John 2-4 (Feb. 11-17)

Ye Must Be Born Again

The object of this lesson is to teach the children how Jesus is our living water. 

Invite Sharing:

To start our lesson, we wrote on the board, "Jesus & Water." We asked the children to list out all the stories from the New Testament they could think of that had Jesus and Water in them.
The examples they came up with were:
-Jesus and the Woman at the Well
-Jesus turning water into wine
-Jesus being baptized by immersion
-Jesus walking on water
-Jesus refers to his blood as water

Teach the Doctrine:

Brian and I are at an advantage this year that we are teaching children 7-8 year olds which means that we can really pick and choose activities from both the "younger children" and the "older children" sections.

Beforehand, gather together:

 1. Chalk, eraser.
2. Scriptures.
3. Fun game found in activity 2
4. 3 clear cups, food coloring.
5. container to fill with water, rubber duckie or something that
can easily be submerged into the water.
6. Treat if you'd like.

Some Activities We Plan to Do:

1. After the "Invite Sharing" activity, we will read together John 4: 6-23. We used "Popcorn reading" to keep it more engaging. Popcorn reading is when one child reads a verse and then chooses another student to read the next verse and so on until all verses have been read. We then asked the children,

When Christ refers to himself as living water, is he really talking about water?
No.
What does he mean when he says water?
The Gospel. Eternal Life. The plan of Salvation. Etc.
Yes. Christ spoke in metaphors or parables to help the people understand tough concepts. Do you know what a parable is?
They didn't know.
A parable is a story that talks about one thing, but really means another thing. It's a fun story that teaches a bigger lesson. Why do you think Christ chose to use parables having to deal with water, farm animals, agriculture and farm equipment?
Because that's what the people would understand.
If Christ were here today, February 17th 2019, what types of things do you think he would speak about in his parables?
Computers, video games, shopping, helicopters, school etc.
Why do you think he would talk about those things to teach us?
Because it's what we like to do. What we would understand.
Exactly!

2. I found a fun little game that I will link HERE:
Basically you cut up the pictures and put them in a bag or jar, then you have a student pick one. They then have to figure out a way that that object could be turned into a parable that we can use to explain a gospel principle.

The kids had a fun time coming up with things and honestly so did Brian and I.

The first one was a couch: Couches are soft and comfy. The Gospel can bring us comfort during hard times.

Broom: A broom cleans our house daily/weekly. The sacrament cleans our spirits and minds weekly.

Blanket: The Holy Ghost can come over us to make us feel good when we make a good choice, just like a blanket.

DVD Player: When we buy a DVD it's because we like a movie so much we want to watch it over and over again. This is how we should be with our scripture study.

3. Before class began I got 3 clear cups and filled them with water. In one I put red, green and blue food coloring to make the water black. In the next one I put yellow food coloring and in the last one, I left the water clear. I asked the children that the cups of water represent the spirits of different people. I asked them:

Which cup is representative of someone who is feeling lost, angry and without hope?
The dark water.
Which cup is representative of someone who goes to church but then doesn't follow the gospel principles during the week. Essentially just doing the right thing when other people are looking- but their hearts are not in the right place?
The yellow water.
Which cup is representative of someone who is trying their best. They are not perfect by any means and don't pretend to be.. but their heart is in the right place?
The clear water.
The great thing about the atonement is that through it... all of these glasses of water have the opportunity to come to him and he will help all the cups water become clear again. But the cups have to want to be clear and humble themselves.

4. We got an orange tub and filled it with water and I snagged a rubber duckie from Vance's room. We then went over baptism by immersion by showing the children using the rubber duckie what it means. We dunked it a couple of times with the beak or wing sticking out and asked them if that worked. They answered no. Then we dunked the duck so it was completely submerged. They said that was the right way.

5. Treat- it was Valentine's day so at the end we had some cupcakes to celebrate and talk about their week.

Be okay with improvisation. Something that we hadn't planned but that ended up being very valuable was when we asked the children if they knew about the story of the well- some did and some didn't. One of the boys offered to draw a picture of a well on the board to help the kids who didn't know what it meant see one. We said okay and he did a wonderful job creating a visual aid that we referred to often throughout the lesson.

I hope this has been helpful to you. See you next week!