The family is ordained of God and is central to His plan.
(Sharing Time Class Presentation, January 2009)
As much as possible, children should participate in the planning and carrying out of a class presentation, so the teacher should have plenty of time to work with her class on the presentation, since only a few minutes should be taken from each week.
Senior Primary and Older Junior Primary:
Help the children make a list of way they can help their families. Ideas might include: Helping out when a parent is sick, assisting with younger siblings, taking on regular chores without being asked, having a good attitude. You may want to have ideas available in case your class can’t think of any.
On another preparation day, give them a few of the situations they outlined and have them write a short “script” about it. Give them this one as an example:
Child 1: Mom is sick and says she doesn’t feel like making lunch. I’m mad. I wanted something good for lunch.
Child 2: Then let’s work together and make a nice lunch and take it up to mom. Then we’ll clean up the kitchen when we’re done. If we put on music and sing while we’re doing it, it won’t seem very hard.
When you’ve made enough to involve every child, and to fill ten minutes or so, tell the children you’re going to use these to help the other Primary children learn ways to serve their families.
The children can make signs showing the ages and roles they’re playing (Mother, little sister, etc.) if you need them.
The Sharing Time:
Child reads Proclamation, paragraphs 1,7 and explains that Heavenly Father knows families are very important and He wants us to help make them better. All children can help to make their homes nicer. Today, the class will show some children who need help learning how to make their homes happy.
Do the skits in parts. First, give the part of the script that shows the problem, such as the line by Child 1 in the example. Then have the children freeze, while the narrator says, “What could these children do?” Let the children in other classes offer suggestions. Then the narrator can say, “Let’s see what they decided to do.”
If your class is small and you need to fill more time, prepare two endings—one good, and one bad. Do both and let the Primary children tell which one is best.
Remember to have the children in your class create as many of the scenes as you have time for. You might prepare some extras in case you don’t have enough time to help the children with all of them.
After the skits, let each child in your class tell one thing he or she does to help the family. If you have more time to fill, pass out papers and ask all the Primary children to draw a picture of one way they will help their families this week.
Younger classes:
Have the children tell you ways they help their families. Write down their ideas, and record who said each thing. Often, children just repeat whatever the first child said, so be prepared with some questions to direct their thoughts in new directions. “How do you help your little sister? How do you help your grandmother?”
The next week, give each child a piece of paper, on which you have written one of his ideas. Read what is written on the first paper and ask the child to draw a picture of it. Don’t worry if it’s just a scribble.
Sharing Time:
Have each child show his picture to the Primary and read the sentence (or let you read it.) Tell the children these are some good ways to help in our families. Tell the children you’re going to play a game and everyone needs to help with it. Have your class sit on the floor until it’s their turn, or set up chairs for them in advance.
Prepare a box of unbreakable items that represent something a child can do to make his family better. Let one of your students at a time come up and choose an item from the box. On each item, attach a card with a situation pertaining to family, such as the one suggested in the senior Primary sharing time above. So for the situation above, with a sick mother who doesn’t want to cook, you might have an apple. Tied to the stem of the apple might be a card that says, “Mom is sick and doesn’t feel like fixing lunch. What should I do?”
Have the student who chose the apple take it to another Primary child who isn’t in your class. Let them read the situation and then take the apple to another child to answer it. That child, after answering, should bring the apple back to you. Conduct some follow-up if you’d like, such as asking what the children are allowed to fix for lunch and what they might fix, as well as what safety rules they should follow, and what they should do to clean up. You could ask what other things they might do to help their mother while she’s sick.
Tell children they can only choose people who haven’t had a turn, and if a child wants help or doesn’t want to read, he can ask for help or take the item to someone else. (Some children struggle with reading, and you don’t want to embarrass them.)
When you’ve finished the box, ask each child in your own class to tell one thing they’re going to do to help their families. Then give all the Primary children paper on which to draw their own ideas.
Next: February 2009 Sharing Times
Go on to 2009 Sharing Time February, week 1