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.