The Sprinkle on Top

It's a new year which means it's a new topic for study in Primary: The Old Testament. I'm excited for this change because, I'll be the first to admit, I've never read all the way through the Old Testament. I always start completely motivated but before I get out of Exodus I've moved on to the New Testament, the Book of Mormon, or the Doctrine and Covenants. Since I have to teach the Old Testament, I have added motivation to actually study and learn what I'm teaching. The first lesson is "Heavenly Father's Plan for Us" meaning the Plan of Salvation. Justin and I used this activity years ago when we taught the Plan of Salvation to 11-12 year olds. They had a blast and I'm sure 8-9 year olds will enjoy it just as much. Below is helping your class create the Plan of Salvation. Creating the Plan of Salvation It all starts with a test. A test of how well your students already understand the Plan of Salvation. I made cards for each of th...

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 explain...

Last Sunday Justin and I got to teach our Sunday School class of 9 year olds about Zion's Camp -- a group of 200 Latter-day Saint men and women who walked 1,000 miles from Ohio to Missouri to bring food, clothing, and other supplies to the saints who were being persecuted in Jackson County. Lately we've had a bit of a tough time keeping the attention in our class with a simple object lesson and telling the stories and church history accounts. Let's face it - by the third hour of church, kids are almost entirely out of the energy to focus. Sometimes us adults are too. As we planned this week's lesson, we decided to try something a little different. We were going to take our class on an "Oregon Trail" of sorts, but instead of being a part of that pioneer company, the kids were going to be members of Zion's Camp and we were going to march from Ohio (our classroom) to Missouri (the pavilion outside of the church). Along the way the kids would learn about t...

Free printable from It's Always Autumn The Articles of Faith  are 13 verses of scripture that outline what we, as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, believe - beginning with God the Eternal Father. The children in our church are challenged to memorize these 13 Articles of Faith in Primary to help them have a bedrock understanding of what we believe as they grow increasingly to become like our Savior.  Our ward acknowledges each child who memorizes and passes off the Articles of Faith each year with a big box of candy. As teachers of the Valiant 9 primary class in our ward (9 year olds), Justin and I wanted to actively help our class memorize these principles - a lot of which I have already forgotten from when I was in Primary. So we made a deal with our class: For a few weeks we would practice memorizing Articles of Faith 1-5. At the end of the period, the kids would be "tested" on those five Articles of Faith. Those who had th...

When it comes to memorizing long passages of scriptures with complicated sentence structures and big words, we all need a little help.  This year in primary, Justin and I are helping our Valiant 9 primary class memorize the 1 3 Articles of Faith . Most of us who grew up in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have, at one time or another, memorized these verses depicting our basic beliefs.  Most of us, also, have probably forgotten the majority of them. I know I have. Here are some techniques that we've been using in our primary class to help the children memorize and review the articles of faith... and to help ourselves.  These techniques can absolutely be used to help kids memorize anything - scriptures, a short speech, the Gettysburg Address, whatever.  1. Erase Words Write the passage to be memorized on a chalkboard, whiteboard, or piece of paper. Let the kids study it for a few minutes and then have everyone read the passage out...