The Final Day of Seminary

Well, today was our final day of seminary. I actually was up all night, trying to get everything just so. Not recommended! [weak grin] But I was excited, because I'd prepared a "scrapbook movie" DVD to showcase the spiritual growth the students had made this year.

The DVD contained a ten minute "scrapbook" movie for the seminary kids to distribute for today, our final day of class.

I had taken pictures of them all year long, along with our projects we'd done. Using a piece of software, I'd made a "movie" of those snapshots put together in a montage, accompanied with music.

What was so awesome about this "scrapbook movie" was the kids came in and saw themselves on the TV, on the initial page of the DVD menu. Once we had devotional, etc., I started the movie.

The students watched quite attentively as they saw themselves progress through the year, from certain hair cuts or thinner looks, to more mature looks by the end of the year.

They had fun commenting on some of the projects we'd worked on throughout the year together, as we researched the important principles in The Book of Mormon.

One of the purposes I'd had in creating the "movie" was to bring the spirit and to show the students all of the amazing experiences we'd had this year as they'd learned to study the scriptures hopefully deeper than they ever had.

It was a really neat moment watching the cumulative effect in the students' faces today. Each of these students had break-through moments during our school year, and by watching the "memories" of those moments, I hope they will forever retain them fresh in their memories. After the "movie" was done, I passed out one for each student.

After the movie/slideshow was over, I also passed out certificates to each student which had read the entire Book of Mormon (in this case, it was every student in the class - in fact, some of them had read it through twice! yippee!).

We scheduled our summer auction/pizza day for a week later. Then I turned the time over to the seniors in the class. We have three who are graduating. I asked them to share their testimonies or any kind of spiritual advice they felt prompted to share with their fellow classmates.

This was the sweet spot of the day! The three seniors bore spontaneous and heartfelt witness as to the impact of seminary in their lives. This provided a most powerful moment for the rest of the kids. I could feel the spirit in the room and I'm pretty sure that the other kids could feel it.

I couldn't have provided a better recommendation about the importance of seminary than these seniors provided. It truly was a beautiful moment. I would highly recommend this - having the seniors speak to the class in this way.

It seemed to help the seniors feel spotlighted and it pointed to their important perspectives - important because some of the seminary kids still have three more years of EARLY mornings to attend to get to where these seniors are. What a great thing to hear the seniors say it is worth it!

Then we ate breakfast today, a special breakfast. I passed out all of their work they'd done through the year, organized into personalized sacks, along with their student manuals and scriptures. A poignant moment indeed!

Warmly,

just another early-morning-seminary-teacher mom!

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P.S. For more teaching ideas, feel free to visit the Seminary Class Notes group. The tips, newsletters, and PDFs/files are all free!

P.S. There are a variety of software packages which allow you to put together a slide show and even add music. You may even have a software package like this already installed on your machine! Just make sure it is your own music which you've composed/recorded yourself or you might need to pay royalties for the use of the music if it comes from someone else.