In a refocus on its core strengths, Standard Publishing Group is significantly refreshing its HeartShapers Sunday school curriculum.

A division of CFM Religion Publishing Group, the Cincinnati-based curriculum publisher is revising its HeartShapers toddler-to-preteen curriculum, the first major update in nearly seven years. The program has six age-appropriate levels with teacher guides and student materials. New fall curriculum releases July 1.

"We've conducted some research and through significant work with children's pastors, we've made the teacher guides much more user-friendly," said Stephanie Woeste, vice president of marketing. "We've completely updated the artwork in the books, primarily focused on the student books, and it's very exciting because we've used nationally recognized artists from books like National Geo Kids, Weekly Reader and things that folks recognize, so it has a contemporary look and feel."

One of the main components of the refreshed program is the special-needs-friendly curriculum.

"Every quarter we publish a free 15-page newsletter that has a couple components to it," Woeste said. "First of all, there's an inspirational component for leaders, but it's also a way to easily adapt the lessons within the HeartShapers age levels to help include children of special needs in our classrooms. So, it really focuses on what are the sensory difficulties that children with special needs may have and how to overcome those with the activities and the lessons."

Additionally, teachers were asking for an editable teacher guide so they could make each lesson their own, allowing churches to customize the lessons.

"We'll be offering downloadable teacher guides in Word format that they can then make their touches to and distribute to their volunteers," Woeste said.

Learn more about Standard Publishing in the upcoming June issue of Christian Retailing.

• Prev
• Next