If I might be permitted to respond to Sheila's review.

The First Steps material is aimed at the very young children, not at their "Mums". If you want to introduce the Mums to Christ, and that is to be encouraged, there are many other resources available for that purpose.

The real strength of the Teaching Little Ones resource is its age appropriate material, and the way the curriculum builds over the six years.

I'm not saying you can't teach a three year old about Jesus (though it is an issue worth thinking about--the Easter message involves very abstract concepts, unless you are only teaching the blood and gore facts, and I don't recommend that at all for this age group).

But the rationale for TLO is that it is best to teach 2.5 to 3 year olds concepts they can understand and meaningfully respond to first, and build on that as they develop.

Remember, this First Steps material is designed for children who in most churches would not be being taught anything, just playing in a creche.

There's more information about TLO at: http://www.matthiasmedia.com.au/tlo

In our church, teaching within the sunday school setting began with turning three. However, many of the two year olds were needing more than just a creche. Teaching Little Ones: First Steps by Stephanie Carmichael has been easy to use, providing simple teaching outlines that build on each other from week to week. All you need for putting a lesson together is there layed out for you, you download the lesson for your week, collate the craft materials, put it all together, pray and it all just comes together perfectly! There's room for your own creative flare to be expressed if you have one and if you don't clear templates are provided so it doesn't matter! And its been wonderful to see the children go home with excitement over how they have spent their time and tell you simply what they have learnt! Loss of 0.5 of a mark is simply that some activities (although there is always a choice) can be advance for a lot of 2 year olds.

I bought "First Steps" in order to introduce a short Bible story and craft to our church Mums and Tots group. This is a group mainly consisting of non Christian Mums and Child Minders and their children aged 0 - 3.5. We have used one of the older Teaching Little Ones CD ROMs with the 3-5 age group in church and really liked it. I am disappointed by this one. With the exception of Unit 9 which is about Christmas, the rest seems not to mention Jesus at all. I, therefore, don't feel able to use it as a gentle evangelistic tool because many of the Mum's may just think that "God made my hands" (and many other similar topics) is fair enough and could apply to their God too. The fact that there is no Easter session is especially unhelpful considering that this is the central hope of our Faith in Christ.

What is useful about this material is how short a talk Stephanie Carmichael recommends for this age group and how simple the craft input she suggests. I found this extremely helpful as, previously, I had been giving too much information in each talk.

I hope that Stephanie produces another of these CD Roms for this age group, but this time with much more about the Lord Jesus. I think the "Teaching Little One's" format is excellent and I love being able to purchase a whole years worth of teaching and craft material on one CD.