Right from the beginning, though, I knew I wanted to break the lessons into small activities. Since this lesson was about "obedience", I printed each letter of the word OBEDIENCE onto a piece of cardstock. Then, I wrote one activity on the back of each letter card. I remember I didn't have a lot of time to prepare, so I mostly used materials and resources that I already had.
Here are the activities that I included (which were randomly selected by the children), as well as some current thoughts on these activities:
O: Song - Quickly I'll Obey (CS pg. 197) (as included in lesson manual)
B: Scripture Story - Noah & the Ark
This is one of the suggested enrichment activities in the lesson. I used a resource I purchased a number of years ago (seen below), as it allows the children to interact with the pieces of the story and participate in its telling. It's cute, but very oversimplified. You can find other toys (soft or otherwise) that would accomplish the same thing, but with more animals/pieces. I would recommend something that includes a more accurate representation of the story (e.g., something that actually has 2 of each animal included).
You could also just use visuals to tell the story. There are a lot of nice visuals and other resources available on Teachers Pay Teachers. I particularly like those by Keeping Life Creative.
E: Game - Simon Says
This was an activity idea listed on Sugardoodle. Very simple, and requires no preparation. Although it may seem that the game is about "obedience", it's really not. I now wouldn't recommend this game, as it is very difficult for a young child to differentiate between the specific way in which a command is given. Obedience shouldn't be about listening for specific commands, but rather, doing what the commands say. So, the message of this game could actually be confusing, rather than reinforcing the idea of obedience.
D: Scripture Story - Jonah & the Whale
This wasn't mentioned in the lesson manual, but, the story is about obedience, and I already had the visuals ready to go. I used the visuals from the Friend (January 2006) to tell the story. From my experience, the children LOVE these visuals, and always want to be able to hold the whale and make the jaws move up and down. But, there are also plenty of other lessons to which this story is appropriate.
I: Coloring Page
I used the black and white poster from Sunday Savers, but I really like one of the coloring pages on Sugardoodle.
E: Game - Red Light/Green Light
Another activity idea listed on Sugardoodle. Very simple, and requires no major preparation. I made a "stop" and "go" sign, but you could just cut out two circles, one in red, one in green, and alternate holding them up. I do like this game better than Simon Says, and would recommend it, because it really is about obedience. The children enjoy this, and it focuses on listening, and quick obedience.
N: Scripture Story - Nephi & the Brass Plates
This story isn't in the lesson, nor is it on Sugardoodle. But I'm not sure why. I know that when I think of scriptures about obedience, this is the first story that comes to mind, and the specific scripture of 1 Nephi 3:7. So, even though it's not included, I wanted to include it. I used some visuals by Latterday Chatter on Etsy to tell this story about obedience.
C: Snack
E: Storybook - "No, David!" by David Shannon
Although the lesson went fine last year, and considering how little time I had to put it together, it wasn't bad. But, it didn't touch on many of the important points of the lesson. That is something I need to improve upon for this year.
I haven't done this system of randomly selecting activities in a number of weeks. But, I want to go back and try it again and see how it works out! Based on my reflections, though, things will be modified as follows:
We will start with snack and a story. I like "No, David!" by David Shannon because it really opens up possibilities for discussion, opportunities for observation, and for children to realize on their own the consequences of disobedience.
I will then open with the lesson section "Heavenly Father and Jesus want us to obey our parents", following pretty closely to what is written in the manual.
We will then turn to the randomly selected activities.
O: Action verse - as found in lesson
B: Song - Quickly I'll Obey (CS pg. 197) (as included in lesson manual)
E: Scripture Story - Noah & the Ark
This is one of the suggested enrichment activities in the lesson. I will again use the resource I purchased a number of years ago (see above), as it allows the children to interact with the pieces of the story and participate in its telling.
D: Game - Red Light/Green Light
An activity idea listed on Sugardoodle. Very simple, and requires no major preparation. The children enjoy this, and it focuses on listening, and quick obedience, and is aligned with a couple of the activities listed in the manual. I will use the "stop" and "go" signs I used last year (see above).
I: Scripture Story / Activity (1) - Jesus & His Commandments
This will be based on the lesson section "Heavenly Father and Jesus want us to obey the commandments". It'll be broken into 2 parts, so when a child picks one of these, we'll do the first part, and when a child picks the second one, we'll do the second part. Part 1: I will start with the picture of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount and talk about how Jesus gave us commandments to follow and that they're recorded in the scriptures. Part 2: We'll play a matching game with commandments to look at some of the commandments the children can follow. I'm going to use the Finch Family Games - Commandment Keepers, though instead of doing a Bingo game, I'm going to use a double set of the cards and play a matching game instead. I will not use all of the cards, though.
E: Scripture Story / Activity (2) - Jesus & His Commandments
This will address the second part of this.
N: Scripture Story - Shadrach, Meshach, & Abed-nego
To tell this story, I'm going to use a story wheel I found in a Bible Unit on Teachers Pay Teachers. It's expensive ($24.99), but I purchased it some months ago, and like how many stories it covers. The stories are very simplified, so some of it's appropriate for Sunbeams, though I would've liked to have seen more visuals included for each story, and a greater variety of resources/activities.
The resource is not LDS. Each of the 15 story units (or most) includes a story summary, a scripture verse coloring page, an illustrated story scramble activity, an illustrated story wheel, true/false activity, word search, bingo and trivia games, as well as a couple other things not appropriate for Sunbeams.
C: Song - Keep the Commandments (CS pg. 272)
E: Finger play - found in additional activities for younger children in the manual
We likely won't get to all of these activities, and certainly can't give all of them significant time or attention. But it's important to be aware of priorities and give those activities that are priority the most attention. Additionally, depending on how many children are in the class, you can always "blank out" some of the activities (or write "pick another card"), eliminating activities so that there are just enough activities for each child to pick one, or simply tell the children to pick again if they pick those that are of lesser priority.
To me, the priority activities are the scripture stories, and I would also like to include one of the songs, but not necessarily both. The action verse and finger play, in my opinion, are of the lowest priority. These types of activities are important for engagement and participation. But if you have ways to engage and involve the children in the other activities, they are not as important.
In fact, since I've only got 4 children now that come regularly, I may just go with the following:
O: Song - Quickly I'll Obey or Keep the Commandments
B: Scripture Story / Activity - Jesus & His Commandments (combining both parts)
E: Game - Red Light/Green Light
Y: Scripture Story - Shadrach, Meshach, & Abed-nego
We will close by coloring the black and white poster from Sunday Savers.
With the success of the personal take-home storybooks discussed last week, I also wanted to put together a storybook. This is something that could be included, or not, to reinforce the lesson and send home for reinforcement. If I just do "OBEY", I should have time to include this.
I found the images for "Quickly I'll Obey" on an entry on csarnett.blogspot.com after doing an image search. I'm not sure where she got the images from, or if she made them. But I traced the images and changed them a little bit. (I try to give credit for all of the resources I use. Most of the images I use in my books just come from a google image search.)
Please leave your comments and suggestions!
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