Monthly Theme: I Can Follow Jesus Christ's Example
Scripture: "Come, follow me." Luke 18:22
Weekly Theme: Jesus Christ's example teaches me how to live.
In an effort to stay close to the suggested lesson ideas found in the
2010 Outline for Sharing Time, I selected the first suggested activity listed. The activity is to have kids match pictures of events in Christ's life found in the scriptures, with scripture references and Primary songs related to the topic. Each picture depicts Christ giving an example for us to follow.
In the Outline, there are four suggestions for match-ups, and with a little help from
Jen Higgins, I came up with a few more and also included a picture of how we can follow that example. All the pictures I used can be found in the
Gospel Art Kit (GAK) and the songs are from the
Children's Songbook (CS) and the standard
Hymn book (Hymns). If your primary does not have access to the GAK, many of the same images can be found in the new
Gospel Art Book (GAB) or similar images can likely be found in your ward library.
1. Christ's Example: praying, praying with family
pictures: "Jesus Praying in Gethsemane" (GAK 227) and "Young Boy Praying" (GAK 605)
song: "A Child's Prayer" (CS 12-13)
scripture:
Matthew 14:23
2. Christ's Example: studying the gospel
pictures: "Boy Jesus in the Temple" (GAK 205) and "Young Girl Reading Scriptures" (GAK 617)
song: "Seek the Lord Early" (CS 108)
scripture:
Luke 2:42-49
3. Christ's Example: being baptized
pictures: "John the Baptist Baptizing Jesus" (GAK 208) and "Baptism" (GAK 601)
song: "Baptism" (CS 100-101)
scripture:
Matthew 3:13-17
4. Christ's Example: calling apostles (their example of willing service, etc)
pictures: "Calling of the Fishermen" (GAK 209) and "Serving One Another" (GAK 615)
song: "Come Follow Me" (Hymns 116)
scripture:
Matthew 4:18-20
5. Christ's Example: sharing/teaching the gospel
pictures: "Go Ye Therefore" (GAK 235) and "Missionaries Teach the Gospel of Jesus Christ" (GAK 612)
song: "Called to Serve" (Hymns 249)
scripture:
Matthew 28:19-20
6. Christ's Example: healing, serving the sick and afflicted, loving regardless of physical condition
pictures: "Jesus Healing the Nephites"(GAB 317) and "Administering to the Sick" (GAK 613)
song: "I'll Walk with You" (CS 140-141)
scripture:
3 Nephi 17:7-9
For Senior Primary: I started out by greeting them with a whisper. I proceeded to ask them about their week and what they did. All in a whisper. They began to answer me in a whisper. Then, finally, one child asked, "Why are you whispering?" I replied, "Two reasons. One, because it causes you to pay attention. Two, because do you see what's happened? You began to whisper back, following my example. Christ gave us examples during his life that we, too, can follow.
I printed off strips of paper with the scripture references and put them in a column on the board. In another column I put the strips with the song references. I split the group into three smaller groups and gave them each two pictures. They were asked to work together to find out what was happening in the picture and find the scripture and song to match. Unfortunately, we didn't have enough time to sing the songs, but we discussed how Jesus can always serve as our greatest example and how our lives will be blessed when we follow Him.
For Junior Primary: I put each of the pictures on the board, with the song strip just underneath it. As a group we went through each picture and found Jesus in the picture and talked about what he was doing in the picture. After we went through all six of them, we started again by talking about what we could do to follow the specific example of Jesus in each particular picture. I called on six children, one by one, to pick a picture (from the remaining six that were of modern day examples) that best illustrated how we could follow the example that Jesus had set. Using the magnets, they placed the correct picture underneath the picture of Jesus.
