How do I teach primary?

There is always at least one aspect of each story that can be the focus in a Primary lesson.

With Cain and Abel, for example, you can focus on respecting siblings even when they are very different than the children in your class – and how that can apply to friends and others, not just siblings. You can talk about how it’s important not to get into fights where tempers get lost and things are said and done that are regretted later.

With the unchanging Gospel lesson, you can distinguish between the Gospel and cultural things that change regularly. If you want to use the modesty example, you can mention that modesty means “moderation” and talk about how important it is to avoid extremes. You even could mention that the exact standards throughout history have varied (and maybe use the early saints and clothing that generally covered them almost head to toe compared to our more relaxed clothing now), but that real modesty (moderation) has been preached for thousands of years. Depending on the age of your class, you also could talk about how modesty can vary according to location – like how we dress differently in the temple than we do in church and school and on the ball field or at the beach. You even could do that really quickly and talk about other areas of modesty (like food consumption, temper control, living within one’s means, etc.) and emphasize that modesty isn’t only about the clothes we wear. It’s about an overall lifestyle.

I don’t have any super specific examples. Right now I co-teach the 4 year olds with DW. My class enjoys games, activitys, crafts, audio/visual presentations, and snacks. We also slip in a blurb or two from the actual lesson manual.

Thanks everyone! Your ideas are very helpful. I was feeling pretty discouraged last night when I posted this, but I can see from your examples that there are many ways to find something to teach from these stories. I think I have the next two lessons generally figured out thanks to your suggestions. There are some benefits to being in primary, especially not having to go to Sunday school or relief society, so I should try to stick with it and make it be something I can feel good about teaching.

journeygirl,

I can still remember my 11-year-old primary class. This was in the days when primary was during the week. What stands out in my memory was how we used the Bible. We all were given fairly large copies of the Bible… a large-print size. This was also in the days before the Church published its own bible, so we just had a large print KJV of the bible with basically no footnotes and no topical guide. And we had a red marking pencil. I really enjoyed looking at the scriptures in a way that I had never done up to that point. The Bible was in front of me, and I could mark passages that I thought were important, and I could learn to read it, study it, own it. Up until that time, the scriptures were something that older people read TO me. But for the first time, these were my scriptures.

My suggestion is not to short-change these young people… Let them discover the meaning for themselves. I loved mom3’s suggestion to let the kids teach the lesson to themselves with you as the guide. They have heard all these stories before, this is their chance to own them.

One trick I have done sometimes is to avoid saying “Adam said this, Eve said that”, but to say something like, “In the story of Adam and Eve, we are told that…” That is 100% factual, and can allow you to get to important takeaways, regardless of the factual truth or figurative construct of the “story”. I think the story of the Ark, for example, is a cool story that has meaning that we can apply to our own lives. It doesn’t matter whether the story is real, or simply inspired fiction. So I could just say, “How do you think the story of Noah and the Ark kind of representative of all of us?”

Even better is being in nursery where you don’t have to be in SS or PH/RS AND you don’t have a real lesson to teach.

This has been one of the biggest things that has helped me survive. I have had at least one kid in nursery fairly consistently for the past 7 years (we had our kids really close together!). That meant I was often in there helping my kids feel comfortable, and I was even asked to substitute a number of times in one ward. I loved it. I really enjoy playing with kids that age—they are just so fun and easily entertained. If I ever got a calling, I wouldn’t mind it being in the nursery. Too bad it will likely never happen.

journeygirl,

I just joined this forum yesterday after lurking about as a nonmember for a while. Your post caught my eye since I am in the same boat (I teach 10-year-olds though). I, too, had a very hard time wrapping up last year in church history. In all honesty, I highly doubt I can teach the “ultra glossy” version of church history in the same manuals I am certain we will have four years from now. Needless to say, I was glad to have the chance to move onto a new topic this year.

SURPRISE!! It’s hard to teach Old Testament because of the lessons that children can be take from the stories if they are growing up to be literalists. I love the suggestion of using the approach that “In the story of Adam and Eve, we are taught that…” — I think it’s great and I plan on using it. I also love that there is always something you can pull from the lesson — I try to do that like others who have posted here and it really helps.

Another thing I do is to hone in on what can be applied to help us in the here and now. For example, during the creation lesson, we talked about what we can do to respect the earth. I brought pictures of all the trash strewn along the trail to the peak of Mount Everest and some information about people/groups who are trying to clean it up. I also brought the video of the men who toppled the rock formation in Goblin Valley last fall, as well as pictures of tree trunks in the forest with names carved in them. The discussion went really well even if it wasn’t your black and white creation lesson. I bring plenty of multimedia, because that is what these kids are growing up on (thank heavens for my Nexus tablet!!). I try to stick with the “theme” of some of the “activities” listed at the end of the lessons, but modernize them — those manuals are soooo old. A bit unorthodox I will admit, but hey, “they” called me to teach Primary 🙂

Bottom line is that I am trying to approach the teaching with the “here and now” mentality. It’s nice to know the stories, scriptures, doctrine, etc. but even better to know what you should do with them going forward in your own life. Hope this helps you some.