Going off script

In primary I'm teaching the sharing time lessons for the month of May (with the exception of last week because I was sick). The third week of May I went of script and talked about stories in the Book of Mormon (go figure--in a lesson on the BOM I actually talked about stories in the BOM). That lesson didn't go all that well. In hind sight I should have picked the exciting, well-known stories; instead I talked about the Liahona, compared King Noah and King Benjamin, and then talked about the people of 4th Nephi. Really, it was a bit over the heads of the kids.

Last week the kids got the BOM lesson as scripted, which was a little too bad--I was hoping the other teacher would take care of the priesthood restoration lesson and let me do a lesson on the Relief Society (the lesson manual only provides four lessons for the five weeks of May). Because I really wanted to talk about Relief Society (and because we get tons of lessons on the Priesthood) I decided to talk about both.

I wasn't quite sure what to do, but decided to come up with a list of facts about the Relief Society (things like the motto, descriptions of notable service efforts--work shirts for those building the Nauvoo temple, saving grain, sending quilts and other supplies to war-ravaged Japan and Europe, etc.) and then what Priesthood holders do (bless and pass the sacrament, baptism and confirmation, temple sealing, etc.) and then had the kids guess whether something was done by the RS or by the Priesthood. At first I was just going to have the kids keep score, but then I thought we could play it as a board game where if the kids got it right they moved and if they got it wrong they had to try again. The board included a bunch of songs to sing, and then I sort of rigged it by making the spaces between move forward or back to the songs. So, we got some singing practice in and the kids really liked it.

I love going out on a high note.