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Seminary Mom

The following items are listed in order from newest to oldest and then by title.

Rationalization and Excuses Leave You Empty

Submitted by Jenny Smith on Sun, 03/13/2011 - 4:29pm
I've posted both the full lesson and the object lesson part here in case Seminary Mom's (rather long) lesson doesn't fit with the message you're trying to get across in your lesson: The Object Lesson I brought out a muffin tray with muffin liners, but no actual muffins inside the liners. I explained I'd planned on baking muffins for them during class, but had forgotten the necessary eggs for the batter. Oh, well. Sorry. Was my excuse good enough...
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Stretch a little Higher, Be a little better, Enlarge thy tent

Submitted by Jenny Smith on Sun, 03/13/2011 - 4:02pm
As a prelude to the lesson, I began by calling a student volunteer to the front of the room. As it happened, it turned out to be the tallest student in the class. I asked him to show how high he could reach. He went over to the wall and rested his verrry long arm at a very tall spot on the wall. Then when it appeared he had reached as high as he could, I asked him to reach a little higher. Invariably, even though the student thought he was reachi...
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The Armor of God

Submitted by Jenny Smith on Sun, 03/13/2011 - 2:36pm
Here is Seminary Mom's discussion on how spiritual knowledge and gospel study and preparation can We ... discussed the importance of of umbrellas, coats, shields, etc. and how they service us. And to lead into the application activity, I shared how ...
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Scripture Scholar: 3 Nephi

Submitted by Jenny Smith on Sun, 03/13/2011 - 2:30pm
Here is Seminary Mom's Scripture Scholar form for 3 Nephi 15-16 ...

PDF - Adobe PDF

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Scripture Mastery Mix it Up

Submitted by Jenny Smith on Sun, 03/13/2011 - 2:25pm
So today for scripture mastery, I passed out a sheet of 25 picture representations for each of the 25 scripture mastery scriptures. I gave the students five minutes to write out all of the references they could figure out for each picture representat...
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Splitting Students into Teams to Learn the Gospel

Submitted by Jenny Smith on Sun, 03/13/2011 - 1:09pm
LDS Article Seminary Mom likes to split her classes into groups for gospel learning. Here's how she taught 3 Nephi 11 over the course of two days, while splitting into groups for researching the scripture topic: Today was a special day as we began our study of 3 Nephi 11, the crowning moment in the Book of Mormon. I know that the suggested teaching schedule ...
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Are you Paying Attention?

Submitted by Jenny Smith on Sun, 03/13/2011 - 1:07pm
Display a picture of a bird and a quarter. Then tell the following story: Two men were walking down a busy city street. The one asked the other, "Listen to that bird." "I don't hear a bird," the other replied. "No, you must listen harder." The second individual listened very carefully and after a few seconds, he finally heard the bird amongst the hustle of the street. The first individual asked, "Do you think THEY hear the bird?" The second man ...
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Scripture Mastery Road Rally Game

Submitted by Jenny Smith on Sun, 03/13/2011 - 12:51pm
Today we held a road rally for our scripture mastery game. I created a little maze and placed each of the targeted scriptures with missing chapter and verse references on the page. I passed out the sheet and had each student put their name on it. I e...
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The Importance of Following Directions

Submitted by Jenny Smith on Sun, 03/13/2011 - 11:36am
Then to give a break from the reading (and to rouse the sleepy-headed students), I passed out a "3-Minute Test." This was a quick little quiz to test "obedience" and precision to directions. You can easily make your own. Start off by announcing that ...
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Scripture, Scripture, Who Has the Scripture

Submitted by Jenny Smith on Sun, 03/13/2011 - 10:33am
SCRIPTURE SCRIPTURE, WHO HAS THE SCRIPTURE? Announce to the class that we're playing a game called, "Scripture, Scripture, Who Has the Scripture?" Someone has hidden essential clues to eternal life and we are the detectives, finding those clues. On t...
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When things go wrong in the classroom

Submitted by Jenny Smith on Sun, 03/13/2011 - 10:30am
LDS Forum Sometimes things go wrong in the gospel class room -- even if you're Seminary Mom! Read the following to find out how Seminary Mom learned from a mistake without beating herself up: Well, today pointed out to me why I don't usually use competitive team games in my classroom. I had divided the class into two teams, Team A and Team B. There are a cou...
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A Spiritual Feast - Using a multi-day scripture teaching theme

Submitted by Jenny Smith on Sun, 03/13/2011 - 10:23am
LDS Article Seminary Mom used lunch sacks to emphasize the importance of the material in 3 Nephi -- truly a spiritual feast. Kids in her class added notecards to their lunch sacks each day during the lesson to add to their feast. It's a great example of how to carry a theme over multiple days for lesson continuity. Below is her description of how it worked....
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Lesson Preparation Tips from Seminary Mom

Submitted by Jenny Smith on Sun, 03/13/2011 - 9:50am
LDS Forum I received a recent email which asked me how I prepare and plan for my lessons. Here is what I responded (modified slightly): * * * "What I have found most successful for me in lesson preparation are four steps which I spread throughout the week: ...
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Using Art to teach the Gospel

Submitted by Jenny Smith on Sun, 03/13/2011 - 9:42am
LDS Article Seminary Mom is big on hands-on activities, something I think is very important. Here are a couple of her ideas for using art to teach different messages in the scriptures: Principles to Live by (Helaman 15-16 Malachi 3 Principles to Live By Today our scripture block was Helaman 15-16. Using the manual I introduced several of the important disc...
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Headlines and Hangars

Submitted by Jenny Smith on Sun, 03/13/2011 - 9:35am
Today our block of scripture was Helaman 13-14. I wanted to finish up a few things for chapter 13 before moving on to address chapter 14. First off, I held up section A from the newspaper I'd saved from the day my oldest child was born. Then I compar...
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