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Lesson Plan - OT - Joshua

This post follows on from the previous few posts where:

  1. I reviewed the scriptures for this week's Come Follow Me Primary lesson. (link)
  2. I then brainstormed various science themes that could link to the scriptures. (link)
  3. Yesterday I worked up one of those themes into a potential lesson plan. (link)
In this post, I'll provide a concise lesson plan for teachers to use if they find this useful. The first part of this post (in green) is an overview of the lesson aims, and the second part (in yellow) is the actual lesson plan that you can use. 


Photo by Nils Stahl on Unsplash

Overview

What's the lesson about?

It's about the Prophet Joshua taking over from Moses as he leads the Israelites from their 40 years in the wilderness (following their exile from Egypt) into the Promised Land (Israel). Heavenly Father tells Joshua that he'll magnify him across the land, and he initially supports Joshua as his people take the city of Jericho. One of the Israelites oversteps Heavenly Father's instructions, and Heavenly Father teaches Joshua a lesson by letting his troops be defeated by the people in the city of Ai.

What's the spiritual theme?

Heavenly Father has the power to amplify Joshua's voice. He also had the power to turn his world upside down when his commandments weren't obeyed.

What's the science topic?

We'll do two simple physics experiments. In the first, we'll show that tapping a balloon can sound very loud when the balloon is placed next to your ear. In the second, we'll show how the world appears upside down through a magnifying glass.

How does the science relate to the spiritual theme?

The balloon experiment demonstrates that sound travels better through compressed air (as is the case with the air within a balloon) than through normal air, which is why, if we hold our ear against the balloon, the taps are very loud. By analogy, Heavenly Father can make spiritual messages travel farther if we do the right things.

The magnifying glass experiment shows that when you observe an object from a distance, and you move the magnifying glass farther away from the object, the object flips from the right way up to being upside down. Heavenly Father can make our world appear the right way round or upside down (metaphorically), depending on how well we follow his instructions.

What will make it fun?

The experiments should be fun to do, and we'll also do a word game at the end which is based on the journey of the Israelites through the Promised Land.

Lesson Plan

Here's what you'll need in advance:
  1. Some balloons.
  2. A magnifying glass.
  3. A large-ish room.
  4. A set of scriptures (Old Testament)
  5. A picture of a building (to represent the city of Ai).
The plan for the lesson is as follows:
  1. Introduce the Book of Joshua.
  2. Read Joshua 3:6-8 and discuss the meaning of "magnify thee" in verse 7.


  3. Do the balloon experiment.
    1. Hand a balloon to each child to inflate, and help them tie off the ends.
    2. Draw up the following table on the board (or give them individual print outs), and ask the children what they think will happen in each scenario. Write the consensus in the "predicted outcome" column. Feel free to add some other scenarios, to encourage the children to experiment more. (e.g. What happens if you let go of the balloon? What happens if you tap the balloon with different items, like a ruler vs a finger?)

    3. Get the children to do the experiments and then note what actually happens.
    4. Discuss which predictions were correct, and for those that weren't, why that was the case. 
    5. In the case of holding the balloon next to the ear, discuss how compressed air can transmit sound waves better than normal air, which is why the balloon taps sound louder.
    6. Link this back, by explaining that Heavenly Father amplified Joshua's message to the people of Israel, just like the balloon amplified the tapping noise for us. 

  4. Relate the story of Joshua taking the city of Jericho. This Saddleback Kids YouTube video does a good job of describing this story in a kid-friendly way.

  5. Talk about how Joshua's people faced resistance at the next city, Ai. 
    1. Read Joshua 7:5-10.

    2. Talk about how Joshua's world fell apart when the people of Ai rebuffed his efforts to take the city, and how he cried out to Heavenly Father about why he'd deserted them, and fell to the ground. And Heavenly Father tells him to get up off his face.
    3. Put up a picture representing the city of Ai, for example this virtual reconstruction from the Bible Archaeology Report site.


    4. Get one of the kids to look at the picture through a magnifying glass. Ask them to relate what they see to the class. Make sure they're at a distance where the picture is clear and the right way up.
    5. Now get another kid to stand farther away from the picture, and to look at the picture through the magnifying glass. As they go farther away, the picture will become blurry and then will appear upside down. Ask them to relate what they see to the class. Let others who are curious take a look for themselves.
    6. Link this back, by talking about how, when Joshua and his people did the right thing, the world was right, and they had Heavenly Father's unconditional support. But when they drifted further away from Heavenly Father's commandments, then if they went too far away, the world could be turned upside down.

  6. Finish with a word puzzle.
    1. Show this image from the iBibleMaps site, which charts the progress of Joshua's people through the Promised Land.


    2. Ask the children to write down the first letter from each place on the map.
    3. From these letters, they have to figure out a 7 letter word which describes how Joshua felt when he failed to take the city of Ai. The word is ASHAMED, and we'll break it down into three clues yielding three smaller words, which they then have to put together. 
      - What two letter word is used to describe something about you? e.g. I ** hungry. - AM
      - What two letter word is an abbreviation for Education? - ED
      - What three letter word describes a grey cloud of small rock that comes from a volcano? - ASH

  7. Summary of the lesson.
    1. Following Heavenly Father's commandments helped Joshua to do great things. But disobeying them led him and his people into a lot of trouble.

  8. Closing prayer.
I hope you find this lesson plan useful, whether it's for using for your lesson as-is, or for inspiration for putting your own touch on the lesson. If you have any comments or feedback, feel free to reply in the comments below, or on the Twitter thread.

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