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Brainstorming - OT - Ruth and 1 Samuel

My last post summarised the scriptures for this week's Primary lesson, which are from Ruth and 1 Samuel. In this post, we'll discuss ideas for how to teach the scriptures, including any links to scientific topics.

  • I taught this lesson back in 2018, and I looked back at my notes on how I did so. Back then, I did a little treasure hunt where I hid clues relating to the scriptures around the church, and the kids had to go to each location, find the clue, answer the question, and then go to the next location. The clues also linked to a crossword puzzle that they had to solve. Getting the kids to move around is always a nice idea, so we might try and bring back this element.

  • In Ruth 2, Ruth gleans corn, barley and wheat from the fields of Boaz. Gleaning (Wikipedia page) is an old concept where the poor were invited to collect the scraps following the harvest, since it wasn't always practical to collect every last part of the crop. It could be interesting to look more closely at what this involves. 

  • The Come Follow Me manual has a nice idea about getting the kids to act out the story of Samuel receiving promptings from Heavenly Father during his sleep, and thinking that Eli is calling him. This is used to teach chidren about how they can recognise promptings from the Holy Spirit.

    • Lessons on listening to promptings could link into animals with a sixth sense, for example magnetoreception. (I did a lesson a while ago about how turtles can find their way home after traversing the world.)
       
  • In 1 Samuel 1:5 it talks about how "the Lord had shut up her womb", referring to Hannah, the mother of Samuel. Infertility is an interesting topic, but not one that we'll be likely to use for a primary lesson.

  • In 1 Samuel 3:4-8, Samuel hears voices in his head. Could be an interesting link with sleep hallucinations. 

  • Ruth 2 has some interesting parts. One is Ruth 2:12, "The Lord recompense thy work, and a full reward be given thee of the Lord God of Israel, under whose wings thou art come to trust." It could be fun to make some paper wings in the class, talk about what wings do and why birds use them (both to fly and also to protect their young), and tie that back to the protective properties of Heavenly Father's grace.

  • Another is Ruth 2:14, "And Boaz said unto her, At mealtime come thou hither, and eat of the bread, and dip thy morsel in the vinegar. And she sat beside the reapers: and he reached her parched corn, and she did eat, and was sufficed, and left." It's a strange notion to us to dip bread into vinegar. We could do some experiments with tasting bread dipped in different vinegars (e.g. malt, balsamic, red wine vinegar etc), and seeing which ones the kids prefer. Alternatively, back then, vinegar may have meant wine, and we could do something similar with juice. We could talk about how vinegar is formed (by taking a fermented drink and converting the alcohol into acetic acid), and this might tie back somehow.


Experiments with vinegar? Photo by Caroline Attwood on Unsplash

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