Sharing Time- February 2012- Week 4: Church Members are Blessed for Choosing the Right

Jessica

Link to Sharing Time Outline 

 

Thoughts: I love to have children be the voice and share their stories about faith in their own lives.  With all my heart I believe that we need to teach our children how to reflect on their own lives and to share the principles that they have learned.

 

A few days a ahead of time I call the children in primary.  I like to split into groups and have the kids telling the stories rotate and the kids on the groups stay where they are.  I like to have no more than 5-7 kids per group.

I have each child to plan for a 1-2 min sharing (repeated for x number of groups).  I give the families a lot of flexibility.  I just told them that their child will need to share a story about how they chose the right, or a story where they had to make a choice and how they decided and what happened as a result.  They may bring a visual aide, write it down and read it off the paper or what ever  they feel comfortable doing.

I find that children sharing with children make the stories more real and developmentally appropriate since all the children are much more likely to experience something similar.

Sharing Time- February 2012- Week 3: Nephi was blessed for choosing the right

Jessica

link to sharing time outline 

 

Thoughts:  In current research about faith and spiritual development in children it is important for children to know and internalize stories of faith.  And to liken them to their own lives.

This week I plan on having three children explain the scripture stories listed below.  I like to have children plan on doing this ahead of time.  Normally 1-2 days is enough time for families.  I like that each child learn the story at home and then is able to teach it to the class.  Normally in jr. primary I do need to help with the story.  I also encourage the child to bring a picture  to show to the class or an object to help with the retelling.

Identify Doctrine

1 Nephi 16:18–24, 30–32

1 Nephi 17:8, 17–18, 48–53

1 Nephi 18:9–21

 

Encourage Understanding:

After each story on the board I write what was the problem in the story (what needed to get fixed)

What were the choices that Nephi faced.  There is always more than one.  He could have always not done it.  Sometimes this is hard for the kids to understand that there is choice to not do anything.  Normally with the little kids I only try to get them to see two choices.  But the older kids are much better at seeing multiple choices.

What choice did Nephi Make?

Why is it important that Nephi made good choices?  What were the consequences of making good choices, what would the consequences have been if Nephi chose another option.  Like he did not go and look for food?

Nephi practiced making good choices.  Why is it important that we practice making good choices.  How can we practice making good choices?

 

Sharing Time- February 2012- Week 2: Jesus’s disciples were blessed by choosing the right.

Jessica

Link to Sharing Time Outline

Thoughts while preparing this lesson.  The last few weeks I have been studying President David O. McKay’s teachings on agency.  I have thought and reflected on this years theme “Choose the Right”  and how important it is to teach our children to use their agency well.  And I have decided that for my lessons this month and for the rest of the year I will try to focus on how to teach children to see how they can become good agents for themselves and how they can learn how to act and not to be simply acted upon.

Identify Doctrine

The following scriptures are provided in the outline

Luke 10:38– 42 (Mary) and I will add Martha.  ( I think that the scriptural interpretation of Martha is too harsh)  That both picked a different way to serve, but that we have choice.

Matthew 4:18–20 (Peter and Andrew)

Acts 9:1–9, 17–20 (Paul)

Plan ahead of time to have some of the older children read or summarize the scripture or ask a few teachers to read.  I am planning on doing one story at a time to make it less confusing for the children.  It may be that one story takes up more time than the others.

Encourage Understanding:

I am planning on using my own version of the game of life for this month, but it would work just as well to use the “choice and consequences” stick from January.  The idea is that I want to emphasize that the people in this story had more than one choice and that they chose to act.

Example: Mary and Martha (props: cooking items; object lesson have some kids try to build something or cook something while trying to pay attention to the lesson)

Read Luke 10:38-42

Question: Who are the people in this story

Answer: Mary and Martha, and Jesus

Q: What was going on in the story?

Q: What was Mary doing when the story began?

Q: What was Martha doing?

Q: Why was Martha upset with Mary?  Do you think that you would be upset if you had to clean up and cook food and no one was helping you?  Back then cooking took a lot of work. It would take most of the day to make food for dinner.  What would have happened if there was no food for dinner?  Is cooking food a form of service?

Q: What did Jesus tell Mary and Martha?

Q: What could have been other ways that Mary and Martha could have both listened to Jesus and still made dinner?

Q: Is there anything that we can do to be better listeners to Jesus?  (helping share the work maybe).

Nursery Lesson #5 “Jesus Christ Showed Us How to Love Others”

by Heather F.

Link to lesson

I saved this lesson for the Sunday before Valentine’s Day because I wanted the activity to be making Valentines.

I think this lesson does a great job of offering stories directly from the scriptures to choose from. Almost every nursery lesson I give has the same format: show a picture of a story from the scriptures, talk about it, ask some questions, go color!  And that is really easy to do here: Show a picture of the Christ giving the sermon on the mount, talk about what is happening in the story, ask how we can show love, go make Valentines!

The one thing I noted about all the lessons on love is to remember that everyone feels love in different ways. Using the 5 Love Languages as a guide some ways are:

1. Words of Affirmation
2. Quality Time
3. Receiving Gifts
4. Acts of Service
5. Physical Touch

So when guiding the conversation, I plan on making sure I give an example of each for the children to do as a way to show love to their families.

1. Saying “I love you.”
2. Playing with your family and friends.
3. Sharing toys, giving gifts
4. Helping clean up or with other chores
5. Giving hugs and kisses

I try to do this a lot because I think we have a tendency to downplay the love languages that we don’t speak ourselves: “Actions speak louder than words” except that for some people words are essential for them to feel love. “We’re going to give service for Christmas instead of gifts because it’s more meaningful” except that for some people, gifts are hugely important. It’s good practice to remember that love is felt differently for every person and each child in your class is going to respond to some of these more than others.

I might make a 5-piece puzzle of a heart, with each of the pieces containing a picture of each way to show love, for the kids to put together. Two year olds love puzzles!

And like I said above: end with coloring! I don’t do fancy handouts: I think I’m just going to draw some hearts on red construction paper and let them color them. Easy peasy!

CTR 4-7 Lesson #5 “I Can Make Right Choices”

by Sara K.S. Hanks

Link to Lesson

Purpose: To held each child understand that we can choose the right because Heavenly Father gave us agency.

Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ Want Us To Choose For Ourselves

The manual suggests starting out the lesson by having the children choose something, like a candy or a colored rock, from a bowl. This is something I’ll definitely be implementing in my CTR4 classroom. We have a tradition of snacking on Skittles in our primary class, and they end up being great tools for object lessons and positive reinforcement. My opinion is that unobtrusive, low-key treats like Skittles are appropriate for younger kids, though they may be distracting or ill-advised for older kids. My class always loves choosing the colors of Skittles that they like most, so I think this agency activity will be a good way for us to get going.

Sharing Time 2012-January Week 5 idea-The Plan of Salvation

by Jenni (with combined input from my mom and sister, who are both in primary presidencies also, and who taught the lessons first)

On the wall in the primary room for easy reference

 

Objective: to help the children understand the plan of salvation in a meaningful way

 

In an area training last year, Sister Jean Stevens counseled primary leaders in that region to focus on the plan of salvation. Cheryl’s ward did a 5th Sunday about the plan of salvation and put these large visual aids on the wall in their primary room, and now refer to them during most other sharing time lessons. They based their lesson on a simplified version the Plan of Salvation lesson from Preach my Gospel (leaving out references to paradise/spirit prison and judgment).  My sister recently taught a similar lesson in her ward.

Sunbeam Lesson #4 “I Can Pray to Heavenly Father”

By Roberta

 Link to Lesson

Objective:  To help each child learn how to pray to Heavenly Father, and know that He will listen.

I think the biggest “take away” that I would hope to give the children though this lesson is that Heavenly Father hears their prayers.  I know that we Latter-day Saints can easily get caught up in the cultural aspects of prayer, what I often call the “works” part, such as whether we have closed our eyes or folded our arms, or if we’ve used the “proper” old English pronouns correctly, but regardless of these things I believe Heavenly Father hears every sincere prayer.

The Bible Dictionary is a good resource to read over for this lesson.  (It’s interesting to me that prayer is more a duty of the faithful rather than a commandment, and nothing about it is found among the list of interview questions for a temple recommend).  However, when we pray, we are commanded to pray in the name of Jesus Christ.

Squirming

By jeans

One of the things I love about Primary is that it’s incredibly forgiving. Kids are very patient with adults’ mistakes, and (for the most part) vice versa. It’s pretty rare that I find myself truly uncomfortable in Primary. Total acceptance is the norm.

However, there are a couple of things that I wish, wish, wish, I could make disappear from Primary forever.

Sharing Time 2012-January Week 1 & 2 “Agency is the gift to choose for ourselves”

guest post by Cheryl

Link to Sharing Time Outline

 

These were some of my thoughts and inspirations leading up to my sharing time presentations. This might actually be more important than the actual sharing time outlines which follow. My study of the scripture stories made me realize that those who grew closer to God were those who acted. Those who grew away from God were those who were acted upon.

Elder Bednar (from General Conference, April 2010)
In the grand division of all of God’s creations, there are “things to act and things to be acted upon” (2Nephi 2:14). As children of our Heavenly Father, we have been blessed with the gift of moral agency, the capacity and power of independent action. Endowed with agency, we are agents and we primarily are to act and not merely to be acted upon….
Giving a man a fish feeds him for one meal. Teaching a man to fish feeds him for a lifetime. As parents and gospel instructors, you and I are not in the business of distributing fish; rather, our work is to help our children learn “to fish” and to become spiritually steadfast. This vital objective is best accomplished as we encourage our children to act in accordance with correct principles—as we help them to learn by doing…. (John 7:17)
Are you and I helping our children become agents who act and seek learning by study and by faith, or have we trained our children to wait to be taught and acted upon? Are we as parents primarily giving our children the equivalent of spiritual fish to eat, or are we consistently helping them to act, to learn for themselves, and to stand steadfast and immovable? Are we helping our children become anxiously engaged in asking, seeking, and knocking?

Sharing Time 2012- January Week 3- In the Premortal Life, I Chose to Follow God’s Plan.

Jessica

Link to Sharing Time Outline

Comments:  I like to have the children teach whenever possible.  I think it works best where there is a lot of short concepts to teach in one lesson.  I call the parents ahead of time to discuss the lesson, and then I always call Saturday afternoon/evening as a reminder.  I encourage the children to use pictures or other materials to help them feel comfortable giving a lesson

Identify Doctrine:   Briefly have 6 children discuss the following principles of the gospel listed below.  Have each child emphases  how a person can use his/her agency in each stage of the plan of happiness.

Encourage Understanding: After every child teaches sing the corresponding songs with the children:

Before I came to earth I lived in heaven (“I Lived in Heaven” [CS, 4]).

I chose to come to earth and receive a body (“I Am a Child of God” [CS, 2–3];

I will be baptized and receive the gift of the Holy Ghost (“When I Am Baptized” [CS, 103];

I can prepare to go to the temple (“I Love to See the Temple” [CS, 95];

“Families Can Be Together Forever” [CS, 188]).

I will be resurrected (“He Sent His Son” [CS, 34–35]).