This'un will be about our church calling. BJ and I are Primary teachers! We teach the 11-year old class (all of them will turn 12 at some point during the year). Last year we had all boys until the very end of the year when a girl moved in. This year we have mostly girls with a couple of boys that come here and there. Both years have been a lot of fun. We have enjoyed our Primary class. I'm really excited for this year because we're teaching Old Testament. Adult Sunday School is great and all (no, really, I really enjoy it) but Primary allows me to teach stories. Sure, we teach doctrine and how to apply it to your life, but our main focus is stories. Which makes me very happy. Very happy indeed.
We are also focusing on learning the Articles of Faith. Last year we thought about this in… oh… December. Maybe November? Either way, we didn't have a whole lot of time. So we didn't try to memorize all 13. Instead we had them learn #4 and #13. They didn't get it perfect, but they did pretty darn good, considering. So to reward them, we had a party. We watched Up and ate popcorn popped on our stove top (thanks to a wedding gift popcorn popper). It was a lot of fun and the kids really had a blast. Which is good, because we're doing it again this year. Except we're doing all 13 Articles of Faith. Hopefully this party (which includes some of the kids we have this year still) will serve as motivation.
2 comments:
Ohhh, a party! That's a cool idea!
Jeff and I teach a Primary class together too. We have the 5-year-olds.
I keep wanting to bake for our kids. I never do. Here's why:
1. When I have kids, I don't want strangers feeding them sugar without my permission. I plan to very carefully avoid high fructose corn syrup, processed stuff, additives, etc, and I'm already losing sleep over how I'll keep other people from feeding my unborn kids stuff I haven't approved. Their parents may not want me feeding them.
2. They could have allergies.
3. It will make kids in other classes jealous.
4. If I start bringing treats (even if I can come up with SUPER cute ones that are safe foods, and match holidays, etc) I think they'll start expecting treats, which will make life rougher for all of their other teachers that they ever have for all of the rest of Primary, and Young Womens and Young Men, etc. It's a bad precedent, and I don't want to ruin their spirituality by making them think the reason to come to church is for treats.
Sigh.
So then my next lesson (Jeff has this coming week's lesson) has me give them presents. I think the lesson manual suggests things like a pretty rock, or a note about how much we like them, or something like that. And that reminds me! One of my primary teachers when I was 4 or 5, I think, cross-stitched personalized ornaments for all of the kids in our class for Christmas. (!!) So! I could make something for them! EXCEPT, like, Christmas ornaments, so that would have been the end of the year, after a whole year of being our teacher. Hm. So maybe making something nice for them is too much (at least for a while, since we just met them a month and a half ago). BUT! OH! I could make them cute little hair bows, like felt flower ones, or something, because the little girls are SO stylish, and all of them always have flowers or ties or bows or different things in their hair.
BUT, that doesn't really work, either, because like, we also have two boys. Four girls, two boys. So of course hair accessories or stuff is not an option for them. But what would be?
And then, really, I should be working on homework. Homework and wedding stuff. I don't have time to craft fun things for them right now. Maybe later. And maybe by then I'll be able to think of something fun to make for the boys. Or something fun to make for ALL of the kids that boys and girls would both enjoy.
Hm.
So the thing to do is probably just write them nice notes, or find pretty rocks, and put their birthdays on a calendar and REMEMBER them. And for now, maybe the way I can be an awesome, amazing teacher that they all love, is just to really, really plan my lessons so that they are fun and enriching, and we do lots of active stuff, so that they learn the most they can. And that's better than cookies anyway.
A party might be something fun to do later, though.
(I've been thinking about this today. And last week. Can you tell?)
We teach the four year olds, up from the Sunbeams last year. Fun stuff.
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