Lesson 29: I Can Say I'm Sorry

Just like the last lesson, last year I printed letters onto a piece of cardstock, spelling the words "I'm sorry".  Then, I wrote one activity on the back of each letter card.  I had the children take turns selecting a letter to determine the lesson activities.

Here are the activities that I included last year, as well as some current thoughts on these activities:

I:  Snack
Including snack as a random activity makes it too random.  Snack needs to be given when the children need snack.  In my case right now, that's at the very beginning of class.

'm:  Game - happy :) or sorry :(
I found clip art showing various actions a child might do that could make him/her feel happy or sorry.  I made cards with them, and 2 large cards showing a sorry face and a happy face.  I placed the sorry and happy face cards on the board with a magnet.  Then I placed the action cards upside down on the table.  The children took turns picking a card, then deciding whether it would make you feel sorry or happy.  Then they would put it on the board below the appropriate face.  It went over really well, and gave us the opportunity to discuss a lot of specific situations.

 

s:  Scripture Story - Alma the younger
I used visuals from Latterday Chatter on Etsy.

o:  Coloring Sheet
I used the black and white poster from Sunday Savers, 

r:  Scripture Story - Jonah & the Whale
Like last week, this story wasn't included in the manual or on Sugardoodle, but I included it because it goes very well with the topic, and I already had the visuals (Friend, January 2006).

r:  Game - block stacking
For this game, I had the children work in pairs.  I gave each pair a set of foam blocks and told them to work together to build a tall tower.  They were to take turns placing blocks on the tower.  But if one of them accidentally knocked it down, they were to say "I'm sorry!"  Well... it didn't work out.  The children thought it was fun to knock the towers over, and would laugh as they said "I'm sorry!"  I stopped the activity very quickly, as I realized that it wasn't conveying any sense of remorse, and was, in fact, making it fun to make a "mistake".  They were knocking the stacks down on purpose.  So, no... not doing this one again.

y:  Song - When You're Sorry and You Know It (to the tune of "When You're Happy and You Know It")
I read this idea somewhere... but I don't remember where.  It was kind of cute, but I didn't feel it conveyed the right ideas regarding feeling sorry.


So, this year, I made some changes.  As I did last week, I reduced the number of letter cards, so that the coloring page and snack were not included.  I also tried to more closely follow the lesson manual.  So, this is what I ended up with...
We started with snack.  While they snacked, I read the story "I'm Sorry" by Sam McBratney.  Thank you to Faye Houser for submitting the idea to Sugardoodle!  As Faye mentioned, it is quite long.  I did read the book though, instead of telling it in my own words.  But, I skipped a bunch of pages.  I paper clipped a bunch of the early pages together so the children didn't know I skipped them, and it went over very well.

Then onto the randomly selected activities. S:  Game - happy :) or sorry :(
I used the same pictures and method as above.

O:  Story of Travis & Matt
Thank you to Sugardoodle for posting this.  There are visuals for this story in the Friend (Mar. 1987).  I extracted the pictures then made them a bit larger before printing them and making a little flip chart booklet.

R:  Scripture Story - Alma the younger
I used the same visuals as last year.

R:  Storybook - "Uh-oh! I'm Sorry" by Little Scholastic.
I found this story while looking for the one by Sam McBratney.  I thought it was cute and simple and presented some very practical situations for the children.  I didn't read it, instead, I just talked about the situations presented.  I let the children say what they should do about the situation before we lifted the flap to see what happened.

Y:  Steps of Repentance
I made four footprints, and wrote on them the steps included in the lesson. I had the children gather around me on the floor, and I put the footprints down one at a time, discussing what each step was.  Then, I had each child take a turn at stepping from footprint to footprint, and reviewed each step as they did.  Only four children were present, but that meant that we reviewed the steps four times.

We finished with the same coloring page.