Object lessons needed to teach Presidents of the Church SS class

[Anonymous UserParticipant]

After 25 years of inactivity, I returned to church about 3 years ago. I have recently been called to be the Sunday School teacher to the 12 & 14 year olds. We are studying the “Presidents of the Church.” This is a rather large class of 12-15 “active” teenagers. Any suggestions on how to keep their attention? Suggestions for object lessons??? Any comments would be greatly appreciated.

[Jenny SmithParticipant]

Keeping the attention of kids in any class can be a challenge. I suggest you look at the menu at left in the Seminary section for teaching tips and ideas. You will get lots of ideas on how to keep student attention there.

[Anonymous UserParticipant]

That’s an intimidating amount of 12-14 yr olds, even if they are all great kids. You may want to ask the sunday school president to sit in to see if the class needs to be split.

To answer your question, I have used knives of various kinds as object lessons / attention getters to start the lesson, because 1) I have a lot of knives and 2) it’s usually the boys’ attention that needs to be grabbed. “See this knife? It looked great in the catolog, but when I got the package in the mail, it turned out that the locking mechanism was just painted on, it wasn’t real. Let’s talk about Things that look good, but are not really what they appear.”

“Pass this knife around carefully. I trust you not to stab each other.” (Almost always followed by a pretend stab by whoever is holding it, so time the comment appropriately.) “What are some things you can do with this knife? What else?” Get comments. “So even though it’s just one knife, you can do a lot of things with this knife, correct? Let’s talk about gifts of the spirit. There are a lot of them, and they each do different things, but they all come from the same source…”

“See this knife? It is a miniture of Ammon’s sword. OK, not really. But what can you tell me about Ammon and his sword? Let’s go to Alma…” Or Nephi. Or David and Goliath. Or Peter in Gethsemane. Or Captain Moroni.

Rocks are good too. “Pass around this rock. Done? What can you tell me about it?” Get comments. If it is igneous, you can talk about volcanic ash and compare it to the mists of darkness in Lehi’s vision, or the darkness that veiled the earth when Christ was crucified. If metamorphic, you can talk about the Children of Israel being scattered and mixed in among the nations, or the difficulties in the early Christian Church melding the gentile converts with the jewish converts, or how God uses pressure and stretching to create a stronger rock/stronger person. If it is sandstone, you can talk about how many grains are in the piece they are holding, and then have them imagine a bigger piece, and then a boulder, then a beach, then talk about creation, or the omniscience of God, or the growth of the church from Joseph Smith’s time to now, or the Abrahamic covenant (Gen 22:17).

“This is the cord that connects my printer to my computer. What happens if they are not plugged into each other?” “So no matter how much I type, nothing is going to come out on that printer until I connect it? Let’s talk about prayer…”

At the end of the lesson, I like to hold up the object and ask them what the lesson was: gratifyingly, they always remember.

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