Skip to main content

Brainstorming - OT - Deuteronomy

The next LDS Come Follow Me primary lesson covers the whole of the Book of Deuteronomy, which relates the story of the Israelites wandering through the wilderness for 40 years in search of the Promised Land, as led by Moses, and which is mostly told in sermon form by Moses. It ends with Moses finally being able to see the Promised Land shortly before he passes away.

Moses gazes upon the Promised Land from atop Mount Nebo. From Wikipedia.

Rather than try to teach the story of the whole book though, I think it'll be nicer to focus on one specific lesson that we can take from a small part of it. My preferred brainstorming approach is to think of some ideas about how we can use science to connect to the themes from the scriptures, and then work up the best ideas into lesson plans. Here are some of the ideas that came to mind as I read through Deuteronomy:

  • Deuteronomy 6 talks about "frontlets", which are intended to mean ornaments worn on the head. However they can also mean the forehead of an animal, in particular birds. There could be some interesting tie-ins with plumage development on birds.
  • Deuteronomy 15 talks about how the Israelites are encouraged to help others with an open heart. 



    This brought to mind the topic of animal altruism, where animals help each other out. It could be interesting to see some examples of this and discuss what we can learn.
  • The food source "manna" comes up in Deuteronomy 8. This was a substance that the Israelites had to survive on as one of their primary means of sustenance during their period in the wilderness. Apparently it refers to a substance called honeydew which is a sugary substance secreted from insects (Wikipedia). 
  • In Deuteronomy 15, the Israelites are urged to forgive debts. Perhaps there's a maths topic here on calculating interest and seeing what forgiveness of debts means in numerical terms.
  • Deuteronomy 34 tells of Moses seeing the Promised Land for the first time, before passing away. I found a PDF on VisualUnit.Me which charts the path that Moses led his people across before they reached Israel. It's beautifully done, and perhaps could be the basis of a geography lesson that teaches the kids about the types of terrain that the Israelites had to survive on their long journey.


    Screenshot of the PDF on VisualUnit.Me depicting Moses' journey.



Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Idea Workup - OT - 1 Samuel

In my last post, I discussed some ideas for teaching 1 Samuel . In this post, I'll work up some of these ideas into a potential lesson plan.  Sometimes I get weeks where I toil for ages to find the right angle to teach a lesson from. Last week's lesson was a good example of this, where I really struggled to figure out a theme and a link that I could use. Other times, the right idea just hits you, and this feels like one of those weeks. There's a lot of material in 1 Samuel that could be used for a lesson, and it would be nice to devote more weeks to it. However the David and Goliath story is the dominant story here, and when you're working with young children, then you simply have to teach it. It's the archetype underdog story, which illustrates how the seemingly impossible can be made possible with faith. We want to pass on stories that will inspire the children and give them believe that they can similarly have confidence in themselves and aim high. We haven'...
Post a Comment
Read more

Brainstorming - OT - Judges

In my previous post , I reviewed the scriptural content in the Book of Judges. In this post, I'll summarise the scientific themes that I've been able to come up with, that link somehow to the text, which I could build a lesson plan on top of. In Judges 6:15 , Gideon exclaims to Heavenly Father, "Oh my Lord, wherewith shall I save Israel? behold, my family is poor in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house ". I thought about linking this to the idea of small creatures that can do great things. Ants and beetles are great examples of small animals that are very powerful for their size . Beetles are strong creatures for their size. Photo by Weronika Romanowska on Unsplash In Judges 6:39-40 , Gideon requests of Heavenly Father to keep his fleece dry during the night and to let the dew settle on the rest of the ground. "And God did so that night: for it was dry upon the fleece only, and there was dew on all the ground." Perhaps we could talk about what ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Lesson Plan - D&C 67-70

 After a lengthy hiatus, we're back! This week's lesson is based on the section of the Come Follow Me manual about D&C 67-70 ( link ). We're going to work with D&C 70 , which talks about the early days of the Law of Consecration.  Back in 1831, the church assigned 6 people to starting a set of church businesses. I found a nice article that explained the history in detail ( link ), but in brief, Prophet Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon, Martin Harris,  Oliver Cowdery, John Whitmer and William W. Phelps were all involved in the "Literary Firm", which was responsible for publishing the Book of Mormon, the church hymn book, and a church newspaper. D&C 70:7 reads 7 Nevertheless, inasmuch as they receive more than is needful for their necessities and their wants, it shall be given into my storehouse I thought that we could structure a lesson that talks about (a) the reasons why a storehouse was set up, to help provide for the needy, and (b) a bit of maths relatin...
Post a Comment
Read more