Our "School Trip"

We made a map!

I sort of took a simple idea from the manual and ran with it...quite far...for 2 days!

So - rather than locating places on the map to enrich our understanding of the Saviour's life I decided that we would make our own illustrated map. I drew a simple outline (just the coast, Galillee, Jordan River and Dead Sea) on, yes you guessed it, Big Paper and gave out the suggested scripture references for places Christ visited. I had also printed out a lot of little pictures they could cut out and stick on which I mostly got from this excellent site. Using their scriptures and the maps and gazeteer they were to add to and embellish the map. Once they had done the scriptures from the days lesson, they were to think of other events they had already studied and try to find out where they had happened.

So this is what we have so far.

The Holy Land

 

For our study of the last week of Christ's life I intend to prepare a city map of Jerusalem for similar treatment.

So, the next day, I was not ready to leave behind our tour of the Saviour's footprints. It is at this point  where if this was an academic class in a well-funded academic institution that I would be planning a school trip to the Holy Land. Sadly the best I could manage was a slideshow of pictures of the area as it is now, interspersed with artists' impressions of how it was then. I gave readings from this most excellent talk by Russell M Nelson to the students to read out as we looked at scenes of Bethlehem, Nazareth, Jordan, Caesarea Philippi, Galillee etc.

 

 

 

 

Group presentations

John 6 has several excellent teaching approaches in the manual. Since I wanted to cover at least two of them it seemed an excellent opportunity to try something I had been wanting to do - group presentations. I divided the class in half, even putting them in adjacent rooms. They were given about two thirds of the time to prepare to teach their material to the other group in the remaining third of the lesson. I emphasised the importance of working through the material first themselves - that it was more important to understand the content than to produce frilly materials for presenting it.
Although the idea is for the students to do most of the work, it is not an 'easy' lesson for the teacher as a fair amount of preparation needs to go into this activity. I adapted the lesson plans in the manual into an appropriate skeleton for each of them to use for their presentation. For the group doing the comparison between John 6 and the Exodus I gave them the part filled-in table both on paper and in PowerPoint form and allowed them the use of my laptop for giving their presentation. The group doing the Saviour's discourse on the Bread of Life were given some freshly baked bread to use as an object lesson (for ALL to share) and paper and felt pens to use if they wished. I then had to flit between groups assisting, prompting and chivvying.

So what did  I learn? This was a good activity but the biggest frustration for them and me was lack of time to do it adequately. The class is certainly capable of completing a task like this well and could do a better job if given longer to both prepare and present. I will do this again soon but will give a whole lesson preparation time and another lesson for both presentations.

It doesn't always have to be...

...all singing, all dancing.

In the quest to find spectacular attention grabbers and memorable object lessons it can be easy to forget what a great time you and your class can have simply delving into scripture. This morning, not because of any lack of preparation, but simply because of the nature of what we were studying, we just read in depth, piece by piece, Luke 14.

In Monday's lesson we had done some group work exploring the concept of discipleship which had involved a fair bit of moving around and therefore, at the crack of dawn on a Monday, met with 'varying degrees of enthusiasm', shall we say? Today we were continuing the theme of discipleship but we just put our heads down and got stuck into feasting on the word. There was some great stuff there. My goodness - verses 7-11! That's brilliant advice just on the level even before you look at humility in greater depth.

Talking to my coordinator after last Friday's lesson I was reminded of another lesson I did early in the course where little was required other than a set of scriptures. We were studying Luke 1-3 and I decided we would have a testimony meeting with 'special guests'. There are 9 different witnesses of Christ (detailed below) in those chapters, not including John leaping in the womb. I gave out slips with the scripture references and so each student effectively got to 'bear the testimony' of a scripture character. We discussed the nature of those testimonies, what they focussed on and what they had in common. The students then had some time to write their own testimonies of Christ in their scripture journals and at the end I invited a couple of them to share what they had written.

I think the trick is to mix it up, vary the pace. Having done a very 'studious' lesson today I might look for something a little more energetic or creative tomorrow. I might not though...who knows? The most important things in teaching seminary are to prayerfully prepare and to follow the spirit.

Testimony Meeting Special Guests

(lifted straight from the manual btw)

Mary	Luke 1:46–55
Zacharias	Luke 1:67–79
the angel in the fields	Luke 2:10–12
the heavenly host	Luke 2:13–14
the shepherds	Luke 2:20
Simeon	Luke 2:29–35
Anna	Luke 2:38
John the Baptist	Luke 3:4–6; JST, Luke 3:4–11
Heavenly Father	Luke 3:22

Some promised pictures and other sundries

I didn't get to post a picture of the last Big Paper excercise. We did a similar activity today so you can see the results below. Today's lesson was about Hypocrisy as found in Luke 11-13. The attention grabber was a food can apparently containing Cherry Pie filling. As we were to be having waffles for breakfast I had a good reason to get one of the students to open it. I gave him a spoon to have a trial taste. When the tin was opened, lo and behold, Oxtail Soup. (Matt, being a game lad, and also a perpetually hungry one, dived in anyway.) This illustrated the book/cover discrepancy inherent in hypocrites.

Another activity which I tried today was to give pairs of students a scripture reference, or a a couple with a similar message, and allow them to discuss for a few minutes to get the the heart of what was being taught. We then came to order and they found out that the had to present what they had extracted to the rest of the group in a sentence where they take alternate words, a la I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue. (One for the Radio 4 listeners there.) They obviously didn't have time to plan it so it was funny seeing the looks of surprise as their partner's word took the sentence in a direction they hadn't intended. It was a fun activity and I don't think the meanings became *completely* shrouded in the confusion. It was a bit of a gamble doing something untried and untested as we actually had our CES coordinator visiting us this morning.

So - the Wiki. This was done while I read an abridged talk by Elder Joseph B Wirthlin entitled Without Guile.

 

 

 

And finally, for my lovely students, if you are reading. Brother White commented on what a wonderful class I had. I had to agree...Love you guys.

 

Exploring links

I LOVE this activity. It is one I remember from my ill-fated flirtation with professional teaching and is great for examining and also remembering a number of different concepts. This was with reference to the miracles of the Centurion's Servant and the Widow of Nain. I divided the class into pairs and gave them 3 minutes to make a colourful poster featuring a key word. (Just felt-tips and A4 - nothing fancy). The words were Compassion, Service, Faith, Mission and Bless. (Exactly the same words work brilliantly for the story of the Anti-Nephi-Lehis btw.) We then collected the posters into the middle of the table and I arranged them into alphabetical order, telling the students what I was doing. The students were then able (one at a time but as inspired and in no particular order) to move the posters somehow and explaing why they were doing it. They start grouping words, or placing some words as a foundation for others, or using one word to link others.

It doesn't matter if they do daft ones too like colour groups or other random stuff (hey, I started off with alphabetical!). It's all good as long as they explain what they are doing.

The kids came up with some great suggestions including one that formed the basic shape of a tree sprouting from faith. They found that compassion and service were virtually inseparable. We considered how the relationship between compassion and service was like that between faith and works, the outward manifestation of an inward conviction.

The best time I ever ran this activity was for a family night based around D&C 88:119. My children probably even now remember all the 'houses' we should have.

I'm posting a post about post-its

We know how much I like Big Paper. Well it turns out I'm also a fan of little bits of sticky paper. Post-it notes have tons of uses in a class room. They can facilitate collaboration, allowing everyone to contribute. They can be moved, sorted, and resorted. They can be used to give feedback or annotation and they can be stuck around the room on anything, even people.

 

In today's activity we were reading about Christ's declaration to the people of Nazareth, his home town, that he was the Messiah as recorded in Luke 4. Christ spoke of how Old Testament prophets Elijah and Elisha went unrecognised in Israel yet miraculously blessed the lives of foreigners. In an activity designed to open a dicussion about the human nature of our church leaders coupled with their divine commission, I gave each student a few post-its and asked them to write down anything they knew about President Monson and stick them around his picture on my white board.

 

 

 

 



We then sorted the notes into things which are unique to President Monson and things which apply to many people, which really became a separation between things that are part of his nature and things which are by virtue of his calling.

As always my students succeeded in both educating and entertaining me. There was an odd fixation with his ears. "He has Grandad ears," and "He can wiggle his ears."  Jacob suggested that he had lines around his eyes from "smiling too much" but William stole the day with the brazen claim,"His pin number is XXXX".


P.S. If you want a really cool recap of conference check out this blog http://beckstrombuzz.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/monday-sketchbook-conference-recap.html

Har Har

I 'borrowed' some hazard tape from work for an object lesson (the Sabbath Day one from here if you're interested) and Jacob and I thought this would be a good wheez to play on the rest of the family. Their responses were very gratifying.