Group lessons for kids

[Pualee]

Hi,

I'm in a funny situation. I play (as best I can) at church, and now have a few (2) kids wanting lessons. I don't have any time for these kids (barely enough for my own family), and so I thought to myself... maybe I can get a Sunday School room before/after service and have a 30-60 minute group lesson. That way I don't have to lose time driving to their house, or doing multiple lessons.

I hope the group will grow, as lots of kids here want to play drums, guitar, sing, etc. and a lot of families have dusty instruments in the closet. The church is unique because there is an open devotional period and anyone can get up and sing/play/speak, etc. So I have been able to get an eye on some of the kids who really want to participate, and have the confidence to try.

I have a bonus, because my son and I learned together, and he is very capable of teaching (he even teaches me some things). So we can break out into smaller groups if necessary. I expect to call on a few other guys to see if they will add in their help for some specialized sessions, finger picking, country/western hymns... maybe some bluegrass gospel too.

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Now, here is the thing. Kid #1 has a guitar, but it wont even intonate in the 1st position. I mentioned it to his mom, but I don't know what will become of it. I've eyeballed a Yamaha JR1 on craigslist for $65, but I cannot buy every kid a guitar (or can I). Kid #2 has a guitar, but I have not seen it yet, I suspect it is too big for him (he is small and was explaining it to me).

So I want to teach basic open chords, singing, and strumming. I think that is the basic intro to praise music? But I really don't know what will happen. I'm fairly competent at teaching, but have never taught music. What are some tips to getting this thing off the ground successfully? I want it to be a $0 cost to the families, to make sure these kids get a chance! So I'll probably make all the material myself. I'm thinking for the very beginning:

Open Chords
First Position Notes
Circle of 5ths/4ths
How to transpose for the singer's voice (kids voices you know)
(but do all this with example songs)

From there, we can go pretty much anywhere, and that should take a few months in itself. I'd like to eventually get into:

How to construct common scales (major, minor, pentatonic, etc)
Scale patterns
Composing lead lines, fills, riffs, etc.
Theory (based on genre) and modes

Do I need to teach sight reading for this? I can read music, but honestly, only do it when I'm not playing (I'm strange like that). I think trying to sight read slowed me down when I started guitar (I already knew how). However, now I use the skill to study how a song is put together.

On the side note, I've not played terribly long myself, but I can at least push them in the right direction. I want these kids to have fun, every minute they are practicing is another minute they are out of trouble If I can get them fluent in these topics, then I have nothing left but to tell them go find a real teacher