Alma 45, 46, 47, 48, 49 & 50 - Spiritual Toss Across

Silly me - I'd looked at the schedule wrong for the week and discovered I was very far behind. Ouch. My error. This week was supposed to be Alma 43-58. That is a lot of chapters as it is, and then I make it worse by reading the week wrong. I only covered one chapter on Monday and one chapter on Tuesday. Now I'm even more behind! Ack! Now what to do?

I share this because perhaps this might help you if you ever find yourself in the same situation.

I came up with a game I called "Spiritual Toss Across." I did this to be able to cover a large amount of chapters in a short period of time. But I didn't want to just "gloss across" these chapters, either. So this is how I did it. Feel free to vary this. Additionally, you can subscribe to the newsletter to be able to learn when these PDFs files are ready for free download. Simply write "seminarymomATgmailDOTcom" with "Free Newsletter" in the subject heading!

The kids came to class and I told them we were playing "Spiritual Toss Across." There were two teams (I RARELY have the kids playing against each other, but today I kind of needed to spur them into quick activity to cover so many chapters). In addition to two teams, there were two sides and two activities for each square they wanted to win.



The front sides/activities you can see in the picture. These were an "entire class" activity. These front-side activities were the ticket to begin each round. Most of the front of the cards contained a thought to read and then scriptures to cross reference (for every student to mark). As we cross referenced the scriptures as a class, a student would read the verse out loud, they would all mark it, and then they'd turn to the other scripture, read that out loud, then mark it - referencing it back to the first.

This was the "ticket" for them to continue on to the next round. Everyone had to participate for us to move on to the next round (I am a big stickler on everyone participates or no-one participates).

Once the scriptures were cross-referenced (or whatever the activity was that was listed on the front), then Team A took a bean bag and tossed it at the board. Whatever square it came closest to was theirs. We flipped the square over and that team had to accomplish it. For example, on one of the cards the back side said: "Even in time of war, the Nephites found happiness. What verse in Alma 44 tells us this?" They would have 15 seconds to find the answer. If they didn't, then the other team could go for the square by completing the activity.

Whomever won it got to have their "X" or "O" written in the square and then the next team got to toss across the bean bag to hit the board. And so on.



What ensued was that we actually ended up reading tons of inspiring and instructive scriptural verses from nearly ten chapters. We played this over the course of two days. By the end of the week we had almost caught up and we'd also had an indepth experience with the war chapters in Alma. Additionally, we had some pretty powerful discussions on applying the meanings of these important verses brought out in the teacher's manual.

But what if one team wins right away and there are squares still un-turned (and un-discussed)? Our own "Spiritual Toss Across" event ended with two squares not touched. We ended up playing for additional Brigham Bucks. The kids liked earning the additional seminary "money" and I could make sure all the necessary teaching was covered.

PREPARATION:
In a nut shell, the prep for this is easy and very easy to modify for any of the sections in the scriptures. From the teacher's manual, I took the bolded heading from each section we needed to cover. These title headings I put on the front of the cards. I then snuck in verses referenced in those sections (in the teacher's manual) to the front of the cards for the students to cross reference and read out loud in class.

Then for the back of the cards, I added additional activities/readings suggested from the teacher's manual. One of the cards I made a bonus card where it just contained an inspirational thought and one hundred extra Brigham Bucks.

When all was finished, the spirit was strong because of how many verses we'd read out loud, yet it hadn't been delivered in a dry or boring manner. Whew. The Lord is good when we are in need! I'm grateful for His well of inspiration He is so willing to share with us, His humble teachers! And I vow to never misread my schedule again! :0)

***
For free PDFs of items I've created for the various lessons and to join the free newsletter list, simply visit here to join.

Until tomorrow,

just another early-morning-seminary-teacher mom! :0)