Saturday, January 14, 2017

In the premortal life, I chose to follow God's plan.

I made a chart to help me teach this lesson tomorrow about the beautiful Plan of Happiness or Plan of Salvation. I love this topic! Using advice from the sharing time manual, week 3, I put together the list of songs that takes children through God's plan and how we can chose to follow it. I then matched it with scriptures and pictures. I found some of the scriptures by searching the scriptures, some by looking at different articles on the Primary resources page under Plan of Happiness, and by looking at the references for each of the songs I am highlighting. You can go to Children's Songbook online to easily find the references. I highlighted them in the red box below for you to see:



Here's my reference table. I'll use this differently in Senior vs. Junior Primary. Explanation below the table.

(I pulled pictures by googling "LDS GAK" to go to the LDS image library, and also by using pictures found in some of the articles about this topic in the Primary resources page I referenced above.)


TOPIC
SCRIPTURE
PICTURE
SONG
Before I came to earth, I lived in heaven.
D&C 138:55-56
55 I observed that they were also among the noble and great ones who were chosen in the beginning to be rulers in the Church of God.
56 Even before they were born, they, with many others, received their first lessons in the world of spirits and were prepared to come forth in the due time of the Lord to labor in his vineyard for the salvation of the souls of men.
Spirit World (picture of people dressed in white in a pretty place)
I Lived in Heaven - CS 4
I chose to come to earth to receive a body.
Heavenly Father presented a plan for us to become like him. Let’s learn about the plan here:

Moses 1:39
39 For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.
Picture of family on earth (to show earthly bodies + families + earth)
I Am a Child of God - CS 2
I will be baptized and receive the gift of the Holy Ghost
Acts 2:38
38 Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.

Genesis 9:11-15
11 And I will establish my covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth.
12 And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations:
13 I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.
14 And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud:
15 And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.
Child getting baptized
When I Am Baptized - 103
I can prepare to go to the temple.
D&C 138: 47-48
47 The Prophet Elijah was to plant in the hearts of the children the promises made to their fathers,
48 Foreshadowing the great work to be done in the temples of the Lord in the dispensation of the fulness of times, for the redemption of the dead, and the sealing of the children to their parents, lest the whole earth be smitten with a curse and utterly wasted at his coming.
Temple picture
Families Can Be Together Forever - 188
I will be resurrected.
John 3:16
16 ¶For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

John 13:15
15 For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you.
Jesus Christ resurrection picture
He Sent His Son - 34

For Junior Primary:
1. I'm going to have these pictures all over the room. Then I'm going to talk about it, and have the children look all around the room and point to the topic I'm talking about. Then, I'll have the pianist play the first few notes of the song and have children raise their hand if they recognize it and want to guess the song.  Then, time pending, we'll sing the song to reinforce the lesson and the message.

For Senior Primary:
1. I'll have different children hold the pictures and see if the class can unscramble the order of the pictures, then put them on the chalkboard.
2. Then, I'll have the children draw from a bowl. Each item they draw will have a song # on one side and a scripture on the other side. Depending on which one they draw we'll either read the scripture or guess and then sing the song. Then we'll discuss. Time pending, we'll go back and sing more songs.

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One last note. I'm going to start sending occasional lesson plan emails to families as I plan my lessons, and my presidency is welcome to do the same on the weeks that they teach. I had this inspiration last night as I was outlining my lesson and started writing this email:

Dear Primary Parents,

We're so excited to kick off another year with your wonderful children. I wanted to share some information with you as we start off the new year. The overall Primary theme for 2017 (as directed by the First Presidency) is "Choose the Right." The theme for January is "Agency is the Gift to Choose for Ourselves."

This Sunday's Primary Sharing time lesson will be about the Plan of Happiness/Plan of Salvation. 

We often find a lot of great material that we don't end up using as we prepare our lessons. We will sometimes send you material that might inspire your Monday Family Home Evening lesson. There will of course be relevant material in this month's Friend magazine. For FHE on Monday, you may want to consider some of these materials that will reinforce the Primary Sharing time lesson for Sunday:

The July 2013 Friend has a recommendation to create a family banner in a manner similar to Captain Moroni, since families are part of Heavenly Father's plan. This may be a fun Family Home Evening activity! You can read about it here:

There is also a great craft activity in the January 2014 Friend here:

For older kids, there is a a bit of board game that you can play with them:

Thanks,
Esther Sumner