Walk With Me curriculum is being discontinued on June 30, 2018.Click here to learn about the transition to Dwell.

FAQs

1. What makes Walk With Me unique?
2. How is Walk With Me organized?
3. What about holidays and summer programming?
4. What and how do I order?
5. Will Walk With Me work in my church?
6. What about music?
7. What about memory work?
8. Does Walk With Me provide teaching on baptism and the Lord’s Supper?
9. Will Walk With Me work with kids who don’t have much biblical knowledge?
10. How does Walk With Me involve families?

1. What makes Walk With Me unique?

The values of a curriculum and how those values are achieved are what make a curriculum unique. Walk With Me has seven major values:

• Biblical and Reformed—children receive a strong biblical foundation. Walk With Me is also shaped by theology taught in the ecumenical Christian creeds (Apostles’, Nicene, and Athanasian) and in the confessions and doctrinal standards of the Reformed/Presbyterian churches. Click here to read more about our theology.
• Grows Faith—sessions are designed to encourage leaders and children to live out their faith.
• Easy-to-use—a curriculum that is flexible, easy to prepare, and has lots of tips.
• Kid-friendly—activities that will appeal to different learning styles. (Click here for a description of the different learning styles.)
• Fun—the gospel is good news so it should be fun!
• Celebrates diversity—children learn the value of a diverse world.
• Builds community—children learn to care for others, encourage each other, and learn together.

2. How is Walk With Me organized?

Our one-year preschool curriculum is followed by the Kindergarten-Grade 1 level (no reading expected or required), and then the Grades 2-3 and 4-5 levels. We grouped grades 6-8 together because that’s what many day schools do. We’ve included lots of tips to help leaders adapt these sessions so that they fit kids in grade 6 as well as challenge kids in grade 8.

We chose a 4-week-unit format because it seemed to best fit the needs of today’s children and churches. Smaller units are more flexible, they work better with kids who can’t come every Sunday, and they allow for the possibility of having teachers commit to teaching a unit at a time—instead of a quarter or a year.

• View the full Scope & Sequence

Materials for each grade level include:

Preschool

Everything the leader needs to teach this level of the curriculum comes in a box that contains Old and New Testament stories, Christmas and Easter stories, patterns, action rhymes, songs, a CD, posters, and a complete set of children’s take-home cards. You should order a set of children’s take-home cards for each child in your group.

Kindergarten-Grade 1, Grades 2-3, Grades 4- 5

Each of the two years of the curriculum at these levels is divided into nine four-session units. For each unit you will need the following:

• Leader’s guide: comes with leader’s resources (stapled in the middle), complete session plans, music, and reproducible handouts. Order one guide for each leader.
• CD: contains all the music for the year, along with some stories, games, and other resources. Order a CD for each leader at this level.
• Student resources: for each unit, children in Kindergarten-Grade 1 will get four colorful take-home papers and two pages of stickers. Order one set for each child. Student resources for Grades 2-3 and 4-5 vary by unit and may include posters, comic books, take-home papers, trivia or game cards, magazines, and more. Order one set for each child.

Grades 6-8

This level includes three years of curriculum—a total of 27 units. We’ve added even more take-home formats at this level, and the leader’s guide is packed with fun and challenging activities for young teens.

• Leader’s guide: contains complete session plans and a variety of helpful reproducible handouts. Order one guide for each leader at this level.
• Student resources: In each unit you’ll find one of the following interesting formats: broadsheets, handouts, magazines, take-home papers, a devotional book (be sure to order one devotional book for each student for year 2 of the middle school curriculum!), prayer journals, and more. Order one set of resources for each young teen in your group.
  
  

» See samples for each grade level

3. What about holidays and summer programming?

Christmas and Easter Units

We provide special two-session units for Christmas and Easter. In these units, all the kids in your church school—from preschool through middle school—focus on the same story. Each Christmas or Easter book includes complete session plans and a music CD.

Summer Units

For each year of Walk With Me we offer two five-session summer units. They provide creative ideas and options for all kinds of summer programs—from Sunday school to VBS to kids’ clubs. Each summer book includes complete plans for five sessions (easily used in a one-week VBS program!), a music CD, and ideas and helps for using the dramas, music, and crafts to present a special service or program for your congregation and/or community. Note: There are no children’s resources for the summer weeks. Everything you need comes in one book! (Order one book for each of your leaders.)

4. What and how do I order?

If you’d like some advice on creating a plan that will work well for your church, feel free to contact our customer service representatives. Note: No matter which approach you take to ordering, you’ll need to order the CDs and the Christmas, Easter, and Summer units separately.

Standing order: The most convenient option for many churches. Simply let us know each summer how many students and teachers you have at each grade level, and we will automatically ship the standard fall, winter, and spring quarters throughout the year. Quantities can be changed at any time, and any unused materials can be returned.

Order by quarter (three units): If the number of students in your program varies greatly throughout the year, or if you wish to substitute quarters, you may wish to order every quarter individually.

Order by unit: Walk With Me fall, winter, and spring quarters are grouped into 4-lesson units that are perfect for team-teaching or for customizing the scope and sequence to fit your church. Although there is a discount if you order by predetermined quarters, you have the option of ordering each unit separately. This approach allows you to choose the topics that you wish to focus on.

5. Will Walk With Me work in my church?

Every church is different, but you can adapt Walk With Me to fit your specific situation. The following features help create the flexibility you are looking for:

• You can order just the right number of units to fit your church school year. No more half-quarters sitting wasted in the closet. Click here to see complete Scope & Sequence.
• Each unit is designed to provide activities for all kinds of children. Click here for more information on multiple intelligences and learning styles.
• We include optional and additional activities so leaders can adapt sessions to fit the children in their group and the time available. There are also tips to help leaders adapt the session for large churches, small churches, and those in between.
• We suggest ways to include a wide variety of adults and others in your weekly sessions. Challenge all members of the congregation to use their gifts in your children’s ministry, as leaders, supply collectors, occasional drama actors, and more.
• We often include a worship option for churches who like to make worship part of their Sunday school program.
• If your church uses a workshop rotation model, Walk With Me provides many of the benefits of workshop rotation while offering children a broader range of Biblical stories. Click here for a chart comparing Walk With Me to workshop rotation and a traditional Sunday School approach.

» Click here to tour a lesson.

6. What about music?

Our goal was to choose a range of age-appropriate songs including traditional songs, Scripture songs, contemporary worship songs, songs from various cultures, as well as some hymns, carols, and refrains.

We’ve included music in the back of each leader’s guide and on a song CD for all levels except grades 6-8. Kids in grades 6-8 often don’t like singing in Sunday school, so we’ve included other activities that incorporate music into the lessons.

We also offer a songbook called Sing With Me that includes many of the songs in Walk With Me plus other well-loved children’s favorites.

For more information about the songs and music used in Walk With Me, click here.

7. What about memory work?

Walk With Me includes a complete memory work plan designed to help the children you teach learn and remember key passages of Scripture. Because not all churches include memory work as an integral part of their program, we have usually included memory work games and other teaching activities related to memory work in the options and Overtime steps of the sessions. Click here for our memory work chart.

8. Does Walk With Me provide teaching on baptism and the Lord’s Supper?

In Walk With Me the sacraments are addressed in two ways. In some cases, as in the WWM middle school sessions, entire lessons focus on one or both of the sacraments. In other cases, such as the lesson called “Leaving Egypt,” in year 1 of grades 2-3, the teaching on the sacraments is woven into a Bible story lesson that relates to either baptism or the Lord’s Supper. In this story it’s natural to explore the connection between the Passover meal and the Lord’s Supper. In the lesson “Jesus Is Baptized” (Year 2, grades 2-3), the main focus of the lesson is on how Jesus' baptism tells us he is God's Son. But there is also a remembering-your-baptism activity that highlights the meaning of our own baptism and how it testifies to our identity in God's family.

The most comprehensive teaching on the sacraments comes in grades 6-8, which includes study of a book called Q&A: A Summary of Biblical Teachings. The four sessions in “Signed and Sealed” (Year 2, unit 6) explore the sacraments in great depth. “Discover Worship” (Year 3, unit 4) also includes four sessions on worship, baptism, profession of faith, and the Lord’s Supper. Year 3, unit 6 focuses on God's covenant; the session “Claiming My Place in the Covenant” specifically focuses on how we are included in God’s covenant and how baptism and the Lord's Supper assure us of that.

In short, the scope & sequence of Walk With Me brings children on a faith-nurturing journey through Scripture and doctrine that builds as they move through each new WWM grade level!

9. Will Walk With Me work with kids who don’t have much biblical knowledge?

Yes. Because Walk With Me is designed to help you reach out to your community, we’ve been careful not to assume too much knowledge of the Bible. You’ll frequently find tips for adapting the sessions for kids with little Bible background.

10. How does Walk With Me involve families?

It’s very important for families to support and enrich the learning that begins each Sunday, so we’ve included the following features in Walk With Me:

• Family sessions. At the beginning of each Sunday school year, we encourage you to hold a special session for parents and guardians of the children in your program. You’ll find a complete plan for leading this session in the Coordinator’s Handbook. Also, in each leader’s guide you’ll find sample letters that teachers can send to the children’s home to invite their support and acquaint them with the content of each four-week unit.
• Family volunteers. Even the best teacher isn’t good at everything! Because God has given us each unique gifts, using other adult volunteers to enrich the learning in each group benefits everyone.
• Children’s take-home resources. These resources help give parents and other members of the family an understanding of the stories and truths the child learned in a unit.