Resources & Curriculum

Elementary Curriculum

S.A.Y. Yes Centers for Youth Development®

The following is our S.A.Y. Yes!® curriculum. It is written for elementary age children. However, it can be modified for older children. Click on the Unit Name to download the PDF file.

All curriculum units in one zip file.

Choices

Every day we are faced with choices…what to wear, what to eat, how to live. The most important choices involve whether or not we will decide to honor God or to follow our own desires.

Cooperation

As we take a biblical look at cooperation, we see that unity as a body of believers is something that sets Christians apart from the world. The Bible gives us many mandates to show our love for one another and to build one another up. We must have the fellowship of other Christians to survive in the Christian walk.

Faithfulness

The Bible states that "God's eyes are upon the faithful in the land." It is only through our relationship with Jesus that we can truly be faithful. He is the one who equips us with the strength needed. We must also understand that God will never stop loving us during those times of unfaithfulness. Jeremiah's life shows us that there is a price to faithfulness… although he remained faithful to God he was almost overcome with sad and painful circumstances. We need to learn to be faithful in spite of the circumstances around us, and faithfully continue the work God has given us regardless of any visible fruit. This unit also introduces the children to Hispanic Heritage month. We will take a look at some Hispanic leaders and see how they were faithful to the Lord and what the outcome was.

Forgiveness

God has forgiven us, and we need to accept His forgiveness in order to have inner peace. Christ tells us we must forgive others as He forgave us.

Giving

The greatest gift ever given was when God gave his son Jesus to pay for our sins. We as Christians can give something to God by giving to one another.

Honesty

The children of today can lie while looking you right in the eyes and never crack a smile or blink. They have almost created a false sense of reality because there are so many wrongs that they wish they could cover them up. This unit hopes to begin to make a dent in their conscious. Hopefully, after this unit they will begin to consider that God is watching even if no one else sees you or there is no way that you will get caught. It hopes to reestablish the foundation that honesty plays in so many facets of our life.

Integrity

The Bible says that Job was "blameless" and that he "stood upright and refused to do evil." What is integrity, and how can we practice it in our lives?

Joy

The Bible says that we should be joyful at all times, even in times of trouble.

Kindness

God is our model for kindness, and it is His kindness that leads us to repentance. Think of how incredibly powerful kindness is. We want to teach our children to change their world with kindness.

Love

The Bible tells us that the greatest commandment is to love God, and that the second greatest commandment is to love our neighbors as ourselves. We really are not capable of this kind of love unless God gives it to us.

Patience

God is patient with us and slow to anger toward us, therefore we must be patient with others. We must wait on God for the fulfillment of his promises, as He will never be late in fulfilling them.

Peace

Peace is often thought of as the absence of problems, but we who know Christ understand that real peace is the acknowledgment of the presence of Christ. Real peace does not disappear when there is conflict or problems, but is the outward evidence of someone who trusts in God.

We need to be reminded that Peace is a fruit of the Holy Spirit and is therefore supernatural. It can only be obtained as we regularly confess our sin, give Christ control of every area of our life, and ask God to fill us with His Holy Spirit.

Much of this unit will focus on us reminding the youth to focus on Christ and His Sovereignty in our life, and to constantly pray, read His Word, and memorize Scripture.

Perseverance

Think about a time when God took you through a long period of waiting. When you finally got the thing that you had been praying for, you could see why God had you wait. It isn't always that easy, but sometimes God lets us see His reason and perfect wisdom for His timing.

Perseverance is about being patient and enduring even when there may be no light at the end of the tunnel. To be able to wait on God and keep working on what He has given us for the time being, we have to have a deep rooted faith in the fact that God is on the throne, that He is fully aware of our situation and that He loves us deeply.

Perseverance brings us to a new level of faith and trust in God. It shows us new things that we did not know before about God's love and faithfulness. It also gives us a testimony of how God sustained us when the road was the most difficult.

Real Leaders

In today's world, the most common "heroes" are sports figures, rap stars, and perhaps even people like drug dealers who seem to have "success." Our children must choose carefully whom they will follow, and also learn to see themselves as the leaders of tomorrow.

Repentance

What kind of response can we expect from God when we come to Him honestly seeking His forgiveness? Knowing that He will welcome us as His beloved children, should be great motivation to repent!

Respect

The biblical teachings on respect are radical: Jesus showed respect for those who couldn't even respect themselves, and he commanded us to respect those He has chosen to be our authority whether they have earned our personal seal of approval or not.

Responsibility

The Bible teaches what it means to be responsible: for our own actions, and to authority and to God.

Ten Commandments

Often held up as the pillars of the Bible, what are these 10 statements all about, and what do they mean to our children today?

Thanksgiving

Media has convinced our youth that there are more and more things they cannot live without. The biblical perspective breaks through this mentality and teaches us that thanksgiving is a heart attitude that is thankful even when things are hard.

Trust

Many of our children have experienced countless broken promises in their short lives, and are daily witness to lies and unethical decisions by the adults around them. How can they believe that God can be trusted?

Practical Living Lessons

Over 75 Practical Living lessons: from emergency preparedness to exercise, from "How To Choose Your Friends" to hygiene, table manners and thank-you notes. These lesson topics and many more have been extracted from all current S.A.Y. Yes! curriculum units and are now available in one convenient document.

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