August Sharing Time - Week 1

This week we're focusing on the mechanics of prayer.  Exactly what does it mean to pray?  How do we go about it?

To help us learn, we're turning to the scriptures focusing on the teachings of Alma and Amulek contrasted with the Zoramites perverted form of prayer.  Rameumpton anyone? 

I love the idea of acting out the Zoramites and there are a few different ways you can go with it. 

I mentioned earlier in July that I thought it'd be fun to come in, climb up on a chair and give a Zoramite-ish prayer.  You could expand on that by having another member of the presidency come in after you and say the exact same prayer.  Ham it up a little by wiping your brow as you get down and say something like, "Whew, I'm glad that's over until next week."

Or you could use some sort of dolls with a lego/duplo tower, having different kids hold the dolls/stuffed animals/lego guys (or whatever you have laying around your home) waiting in line. 

You could even use the pictures from lds dot org depicting the story.  Whichever you choose, I would modernize the prayer a little so the kids understand what's going on.  Something like this:

"God, we know that you're holy.  We also know that you are a spirit, always have been and always will be.  We don't believe the silly things that everyone else does, like in Jesus, because you've made us extra special. 

We'll be saved while everyone else is going to be thrown into hell.  Again, we know that believing in Christ is silly and just leads us away from the God who has made us His chosen people, thanks again for that by the way.  Amen."

After going through the prayer, ask the kids what's wrong with it.  Then talk about how and even why we pray.

On Pergler's Primary Place she has a whole list of pictures you can use to teach the kids about prayer using a homemade box tv.  I like the list.  In fact, I love the list.  I love the idea of teaching the kids all the different things you can be thankful for and then how you can ask for blessings about the very same items.  It's kind of awesome.

As I read through the blog post, another idea occurred to me, a prayer sandwich.  Last school year my kids made a sandwich book report and I decided to mix that with the list of prayer ideas from Pergler's.

Each bun is the start or end of the prayer, while all the ingredients are the different items we can pray for (of course, the list isn't exhaustive, but there are lots of great ideas).  I'm really not a great artist (no really, this isn't false modesty).  But I know how nice it is to just be able to download what someone else has already done, so I sketched out a full sandwich and labeled them with different things we can both be thankful for and ask for blessings about.  Then I scanned them and turned it into one pdf, which you can download from google doc's.  It's just black and white, so you can print it as is and color it or print them on colored paper...or just leave it black and white.  :) 

You can hide the ingredients around the room or have the kids draw one/pick the one out of a dish they would like to add.  As you add them to your sandwich, talk about different ways we can be thankful for and ask for blessings about the item.  The good thing about this is you can do as many pieces as you have time for!  I love having wiggle room to go short or long depending on how the rest of the hour is going.

Don't wait until time's over the help the kids feel your love for prayer (not that baring your testimony at the end isn't a fantastic way to wrap up). 

And then challenge the kids to remember to make a multiple ingredient sandwich with their prayers everyday.

Have a PRAYERful week!
Leah

ps.  You can read more about my thoughts on this months theme on this post and week 2 ideas over here.