"The Golden Rule" FHE Idea

Teaching a junior primary class is 1 part lesson, 2 parts fancy-dancing and every part about preparation. I scour online each week to get prepared for my class's lesson but also for activities that the kids will enjoy as well as will help reinforce the lesson's gospel principle. Sometimes, not so easy. But this past Sunday, I came up with an idea all on my own. And it was so successful that I thought I'd share it...it would work well as a FHE lesson also.

The lesson was on "The Golden Rule" and treating others the way you would like to be treated. I hit the Dollar Tree and bought a $1 puzzles (24-piece) for each member of my class. My mom, Anna and I broke down the boxes and put the picture and puzzle pieces in a Ziploc baggie. I then took one piece out of each bag and replaced it with a piece from one of the other puzzles, so they would end up missing one puzzle piece when their puzzle was complete and have a piece that didn't go to their puzzle.

We spent about 15 minutes putting their puzzles together on the floor. They would find the piece that didn't go to their puzzle and get a little confused, but I told them to just put it aside and do what they could. When everyone was done, they took the piece that didn't belong to them and gave it to their friend that needed it to complete their puzzle. It was such a sweet moment for all of us...they were so much more excited to see their friend's puzzle complete than to finish their own. We talked about how it feels to help others and how it feels to be helped. Then I handed out some gold chocolate coins from the Target $1 bins to remind them all to follow "The Golden Rule this week.

That's all.

:-)