Sharing Time 2012- May Week 4: When I take the sacrament I renew my baptismal covenants.

Thoughts:  I like to emphasize real action that kids can make to change their lives.  Maybe because as an adult I crave a practical application to my worship on Sunday.  I don’t want to just learn something I want to try to become someone like Jesus Christ.

Identify Doctrine: I wanted to have the kids find where the sacrament  prayers (Doctrine and Covenants 20:77, 79)  are located in their scriptures.  I also wanted to have the children read the prayers on the word strips provided in the outline and have them put them together in the right order.

Encourage Understanding: For the last part of the lesson I really wanted to emphasize on what it means to take the name of Jesus Christ upon ourselves.  I want to have a discussion about what it means to be like Jesus.  I really want to steer it away from the rote answers and try to dive into more original ideas.  I really do think that children know how they can be more likes Jesus but we often put the whole idea into a very small rhetorical box.  I think I am going to try to not plan this part too much.  I am going to share a personal example and other  than that I will try to seek the spirit and try to wait for the silence for the children to have time to think.

I think that I need to more often in my lesson allow their hearts to be edified and touched by truth.

Sharing Time 2012 – May Week 3: The Holy Ghost can help Me

Thoughts: I wanted to start by helping the children know that we are given the Holy Ghost as a gift.  But that often it take us a long time to learn how the Holy Ghost talks to us.  And that it is ok if we don’t know when we feel it, but that it takes practice.

I think some children just repeat the answers that we have been told to repeat about how the Holy Ghost feels.  But I wanted to encourage the children to know that the Holy Ghost will speak to everyone a bit different and that we have to try to listen and be patent.  Its like learning another language.

Encourage Understanding:  I was planning on having the one child pick a question out of a hat.  The question will be something that has a clear good and bad consequence.  I will have two pictures for each question.   The child who picked the question will be blindfolded and put in the back of the room.  I will hang the pictures of the consequences on the wall.  The class will act as the Holy Ghost by singing louder or  softer to help the child to find the correct good choice.

Discussion: How can we practice feeling the Holy Ghost.  And remind them that some people will take longer to practice to hear the promptings of the Holy Ghost, but that it is not a race, but a journey.  Just as we had to tune our ears to hear the sound of the music.

Sharing Time 2012 – May Week 2- When I am baptized and confirmed, I am following Jesus’s example.

Jessica F.

Sharing Time Outline:

Thoughts:  I wanted to focus this week about why we get baptized.  I wanted to take another approach on why we make covenants, that we make covenants with the Lord, and we have ordinances so that we remember the promises that we have made and so other people can help us remember too.  We spend our lives trying to become more like Jesus Christ and because of the atonement we can repent and try again and again.

Attention Getter: Ask the children at random what they did on a certain day, just pull dates out of the air and get them closer and closer to today.  You can even throw in what did you do last Christmas besides open gifts?

Why is it hard to remember what you did in days that have gone past?

Does anyone remember any promises they made 5 years ago?  Did anyone say that they would clean their rooms, how about ____.

Does anyone remember any promises that anyone made to them last week, last year, yesterday? 

Identify Doctrine:  Begin my showing pictures of Jesus being baptized.  And modern pictures from the library of children and other people being baptized.

Ask the children what is happening in these pictures?

Next ask what is happening to the clothes and the hair and the skin of the people in these pictures.  Answer: Getting wet.

Who remembers when they were baptized or when they went to a baptism?  Why do you think someone would remember being baptized?  (because we get wet, because our parents, or the missionaries, and the ward make it special).

When we make covenants with God it is special and important because God wants us to remember that He loves us and that we are special.  He also wants us to remember the promises we made so that we can become like Jesus and have the Holy Ghost with us to help us be happy.

And that we get to promise God that we will keep our promise to help and love others, to  help those who are sad, and to be kind and to become like Jesus.

When do we get to remember what we promised when we got baptized?  During the sacrament, at church, from our parents, from reading the scriptures and so forth.

Activity:  Have children who have been baptized or adults for jr primary come and share  what they remember about their baptism day.  I like to rotate 4 to 5 groups having the person sharing their experience is the one who rotates.

Recollect class and share testimony.

 

Ideas about Teaching

Jessica F

 

I just wanted to share one idea I had this week about teaching children.  I was pondering on Alma’s teachings about seeds, and I was thinking about trees, and plants and how they are good ways to think about the gospel on so many levels.

I was thinking about how it is so easy to feel like I am teaching well, but what I am doing is trying to take the fruit off my tree and trying to tape or glue the fruit onto another’s tree.  But that is not a lasting situation.  So I thought about how I need to think of my teaching as no longer trying to attach my fruit or the bishop’s fruit, or the ward’s fruit, but to teach the children how they can graft the good parts of the gospel into their own trees, and to help them take care of that grafting process.  And grafting is a labor intensive process that cannot be rushed and must be attuned to the needs of the tree.  I felt so impressed with the need to provide them with the learning that is necessary to build an amazing tree.  To cultivate something amazing with their lives.   To provide them with as many carried spiritual experiences as possible, so that they can have experiences of knowing Jesus Christ and growing and grafting a beautiful testimony of truth and love.

Sharing Time 2012- May- Week 1: As I repent, I can be forgiven.

Jessica F.

Sharing Time Outline

Thoughts: I wanted to focus this week on how when we help others we lift their burdens and they lift ours.  I think that so often we focus on the “DO NOTS” that we forget to teach ourselves and our children the “PLEASE DOs” of the gospel.  I firmly believe that the purpose of repentance is to help us on our journey to BECOME like Jesus Christ.

Identify Doctrine: Mosiah 18:8-10.  But I am going to mostly focus on verse eight.

Activity: In a backpack I am going to fill it with heavy objects, probably canned food, since it is heavy but won’t be impossible to lift for a child.  I am going to cover the labels with dark paper (if you remove the labels write what the food is on one of the lids).

I will have an equal number of questions for the objects of food in the backpack.  I will pass out the questions to the classes and allow them a few minutes for discussion on how they would help someone who carried that burden.

Then call the primary group back together, and pick one child to come help with the backpack.  I am going to bring my scale so we can see how heavy  the backpack is before we start.   We will go around the room asking questions about how we could be like Jesus and help.  When the answer the question the food item will be removed and replaced with a feather.  And place a heart on the board.  We will repeat this until all canned food is gone, and then measure the weight of  the backpack again.

Encourage Understanding: Ask the children what backpack they would rather carry.  Discuss how when we help other people how does it make us feel, how does it help the person we helped feel.  Why do you think Jesus would have told us to help us carry other’s burdens?

 

Sacrament Meeting Program 2012 – Planning and Writing

Jessica F.

Sharing Time Outline:

Thoughts: I love the idea of the children having a part in the writing of their own lines for the program.  I also hate having chaos and disorganization.  So I had a dilemma on my hands to try to figure out how to do the program and have the children play a major role, and keep my sanity while writing it and preparing it.

This is really basic, but I thought I would share since it took me a whole year to finally come up with a sustainable model for planning and it transfers from year to year quite well.  I should add that my primary is about 70 children, so it will need some adaptation for larger or smaller groups.

The Outline:

#1 -I take the Sharing Time outline and divide up the 12 months and the songs.  I try to make 12 groups of children.  These do not have to be according to age or class, I just find it helpful to have a certain number of children in each group for one month’s theme.  I have found it helpful to divide classes into different groups for behavior issues if that works better.

So it looks something like this

Jan- Theme, Group A

Feb- Theme, Group B

March- Theme, Group C

And so forth.

#2- Then according to the number of children in each group I divide up that month’s themes from the outline and create prompts for each child to write.  This is just an example!

Example: January “Agency is a Gift to Choose for Ourselves”

Say 5 children:

1. What does it mean to have  a choice and a consequence  (think of the stick)
2. Why was it important that you chose to come to Earth?
3. I have chosen to follow Jesus by….
4. Jesus created the Earth for me and you
5. I have chosen to use my agency when…..

3.  I do this during sharing time one week.  I explain it to the children the week before and PREP the teachers that this will be happening.  Doing it during sharing time makes it very productive and possible to get most of the children’s responses in one day.

4.  I have the small children (Sunbeams) do a group scripture or line together, and the CTR5 classes do their lines in quickly one after another.

Example:  Teacher or a well spoken fearless child:  I can follow Jesus and Choose the Right by:  being kind, other children follow without need for introduction to the topic.

Organizing:  After you have the majority of the prompts type them up and place into assigned groups.  Then I format the program roughly as follows

Short Into; Normally an older child or one who likes to speak in public

January Song

January group A

February Song

Group B

March Song

Group c

And so on to December:

The Children love that they get to write their lines.  I try to leave them as raw as possible.  But sometimes I do have to alter them for slight flow issues, but I do try to leave them as true to form as possible.  The kids really are amazing when they get an opportunity to publicly share their knowledge of the gospel.  It really does prove to be a spiritual experience for all involved.

Sharing Time- Week 4: I feel my Savior’s love when I try to be like Jesus Christ.

Thoughts:  I wanted to end up April by talking about how we can feel how much Jesus loves other people.  In my life the gift of being able to have a small glimpse of how much we are all God’s children has profoundly changed my life.  I think that it is a gift to feel the Spirit whisper the divine value of every individual.  We are all part of each other’s journey to joy and peace and love.  And this is what I wanted to pass a long to the children this week.

Identify doctrine:  I am going to review quickly the stories that we have discussed about how Jesus was kind to the people who lived in Jerusalem that a lot of people judged or did not like because of where they were born or what their job was or what they looked like.

I am going to use “I Will Walk with You” #140 in the Children’s Song Book.   Here is a link to the words.  Discuss what the words mean.  Here is a great talk from Marlin K Jensen about Friendship. and Christlike love.

Encourage Understanding:  Ask for ideas from the children about when it would be hard to be someone’s friend or to be kind to other children or people.  Express the idea that when we first see things that are different it can be scary, but that is ok, because we can choose to act with love.

Find a way to express to the children that they should not put themselves in unsafe situations, but I feel that children need to learn how to discern the spirit at a young age. Most children I know in our ward live very safe and well protected lives.   But when life does get more complicated in YW/YM and Adulthood they need to know how to feel the Holy Ghost and trust their ability to feel revelation and understand promptings.  

Activity: Sing the song as moving feet in a walking motion while passing around a small to or object and having the pianist stop at random intervals and have the child holding the ball suggest a way we can walk with other people.  ( this is a great way to get participation from children who would not volunteer)

Sharing Time- April week 3: Jesus Christ taught me the right way to live.

Jessica F.

Sharing Time Outline 

Thoughts: This week I wanted to focus on how Jesus Christ treated the less desirable people of his time, or the “sinner” of His day.  I want to teach the children that we are not to look down upon those who are “different from themselves, but to become like Jesus and to truly love others as God loves them.

Identify Doctrine:  When Jesus was alive it was very common to judge a person based on how they dressed, or their job, or if they were sick, or if they had money or not.  But Jesus taught us how to love all people even those people who might look or talk differently, who might be another religion, or have a family that looks differently than your family.

I want to use the following stories:  And in each story point out how Jesus Did not judge, but how he loved. I may not get through all of them.

The Blessing of the Children-It was culturally accepted that children were to not bother adults, that they were not to be a part of society but Jesus chose to take time and to love them.

Question: How would that make you feel if Jesus took time to help you?

The Woman at the Well- The jewish people and the Samaritans did not like each other for a long time in history.  When Jesus asked the women at the well for water, he was going again the rules of speaking to a Samaritan and back then men often forgot to ask women for things nicely.  The woman at the well had made some choices that probably most people would consider to be pretty bad, but Jesus knew that she had done stuff, but he still loved her.  And she was the first person that he told that he was the Son of God.  And this women ran and told the town who believed her and came to see Jesus.  

Question: Why do you think Jesus would be willing to tell this women that he was the Son of God, or even speak to her or ask her for water?

The Tax Collector- A long time ago the tax collectors would go house to house and collect the money for the Roman government.  But they were not paid very well, so they would change people more money and keep it so that they would have money.  This did not make people happy.  And I can see why.  But Jesus knew that they were still good people.  He even ate dinner with them.

Question: Do you think it would have made you mad that someone took more money from you than they were supposed to?  How do you think Jesus was able to still be loving?

And the Woman with an Issue of Blood: When Jesus was alive there was some things that were considered clean and some stuff that was unclean.  This was not what you wold think of today about with dirt or anything like that.  But there was a women who had an issue of blood for a long time.  And we really don’t know exactly what illness she had but it made her unclean.  That meant that she was not allowed to go to church, to be around other people.  She has spent all her money trying to get better, but the doctors could not help her get better.  And the law said that if anyone touched her they would be made unclean too.  

Question:  Do we sometimes judge people by the way that they look?  Do we say that someone is too dirty to come to church, or what if they smelled like smoke, what would you think?

Encourage Application:  How do these stories help us think about how we can try to become more like Jesus?

Jesus offered love and compassion first! 

Sharing Time- April Week 2: Jesus Christ taught me the right way to live.

Jessica F.

Sharing Time Outline 

Thoughts: For April and the Easter season I wanted to focus this months sharing times on making Jesus Christ and His teaching concrete in the lives of the children.

Identify Doctrine-  I want to focus on the Sermon on the Mount this week.  I am planning on showing a picture of the sermon on the mount (the bigger the better).  I will use the following scriptures.

Matthew 5:3–11

I also want help the children to know what language Jesus spoke.  Since many people believe that Jesus spoke Hebrew, when he actually spoke Aramaic. And that the new testament is written in Greek.  I think that I will also show pictures of what Greek and Aramaic look like.

I am going to break up the scriptures from Matthew 5, into groups according to size of primary.  Some classes will get two sets.  Then I will hand out this pdf (first page only).  And a rope for each corresponding scripture.

Activity:  Will have them attach one end of the rope with the left side column and one end of the rope with the right side column.  Then every class will bring the rope up to the front of the class.  I was planning on using rubber bands.

Encourage Understanding: Then I will show the class the strands of rope and read the beatitudes.  I will choose a volunteer who I will ask to braid the strands.  Since there are quite a few it will be difficult.  But encourage practice.

Sometimes following Jesus is hard when we begin to try something new, but we have to practice.  And eventually some parts of following Jesus become easier.  And that sometimes we mess up, but that is why we have the atonement.  But that when we try to be like Jesus we can become better.

Share Testimony.

Sing: “I am Trying to be Like Jesus”

 

Sharing Time- April 2012- Week 1: Jesus Christ is the perfect example for me.

Jessica F.

Link to Outline 

Thoughts: I felt a very strongly the need to make this lesson very concrete.  I think that so many gospel principles tend to be more abstract, such as what is repentance and what is faith.  But that I wanted to make the lessons this month focus on Jesus Christ. I wanted them to help the children know Jesus in a fundamental way, and help each child to develop a personal testimony of the Savior.

Identify Doctrine: I wanted to have the opportunity to  teach the children that Jesus Christ was a real human being who lived on the Earth, as a perfect example for us.   I found this article from the friend.  This is great explanation of who Jesus was as a child.

Encourage Understanding:  I am dividing up the Friend article in the number of classes that we have in our primary.  I will give each class a description of their event and a picture.  And have each class discuss and try to make “text (scripture) to life connections”   If possible include scripture references and have the students mark the scriptures in their classes.

So every class would discuss the following questions: With the expectation that they will be shared after the discussion

1. What is happening in the story and the  picture?
2. What do you think it would have been like to grow up when Jesus was a baby or a child?
3. How is life different now than when Jesus was a child?
4. How does Heavenly Father and the Holy Ghost help Jesus and his mom and dad?
5. How does this story make you feel about Jesus?

Activity:  Have each class assign one person to the picture holder.  Re Read the story out loud to the primary.  Instruct the classes that as their part of the story is read the they can reverently walk up and form a story line- it is like a time line with pictures.  And then review the story and ask for comments from the classes from one of the 5 questions.  This is a great opportunity to help children share and grow their own testimonies of Jesus Christ.