Articles of Faith: Pathway to a Testimony


After 2 months of only attending the Sacrament meeting portion of church, I finally climbed back in the saddle and went back to Primary. And boy did it feel good to be back.

The lesson was simple this week with only a brief history to teach, which left us more time to do an activity. The lesson: Joseph Smith writes the Articles of Faith.

We followed the manual pretty much to a "T" to get the lesson started off. You can get the manual and their ideas here.

After telling the kids of the events that surrounded the writing of the Articles of Faith, we dove into an activity that got the kids out of their seats, make them work for a little treat and it turned into a huge success. This activity was adapted from idea #1 & #2 given in the manual.


The activity was to teach the kids that knowing the Articles of Faith can help lead them and others to a testimony of the gospel. To start off I pulled out a dish full of little baggies with some skittles in them. I explained that these were everyone's testimonies and I put the dish at one end of the room. I then had all of the children move their chairs over to the opposite corner of the classroom.


On the table up front, I laid 3 footsteps upside down. The children took turns coming to the front and selecting a footprint. On the hidden side was a number of an Article of Faith along with a picture and keyword to help them remember that article (these keywords and pictures are used in activity #2 in the manual). Once the child selected the footprint, they were to then recite the Article of Faith from memory for the entire class.


We've been working on the Articles of Faith in our class all year but many of the kids still don't know them super well. To avoid any child feeling embarrassed for not knowing them (because I still don't know them all!), I told them that if they didn't know the article, that was okay because we are still all learning them to build our path to our testimony. If they needed help, they could pick a friend from the class to come up and recite it with them. If no one knew it, like Article of Faith #11, then we all pulled out our scriptures and read it together.

Once the selected Article of Faith had been recited or read, the child placed the footprint on the floor leading to the dish of testimonies.

The class had a lot of fun and I even had kids who didn't know the Articles of Faith raising their hands for another turn! Once they reached the testimonies, I let them each take a baggie and eat their treat as I told them President Monson's story as outlined in enrichment activity 4.

It was a very successful class that got them to understand why they are learning the articles and helped them to practice all 13.

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