Scriptures Through Science

   This post follows on from the previous few posts where: I reviewed the scriptures for this week's Come Follow Me Primary lesson. ( link ) I then brainstormed various science themes that could link to the scriptures. ( link ) 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.  Overview What's the lesson about? In the Book of Samuel. the Israelites are threatened by the Philistines, who challenge them to a winner-takes-all duel with their champion Goliath. The young shepherd boy David steps up, and against the odds, wins. What's the spiritual theme? If you have a strong faith, you can acheive difficult things.  What's the science topic? Potential energy can be used to do useful work. We'll l...

This weekend's Primary lesson is on 1 Samuel. Last week's lesson also covered the first part of 1 Samuel, however this lesson goes on to look at the rest of the book. We left off in last week's lesson  with Samuel being born of Hannah, who thought she was infertile and was granted a child by Heavenly Father. Samuel goes to care for the priest Eli, but hears Heavenly Father calling him during the night, and goes on to be recognised as a Prophet. The Come Follow Me Primary manual's section for this week covers 1 Samuel: 8-10, 13 and 15-18.  When I start reading scriptures, the BibleProject is my first port of call. Their overview videos are brillianty constructed, and they summarise the whole book in just 7 minutes through illustrations. Their YouTube video of 1 Samuel is no exception, and it highlights several points about the structure and themes of the book that I would have otherwise missed. Screenshot of the BibleProject's summary video of 1 Samuel . At just 7...

 This post follows on from the previous few posts where: I reviewed the scriptures for this week's Come Follow Me Primary lesson. ( link ) I then brainstormed various science themes that could link to the scriptures. ( link ) 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.  Fun with fizzy things. Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash Overview What's the lesson about? It's about Ruth, a woman whose family moves from Bethlehem to Moab some time after the period of Judges, and experiences tragedy when her husband, father-in-law and brother-in-law all pass away. She's left with her mother-in-law Naomi, and sister-in-law Orpah. Ruth and Naomi stay close together as they relocate back to Israel, b...

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 ...

This week's Come Follow Me Primary lesson focuses on the book of Ruth and the first part of 1 Samuel . We left off in last week's lesson with the Israelites being governed by a series of Judges who were less than ideal leaders. The chapters in this week's lesson strike a more positive theme. Ruth 1: Following on from the period of Judges, a famine causes Elimelech to leave Bethlehem with his wife Naomi and sons Mahlon and Chilon, and move to Moab. Elimelech dies, and the sons marry Orpah and Ruth respectively. The sons later die, and Naomi is left with her two daughters-in-law. Ruth stays close to Naomi, and the two return to Bethlehem. Ruth 2: Ruth takes to gleaning (collecting left over grain following the harvesting) in the field of a rich man named Boaz. Boaz becomes protective of her, and helps her to collect larger quantities of barley and wheat. Ruth 3: Naomi instructs Ruth to lay at Boaz's feet. She does so in the middle of the night, and a surprised Boaz pro...

My last two posts have discussed the scriptural content of Judges , and science ideas that link to the text that could be the basis for my next Primary lesson. In this post, I'll work up these science ideas into a lesson plan. There are several stories in Judges, but two of the verses that inspired ideas were in the story about Gideon , the farmer who led 300 soldiers to victory against the Midianites. Gideon was a young man who helped his father to harvest wheat (Judges 6:11), who one day lamented the repression of his people by the Midianites, and asked "Oh my Lord, if the Lord be with us, why then is all this befallen us? and where be all his amiracles which our fathers told us of". An angel conveyed that Heavenly Father was impressed with him, appearing in front of him and saying "The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valour" (Judges 6:12). Gideon didn't immediately trust in Heavenly Father, and he asked for proof that He existed. In this case, Heav...

This week's lesson is based on the Book of Judges . The Come Follow Me Primary manual entry for this week says that the lesson should be derived from Judges 2–4, 6–8 and 13–16. In this post, we quickly review what these scriptures are about. We left off in the previous book , Joshua, with the Prophet Joshua having guided the Israelites into and across the Promised Land. At the end of the book, Joshua passes away. Judges picks up the story at this point and talks about how the Israelites are led by a series of leaders. Judges is a fairly bleak book, with a repeating theme of the people going astray, a (not always ideal) leader coming in to help them with guidance from Heavenly Father, bringing some short term peace and stability, before things go off the rails again. The Bible Project (YouTube) has a terrific short animated video about it. Below is a summary of the key chapters for this week: Judges 2: This chapter provides the template for the stories coming up. The people ignore...

This post follows on from the previous few posts where: I reviewed the scriptures for this week's Come Follow Me Primary lesson. ( link ) I then brainstormed various science themes that could link to the scriptures. ( link ) 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 H...

Going forwards, I'm going to break up my posts on lesson development into several pieces, to make them more manageable to read (and write): I'll start off with a summarisation of the key chapters that are the subject of that week's Come Follow Me Primary manual. I'll then do a brainstorming post where I jot down various inspirations that come to mind as I read through those chapters. Most of these ideas will end up in the rubbish bin, but they might be useful inspiration to others.  There'll be a post on working up the ideas into a lesson plan. At the end of this, I'll answer the following questions to ensure that the plan ticks the right boxes: What is the spiritual theme of the lesson? What is the science (or other) topic that I want to use to help convey the theme? How does the science illustrate the theme? What will make the lesson fun? The lesson plan itself will now be a separate post, which will make it easier for other teachers to refer to.  It'll co...

This week's lesson is on the Book of Joshua, and according to the  Come Follow Me Primary manual , will be based on Joshua 1-8 and 23-24. The first task is to understand what's in these scriptures, and this scripture review post aims to do that. These videos do a nice job of explaining the narrative: These Saddleback Kids videos are aimed at young children. They treat the story of Joshua in several pieces: Joshua Leads (Joshua 1) - YouTube Rahab and the Spies (Joshua 2) - YouTube The Israelites Cross the Jordan (Joshua 3-4) - YouTube The Walls of Jericho (Joshua 5) - YouTube The Bible Project does a great job of summarising whole books in the Bible through clever comic strip style animations. YouTube The Book of Joshua seems to break down into the following parts: The first part picks up from Exodus and Deuteronomy, where Moses has brought the Israelites to the cusp of the promised land before passing away. The mantle thus falls upon Joshua, who sends spies into the Promised La...

One of the most useful tools I've found for helping to prep primary lessons is the scripture annotation tool on churchofjesuschrist.org . This underrated feature is fantastic! Here's what it looks like: When you select a piece of text, you see this annotation menu appear, from which you can highlight the scriptures in different colours (I have my own fledgling colour coding system), tag it, write notes, and share it or link directly to it. More impressively is that if you have the Gospel Library mobile app , then these annotations will sync directly to it, so you can carry your fully annotated version with you. This has been handy for when I want to use my laptop for doing lesson prep, but then just take my phone or iPad with me to the lesson, and I can still call up my notes when needed. Do others use this too, and does anyone have any "power tips"? What other tools do you find useful in your lesson prep? Feel free to let me know in the comments below or on my Twitte...