan for Play & Learn Children's Bible and Kid Pix

This concept works well with any story and group of non-readers.
I'm going to use "Jesus Stops the Storm" as my example.

1. Gather the kids around your computer/projector screen and ask them, "What is the scariest thing they ever saw or did." After a few answers, introduce them to the idea that even adults get scared, even the disciples of Jesus. Ask the kids, "Have you ever been scared in a storm?" Tell them that the Disciples got scared one day, and segway into the story....

2. Show them the story of "Jesus Stops the Storm" found in Play & Learn Children's Bible CD. Choose the read aloud feature.

Invite students to come up one at time to click one of the hidden animation hotspots on each screen.

Remember to talk as if you were reading a book to a child.... pointing out things in each illustration, asking questions and making comments, such as, "O Boy, he looks scared, have you ever been that scared?"   If you have time, view the story a second time in the software (the stories are short).

Conclude with observations about how Jesus made the Disciples feel safe.
Conclude with the observation that Jesus was demonstrating to them that HE was indeed the Messiah, the Son of God, who can help us with our problems.

Introduce the idea that Jesus can help us feel unafraid and protected, even when bad things are happening around us. Talk about some of the "bad things" that can happen to children  (sickness, bullies, getting lost, being hurt, mean people, trouble in our family, moving away, death of a loved one, etc).  When we trust in Jesus, and know he is always with us, we can face any problem that life gives us. And Jesus can help us figure out our problems... because he has the power!

3. After the story presentation, have the kids go to the other computers and turn on KID PIX , the creative writing and drawing software program. Tell them that they are going to pull up a picture of Jesus calming the storm. Over the top of that picture, they can add illustrations of "problems" that they might have, or other children might have (problems, things they are scared of, ...use examples from the discussion you've just had with them).

This "picture of Jesus calming the storm" can come from a number of sources. Perhaps you've found an illustration on the internet, or maybe you did a screen capture of the scene from Play & Learn Children's Bible CD... the story which the kids have just seen. You will have saved this image ahead of class in a folder on each computer. Kid Pix can find that picture and pull it into the drawing screen for the kids to add to it. (Note: pre-size the image to about 640x480 pixels so it fits nicely into the Kid Pix drawing window.

The image at right is from my Kid Pix Teaching Tips and shows imported "Jesus graphics" that have been modified by the kids. For more tips in importing and working with images in Kid Pix, go to www.sundaysoftware.com/kidtips.htm
 

4.  Add some "talking text" to the illustration. (Kid Pix will speak whatever they type, to the delight of the children.) The Preschoolers will need help spelling. You may type their comments for them if needed. The kids love to hear the computer speaking their words. It's what makes Kid Pix a popular tool. After everyone has illustrated their picture and added some talking text, have everyone get up from their seats and go hear everyone else's presentations. The teacher should make comments as each presentation is played.

5. Conclude with prayer. If you have time, have the kids (with help) type their prayer requests onto the Kid Pix screen for a prayer that speaks out loud. You may also choose to PRINT each person's presentation as a take home. 

This basic lesson plan concept can be used with A LOT of different stories.

Comments:
As you can see, this lesson requires a little bit of preparation (what lesson doesn't), and some familiarity with importing graphics into Kid Pix. It will also require some "helpers" to be present. All told, this lesson will require about 35 minutes. One key is to keep a tight rein on the kids when they're using the Kid Pix drawing tools. 

How do you "screen capture" an image from Play & Learn Children's Bible CD?
Go to the image screen in the program you'd like to save, then press your "PRINTSCREEN" key on your keyboard. This snaps a shot of the screen and stores it on the Windows clipboard. Open Windows paint, create a new image and select EDIT then PASTE and the image will appear. You can modify it from there. A good photo/graphic editing program is even better.