- "We Believe in Christ: Personal Testimony" (from the Youth Media 2011 DVD)
- "The Only True God and Jesus Christ Whom He Has Sent" (Mormon Messages)
Awesome choices. Jeans had some great suggestions when she posted in 2009 too:
- Elder Holland's article "I Stand All Amazed" from the December 2008 New Era
- The list of scriptures about Christ in Preach My Gospel, p. 47-48
I'll write the second post soon with some of my thoughts. What are yours? What questions do you have? What resources would you suggest?
This is great. Is there anything like this for primary. I know primary is not nearly as bad, but its not great and frankly it could be much better. If there isn't maybe I will do one. Does anyone know?
ReplyDeleteJessica - not for the lesson manuals, that I know of. Julie M. Smith did a terrific series on Times & Seasons for the New Testament primary manual a while back, which you can dig up in their archives, but she only got partway through the manual, sadly.
ReplyDeleteThe main online lesson helps sites are the Idea Door and Sugardoodle and both of them make me gag and cringe; they're the kind of site that made me want to start this one as a meat-not-milk alternative. Avoid those Mary Ross/Jennette Guymon-King books like the plague (Sunday Savers, Super Singers, Primary Partners); suitable for bonfires only, IMO. Sofia's Primary Ideas is thoughtful, but it's mainly focused on sharing/singing time & not on the teaching.
The "Scripture Study for Latter-day Families" series is pretty decent. I got some mileage out of materials published by other denominations, like the Kid's Life Application Bible, but of course any of those are only good for the Bible & not for other standard works or Mormon-specific doctrine.
But in my own experience (Nursery, CTR 7, Valiant 8, primary presidency a couple of times, and primary music leader twice), teaching children under 12 is just plain less fraught with danger. There's still lots of room for more expansive, progressive, and gender-tolerant language and teaching in Primary. Primary leaders & teachers can do a lot to mold ideas about gender roles (in good or bad ways), and can help build their spiritual foundations by turning children to the scriptures rather than using dumb fictional stories or corny pictures and games that pit them against each other.
Prayer and knowing the kids you teach are the two most powerful tools in Primary teaching; honestly I never found much on the web that would help with the specific needs of my class - that's where the Spirit was the best instructor.
Anyone have other suggestions for Primary resources? If you get a site going, let me know, Jessica - I'm in Primary these days & would love to connect with others who are thinking about Primary topics.
By the way, what I'd love for Primary is a way to search through the Church's images for ones to use in Primary lessons. The new lds.org site has really partly visual offerings for kids, and I wish they'd make a way to search across all their databases for visual materials and pictures I could use. Sigh.
ReplyDeleteI've only done Primary presidency counselor once, but I agree with jeans too - it's definitely so different class by class, ward by ward that having "lesson helps" would be difficult. However, the newer "Sharing Time" booklet was a giant step forward. Whoever did that booklet, at least the one while I had that calling, seemed to both know kids and the gospel. Amazing! :) I've never worked with the manuals, but the Sharing Time seemed to give great ideas to get basic, solid doctrinal foundations across at a kid level.
ReplyDeleteWhat I enjoyed about Primary was forcing myself to take the lesson topic down to its core - which to me was usually something quite profound. I tried to pick one scripture or scripture story and come back to it over and over again across the 4 weeks I was in charge of Sharing Time. Sometimes I brought in clips of Pres. Monson talking, and we would stop every few lines to see if they remembered what he said (it was some talk where he addressed kids and what they could pray about or something). I tried to think about what that would mean to the kids - even if they didn't remember the lesson, they could remember that Pres. Monson talked to kids too.
Anyway, that was my experience. I've only subbed for Primary classes, and I failed miserably! :)
But that said, I do think a site could be done that takes the lessons down to the basic idea and makes that doctrine very clear though using scripture, talks, etc. I think it could be done. It would be a help to the teacher, if nothing else, to get things clear before they start planning their lessons.
ReplyDeleteIt would be kinda tricky, though, since there are several manuals being used at once. It would be awesome to see a team put together and a blog started! Let us know if you start something up!
I agree with the difficulty of doing a more meat to primary approach. And the multiple manuals but I think it could still be done. I will give it some thought.
ReplyDeleteDo not get me started about the primary "helps" out there. They make me want to scream. I think if for nothing else doing the primary manuals would help me.
Sister Laynt did the new books, she owns a few preschools in Utah so I think that is why they are SO MUCH better. But I still have some issues with them- they don't take kids to the scriptures enough, they don't focus on Jesus Christ enough, and really in my ward I only teach every 3rd month and I try to do things that are more meaty. And the kids respond. Even the ones who tune out pay attention. I try to give them skills and focus on what they can do to be responsible for their own spiritual growth.
I have a degree in human development and I am planning on going back to school in 2013 for a PhD in developmental psychology with an emphasis on spiritual development. I try really hard in my ward's primary to make gender issues equal (this is amazingly hard) But I really believe that primary often gets overlooked- but imagine if those girls going into YW knew only equality in primary and demanded it in YW/YM.
P.S- I have been reading more on this site- I am so impressed.
Thanks. We have the same aims - get into the scriptures, teach about Christ, help the girls learn to learn on their own. I'd love to see a Primay site launched that aims at the same.
ReplyDeleteok I am sold. How/where do I start? Please you have given me so much hope.
ReplyDeleteJessica - this has been really productive, feel free to email me offline if you want to talk about specifics - I'm at bnjeans at gmail.com
ReplyDeleteA site for primary--inspired by and somewhat modeled on Beginnings New--is in the building stages. PLEASE if you'd like to be a contributor, email me at jennibrighton @ yahoo . com I would love to have more people involved with this. I feel it needs to be done, but God knows I don't have the energy to do it all myself!
ReplyDeleteJessica, I am interested in helping you if you'd like. I am currently teaching Sunbeams and I'm already re-phrasing and re-creating the lessons from the lesson manual to be more doctrinal. Not deep, not heavy, but scriptural. For example, there are two sentences in this lesson that say (to paraphrase): if you want to get back to live with Heavenly Father then you need to be very good and be on your best behavior....without a single mention of Jesus' atonement in the lesson.
ReplyDeleteI'm very busy (I work outside the home fulltime) but I am happy to help.
Roberta- that sound perfect. That is exactly what I was thinking it should be. Focus on Christ and make it developmentally appropriate. I think in most cases it was just an oversight.
ReplyDeletecan you email me at
sarajanedesigns AT gmail
Its the only email I have that does not have my whole name in it so it will forward to my normal gmail and I will use that after.
I am really so excited. Thank you
I am generally pretty computer savvy, but I cannot figure out how to download some of the Mormon Messages listed in the resource guide for these lessons, including the "Only True God" video with Elder Holland. It's not listed in the itunes Mormon Messages podcast store. So what do I do to get it on my computer? YouTube is blocked at our church building.
ReplyDeleteSorry Lindsey, I'm not sure either. I'm not very familiar with youtube or anything similar actually. I do know I tried to embed one of those in the blog and it wouldn't work, but that's probably my fault, not theirs. :) Sorry! Hopefully someone else can help!
ReplyDeleteMy 17 year old daughter helped me do this for one of my classes. If you don't have an answer by the time she gets home, I will get her to remind me how to do it. I know that certain things are blocked at church for a reason, but goodness it can be frustrating sometimes, especially when there are so many good resources online these days.
ReplyDeleteThis is how I use the Mormon messages. I downloaded to my home computer then brought it into iTunes. Then I synced it to my iPad and just showed the video from there. (Hope that makes sense.) Our building just got wireless access and we had a few extra minutes this past week. I tried to go through the Mormon Channel app to get a video but didn't have any luck. Don't know if it is the wireless service or that something was blocked. I love all of the resources that are available.
ReplyDeleteAs far as Lesson 3 - I am going to have the girls do the Attribute Activity in Preach my Gospel - the chapter that was suggested in the resource guide.
jeans - you mentioned you wished they had a way to search all their image databases. Does this one search all of them?
ReplyDeletehttps://lds.org/media-library/images?lang=eng
Sorry, better link:
ReplyDeletehttps://lds.org/media-library/images/categories?lang=eng
There is a section on lds.org where additional resources are listed, like references from Conferences, stories from Church magazines etc. listed next to each lesson.
ReplyDeleteI know I wasn't dreaming! It does exist!! But now I'm looking for it, can't find it. I'll keep trying.
What you're thinking of is called the "Resource Guide." There are two ways to find it. First, they've actually just put the info for each lesson on the sidebar for each lesson. :) yay!
ReplyDeleteSecond, if you want to see the whole Resource Guide in one go, here's the link to the pdf:
http://www.lds.org/bc/content/ldsorg/content/english/manual/young-women/pdf/PD50025548_000_letter.pdf?lang=eng
Hope that helps!