Building a Lesson For Home Environments During COVID-19

Since DIG IN is written to be used in a group setting at a church, here are some suggestions for selecting which blocks in a DIG IN lesson will work best for teaching by video or sending lessons for families to do themselves. If you are sending printed lessons home, you may provide families with the Vimeo links to the music and Talk-About videos. Since these videos are already publicly available, we request that you do not upload them in some other location. If you’re recording yourself teaching the lesson, or doing a live stream—you may play these videos during your recording.

• Opening (Eliminate birthday celebrations or other elements that don’t apply, but use the questions for family discussion!)
• Music Videos
• Talk-About Video (Don’t forget the discussion questions!)
• Life Application Wrap-Up (On occasion this may require some tweaking, but it will often work “as is” for families.)
• Take-Home Page (This is already designed for families to do at home!)

If you’re recording a video, you might choose to do the Object Lesson and show it to kids. Doing this will be less experiential than kids are used to, but they'll still be wowed and can discuss it with their families.

The Core Bible Discovery is a key part of the lesson. Sometimes the Talk-About Video teaches the Bible story, but often it focuses more on the point. We would recommend tweaking the Core Bible Discovery block to work for families if you can, and otherwise encourage families to read the Bible story. If it’s a particularly long one, it may help to write up a kid-friendly summary.

For tips on adapting DIG IN lessons to comply with social distancing guidelines in a church setting, watch this video.