Tardies in Seminary?

[Jenny SmithParticipant]

Seminary Mom has some suggestions on how to deal with tardy students in Seminary:

TEACHING TIP – What to Do With Tardies?
Starting late is any teacher’s buggaboo. We don’t want to short-change the kids in their important seminary lessons. But what if we have kids who come late? Not only do they interrupt the class by their entrance, but they are missing out on important lessons. What can we do to encourage all our kids to come early to seminary – so that we don’t have students walking in late, interupting the flow of class activity?

This may or may not work for you, but I developed a program called “Journal Warriors.” Just as Helaman had his stripling warriors, faithful and true to every command given, we can have stripling Journal Warriors, faithful to the gospel and writing in their journals to record those events!

I went to an office supply store and picked up plump (inexpensive), 6″x4″ spiral-bound notebooks (they were shrink-wrapped in groups of six for about $5 or $6 a set). I personally “monogrammed” each one with a sticker and name of each student in my class.

The first day that I introduced the concept of Journal Warriors, I presented the class with a chart entitled at the top: “Journal Warriors”. Big letters across the bottom spelled out, “PIZZA PARTY HERE WE COME!” On the left side I listed each student’s name. The rest of the page was covered with a table with many tiny little squares stretched across it (about 120 per student, because we started right at the beginning of the school year. The number could obviously be modified, depending on the situation. I also chose less days than the actual school year, because I wanted to have the party before the end of the year and to give a buffer for sick days, etc.).

Each day the students come early, they get to respond to a journal question I’ve written on the board. Once they’ve written in their journal (50 words or less each time to make it easy), they get to color in one of the tiny squares. Once the entire sheet is filled, I will throw a pizza party for the kids. They love the idea and most of my students arrive early to be able to fill out their journals before class.

As I came up with the journal questions, I make sure they are postively oriented, such as,” What are your parents’ greatest desires for you?” or “What is one of your best traits the Lord has given you?” Sometimes the question is to record their favorite scripture mastery verse or three things they are grateful for. Sometimes I’ve had the kids suggest future questions (one of the PDFs I’ve attached to this email contains 52 sample journal questions).

All in all, it’s been a successful way to get the kids to come to class early (if not on-time), to get them thinking about themselves and others in a positive way, and to start the class that day with a strong spirit of peace. And the students can now say they are being obedient to the prophets’ requests to keep a journal! Now these are true Journal Warriors. Helaman and his Stripling Warriors would be proud!

[8isenufParticipant]

Where is the 52 journal question handout that this teacher said she attached? I would love to have it.

[Jenny SmithParticipant]

Here is the link:

http://mormonshare.com/lds-clipart/52-journaling-questions

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