PowerXpress Sunday School Curriculum Review

I've taught Sunday School for a number of years, using several different curriculums. Lately, my co-teacher and I have been itching for a change, and I think I've found what we need - the PowerXpress rotation model curriculum. We tried PowerXpress for a Vacation Bible School recently, and it worked really well for our group.

The rotation model for Sunday School has some major differences from more traditional programs. Other curriculums tend to focus on a different Bible story or theme each week. PowerXpress explores a single story for up to 8-10 weeks, immersing the children in that story.

A PowerXpress unit includes curriculum for eight stations: Art, Music, Computers, Games, Science, Storytelling, Creative Cooking, and Video. Some units also include material for addition Reflection and Mission weeks. The mixture of activities is intended to teach using the multiple intelligences and learning styles of the children.

Children spend an entire Sunday's class period at one station, rather than trying to do several different stations in one class period. Depending on the number of children, a church might have all eight stations set up each week, with a small group at each station, or they might have just a few, or even one station set up each week.

For our Vacation Bible School, we did the program in one day. We had only five children attending, so we did each station as a single group, taking about 30-40 minutes for each station.

Our unit was titled "Triumphal Entry" and covered the Palm Sunday story. We held our VBS during Spring Break, just before Palm Sunday. The curriculum provided us with a variety of fun activities allowing the children to experience the Palm Sunday story. The children saw a video presentation of the story, used computers to make Palm Sunday pictures, made a Palm Sunday mural, learned about vegetable dyes and dyed miniature cloaks, and acted out part of the story together. They also used rhythm instruments and song to experience the story musically. We chose not to do the Games and Creative Cooking portions of the curriculum.

The children were engaged in the activities, and enjoyed all of the stations. Adult volunteers were also enthusiastic about the activities, and had no trouble following the curriculum and finding the needed supplies.

As a smaller Sunday School, when we begin using this on a regular basis, we will only be using one station each Sunday. A benefit of this is that we can recruit volunteers who are gifted a particular area to just volunteer for one Sunday at a time, rather than having to make a long-term commitment. PowerXpress does include staff training material with some of the units, as well as on their website.

PowerXpress is available through Cokesbury (cokesbury.com). Each unit costs $110, and is designed to last 8-10 weeks. All of the materials are reproducible, so there are no student books or supplement packs to purchase, although there are optional music CD's available.

I'm excited about using PowerXpress in the future, and I think it will really help children to experience and internalize the Bible stories we're teaching. I highly recommend it.