Last year, I was released from my calling as an early-morning seminary teacher in Caldwell, Idaho. I taught for four years and so I know…
F – E – M INDEX: Family – Eternal Families – Marriage ACTIVITIES for Come Follow Me Primary and Home (family home evening), Ages 2-12 and Teens, Seminary, Sunday School
Today we learned about Samuel the Lamanite. I gave an overview of the story using bricks to help fill in the wall. After we read the scriptures and learned about Samuel's warnings I did this activity with my students. I printed out one brick and one arrow for each student. On the arrow they wrote what problems or challenges that they face today. On the brick they wrote a scripture that stood out to them in Helaman 13-16. I loved that almost every student found a scripture about Christ and told how it comforted them. Then I had them come up to the board and place the brick and the arrow on the board to form a wall. Here are the printouts for this. Samuel the Lamanite I copied off of Google Images but it linked back to the LDS color pages. Arrows I printed these out on gray cardstock Bricks I printed these out on red paper To see all of my Book of Mormon Seminary Ideas just click here.
Here is where my Cub Scout days pay off. I adapted the "Paper Plate Relay" for a Seminary activity. Yesterday, I had the students name the activities in our lives that help us avoid temptation. They named things like: personal prayer, worthily partaking of the Sacrament, daily scripture study, attending Seminary, dressing modestly, choosing uplifting music, movies, TV, media, etc. I took those items and listed each one on a separate paper plate for today. (I did this for 2 teams-each had the same things written on paper plates) The Cultural Hall was set up for a large event for tonight, so our space was limited for the relay race, but we managed and I hope the students will remember what we learned while we were having fun. Basically, the paper plates are stepping stones. The wood floor is temptation. Staying on the stepping stones helps us avoid temptation and be spiritually strengthened. Players stand in a straight line. Before the game starts, each player is standing on a paper plate. The last player in line is standing on a plate AND holding a plate. At the word GO, each team needs to move forward only stepping on the paper plates (avoiding the floor, aka temptation) The only way they can advance is with the extra plate that is at the end, so the last player in line passes the plate forward. The first player in line places the extra plate on the floor and all players advance one plate forward. Again this is repeated, with the last player sending the extra plate forward, etc. When the last player in line crosses the finish line (safety at the end of the day) that team wins. I likened the path they were walking to a day in their lives. From start to finish, every day we need each step to help us resist temptation. I showed them what would happen if we tried to skip a step (it is harder) or if we eliminate a step (can't get to the end of the day safely, etc) There are so many parallels that can be drawn with this activity such as the need to help each other, team work, communication, etc. I think they had a good time, and, most importantly, I think they will remember the principle I was trying to reinforce and teach. This is an INCREDIBLE group of teenagers. Nothing ordinary about them.
F – E – M INDEX: Family – Eternal Families – Marriage ACTIVITIES for Come Follow Me Primary and Home (family home evening), Ages 2-12 and Teens, Seminary, Sunday School
T – S – C – INDEX: TEMPLES & Preparation, STANDARDS (Gospel Standards), CELESTIAL Kingdom ACTIVITIES for Come Follow Me Primary and Home (family home evening), Ages 2-12 and Teens, Seminary, Sunday School
T – S – C – INDEX: TEMPLES & Preparation, STANDARDS (Gospel Standards), CELESTIAL Kingdom ACTIVITIES for Come Follow Me Primary and Home (family home evening), Ages 2-12 and Teens, Seminary, Sunday School
If you're a teacher, here is a list of ideas and activities for classrooms or other youth groups so students can get to know each other better.
This page is where I will share some of my Doctrinal Mastery ideas that I have done with my students. Doctrinal Mastery Classroom Sign and Journal Printout Every year I start the year by explaining what the Doctrinal Mastery is because I usually have Freshman. I print out the sign below an put it up on the board so that I can refer to it often. I like to refer to it when I am teaching so that they are familiar with it. I also print out a smaller version in color so that they can color code their scriptures. I don't require them to use this color code. It is just a suggestion that I got off the the Seminary Teachers of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints Facebook Page. Here is their explanation of the colors that they chose: Here's a black and white version: Doctrinal Mastery Posters I make a single page printout of each Doctrinal Mastery subject. Then I assign a couple of students to each subject. They are to use their journals to make a sign about their subject. I give them about 10 minutes. When they are done I have them teach their Doctrinal Mastery subject to the class. This way the class has an overview of each subject. Here is an example from a couple of years ago of what my class did. I have changed my colors since then. If you would like a printout to use with your class just right click on the picture and save it into your pictures or copy and paste it into your printing program. Here are the printouts: Here's a finished example of what my class did: Play ZAP with Doctrinal Mastery Questions I have the students use their journals for the answers. I divide the class into teams. Each team needs to follow along in their Doctrinal Mastery portion of their journals. They only have 3 minutes to answer the question, so they have to pay attention. Here is the link to the game. Here is a link to the questions: Doctrinal Mastery Zap Questions If that link doesn't work for you here is another copy of the questions: Here is another set of questions. Just click on the link Zap Doctrinal Mastery Questions - The Atonement of Jesus Christ If that doesn't work you can print this out: Here's the sign to go with the game: Doctrinal Mastery Missionary Lesson I divided the students up by passing out a slip of paper with their assigned Doctrinal Mastery topic. I have 6 tables and each table was assigned a different topic. Each table completed the sheet below. After about 7 minutes I had each group come up and teach their lesson. I had the class act like nonmembers and ask them questions about their lesson. Doctrinal Mastery Bingo Board Have the students fill in all the spots with the Doctrinal Mastery References. Read off the scripture and have them mark it on their BINGO board. I have them use cereal to mark their boards so that we can play several games. If your students are having trouble they can use their Doctrinal Mastery Cards or you can assign each student a Doctrinal Mastery scripture to be in charge of. If you are looking for a BINGO board for each holiday click here. Doctrinal Mastery BINGO Board to use with General Conference Mission Call Doctrinal Mastery Last year while we were studying the Book of Mormon I called my students on a mission. I printed out name tags and gave them a mission call and a Missionary handbook. They used their Doctrinal Mastery section of their journals to prepare a lesson to teach as a missionary. You could do this easily for any year of seminary.
T – S – C – INDEX: TEMPLES & Preparation, STANDARDS (Gospel Standards), CELESTIAL Kingdom ACTIVITIES for Come Follow Me Primary and Home (family home evening), Ages 2-12 and Teens, Seminary, Sunday School
F – E – M INDEX: Family – Eternal Families – Marriage ACTIVITIES for Come Follow Me Primary and Home (family home evening), Ages 2-12 and Teens, Seminary, Sunday School
FREE Book of Mormon Doctrinal Mastery Posters and flashcards for 2024. For use in seminary, youth groups, or at home with your family.
This is my lesson planned for tomorrow; Samuel the Lamanite. I taught a lesson today that had a similar bold prophet whom the Nephites reje...
F – E – M INDEX: Family – Eternal Families – Marriage ACTIVITIES for Come Follow Me Primary and Home (family home evening), Ages 2-12 and Teens, Seminary, Sunday School
Students hate Seminary for many of the same reasons they hate school. I know I hated school, and there were times I didn't like Seminary, either. Below
One of the fun things that we did as a seminary class this year was have each student make their own Title of Liberty. Here's how I did ...
F – E – M INDEX: Family – Eternal Families – Marriage ACTIVITIES for Come Follow Me Primary and Home (family home evening), Ages 2-12 and Teens, Seminary, Sunday School
T – S – C – INDEX: TEMPLES & Preparation, STANDARDS (Gospel Standards), CELESTIAL Kingdom ACTIVITIES for Come Follow Me Primary and Home (family home evening), Ages 2-12 and Teens, Seminary, Sunday School
This is a fun way to help students learn the Doctrines associated with each Doctrinal Mastery Scripture. It is not my original idea. This idea is from fellow teacher, Sharon Haynie, who uses marshmallow shooters for her Turkey shoot. Click HERE for directions she shared on how to make Marshmallow shooters. I use Nerf guns because that is what I have. You could also use rubber band shooters. Set Up: Turkeys on paper plates stapled to upside down large plastic beverage cups. (see photos below) Inside each cup is written a point amount ( 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 50) (I recycled my cups and plates from last year-they come apart easily and store in a small space-I don't like to do double work so anything I can use from year to year is a win!) Divide students into teams ( I had 4 teams of 3 each-one team had 4 members) Each team sat together on the perimeter of the "Turkey Coop" (see photos below for set up ideas) For each round: Students sit as teams in the chairs set up around the perimeter. Each team has a Nerf gun Call out the key words or phrases from a Doctrinal Mastery scripture Teams work together to locate the scripture ( all team members must turn to the scripture), then a runner comes to me and shows me the scripture and states the Doctrine associated with that Scripture. When I confirm it is correct, I say, GO! The Team takes their Nerf gun and starts shooting the paper plate turkeys (each round a new team member takes their turn with the Nerf gun-some of them rotated during the same round so they all got more "shooting time") Each team does the same to find the scripture and show it to me When the last team comes to me with the correct scripture and doctrine, I call out "30 seconds left" and set my timer. When I say stop, the teams would bring their turkeys to me and call out the points earned. Points are posted on the chalkboard and added up at the end. After each round, the turkeys are put back on the tables so we would have enough for each round. I would go scramble them sometimes as I could tell the students were catching on to some of the higher point turkeys. As much fun as this is, the most important point is that the students had to dig into their scriptures match them to the doctrines associated with them. This was very effective.
WHEN YOU'RE STUCK, I'VE GOT YOU COVERED. HOW DO I KEEP POSTING FRESH, NEW IDEAS TO MY CHURCH SOCIAL MEDIA CHANNELS? This PDF has 88 ideas that will help you get conversations started on social and bring value to your followers. Where should I send it?
LDS Seminary Class ideas, Young Men and Young Women ideas for lessons and activities
T – S – C – INDEX: TEMPLES & Preparation, STANDARDS (Gospel Standards), CELESTIAL Kingdom ACTIVITIES for Come Follow Me Primary and Home (family home evening), Ages 2-12 and Teens, Seminary, Sunday School
Keep your LDS class learning with one of these 10 games
I have a new Minute To Win It game. It's a New Testament version. Just click on the picture to check it out. In Seminary this year we are studying the Old Testament. For our Christmas party I thought that it would be fun to have a review of the year so far with Minute to Win it games. Here is what I came up with. I gave each team 5 apples and had them do their best to stack them. The team who had the most apples stacked at one minute won. You could also have a person from each team eat an apple and the person who eats most of the apple wins. For this one you will need 2 jars and a bunch of plastic animals. I taped a picture of Noah's Ark to the outside. Each person puts the jar by their feet. While standing straight each person tries to drop an animal into the jar from their nose. The teams that has the most animals is the jar at one minute wins. Each team is given a stack of cups. The team who has the tallest tower at one minute wins. For this one you will need 2 empty tissue boxes, 2 belts and 16 ping pong balls. Put slits on the two sides of the tissue box to slip the belt through. Fill each tissue box with 8 ping pong balls. Each person playing ties the belt around his waist with the box in the back. They both have one minute to dance around until all of the ping pong balls (seeds) have been bounced out of the tissue box. For this you will need 2 straws, 40 marshmallows, and two plates. Each person will have one minutes to get 20 marshmallows (sheep) into the plate (the pen) with the straw. For this challenge you will need 10 3"x 14" pieces of poster board and about 40 cups. Give each player 5 pieces of poster board and a stack of cups. Each player builds a ladder with the poster board for rungs. The team with the tallest ladder wins. Each team gets a copy of Joseph's coat to color. They have one minute to color it on their head. Each player must use at least five colors. The team is allowed to give advice on how to color in the lines. The team that does the best job wins. This one I did not end up doing. Here's how it could be done. You will need 20 old Bibles. Each team will have one member help another team member stack 5 Bibles in each hand. Then they will have to walk across the room with all 10 Bibles without dropping them. The team that gets all 10 Bibles across the room first wins. This challenge is in reference to Deuteronomy 33:17. Give each team a bag of Honeycomb cereal. Each team will have one member lie down on the ground while another team member stacks the honeycomb cereal, one on top of the other, to look like a unicorn horn. The team that has the tallest horn wins (without cheating). For this challenge you will need to print out two pictures of the brick wall below onto cardstock. Fold the cardstock in half like a card. Place the cards at one end of the table. Both teams have a member blow the card across the table and then try to get the card to hang off the edge without falling off. If the card falls off then they have to start all over. Bounce a ping pong ball at least twice to knock over Goliath. The first person to do it in under a minute wins. Here's a printout for you to use. For the Champions I made these trophies out of Toblerone. Just print out the picture below. Cut it out and glue it to the top of a Toblerone. The students loved it. This is all the further we have studied this year. If we come up with more games I will be sure to post them on here. Good Luck! Check out my other New Testament Minute to Win it game. Here's another fun game to play with scriptures. I also have Grinch Minute to Win it Games And Alice in Wonderland Minute to Win it Games And Frozen themed Minute to Win it Ideas
Today we learned about Samuel the Lamanite. I gave an overview of the story using bricks to help fill in the wall. After we read the scriptures and learned about Samuel's warnings I did this activity with my students. I printed out one brick and one arrow for each student. On the arrow they wrote what problems or challenges that they face today. On the brick they wrote a scripture that stood out to them in Helaman 13-16. I loved that almost every student found a scripture about Christ and told how it comforted them. Then I had them come up to the board and place the brick and the arrow on the board to form a wall. Here are the printouts for this. Samuel the Lamanite I copied off of Google Images but it linked back to the LDS color pages. Arrows I printed these out on gray cardstock Bricks I printed these out on red paper To see all of my Book of Mormon Seminary Ideas just click here.
The kids will have a blast and learn such a powerful lesson with this "Making Good Choices Object Lesson & Family Discussion Outline." Such a cool idea!!
There are 12 things a church pastor cannot do. Pastors are amazing people and, in faith, they can do a lot...just not these things.
If you want to have some fun Scripture Mastery activities, I suggest that you invest in some small expo boards! You won't regret it!
