So I posted what my lesson plan was but like Napoleon said, No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy. I'm telling you, I'm no miracle worker. This is how it went down.
My husband decided to stay up until 2 and I succumbed to temptation and was up way past midnight. That made for a tense and testy morning. We have 8:30 church and I woke up at 7:50. To get to church in time to set up, I went shower-less, dressed ugly, ate only a granola bar, and tried very hard to not say things to my husband that I would need to repent of.
At the last minute I got the idea to make mobiles from the circle diagrams. I snagged ten cheap wire hangers from our closet. The Swimmy book, the big people shoes and my lesson outline got left on the table where I set them out. Sigh...
When it came time to do the lesson I realized I forgot a cardinal rule of lesson giving: Open BIG! I found myself stuttering out, "Hey, Hey, over here!" I needed an attention getter. I pulled out the circles. I got some attention. I talked about having a plan and how nursery had a plan. I showed them the first circle and told them about living with a loving Heavenly Father and how he had a plan for all of us.
I gave them the whole overview using a story about myself. Miss Kate lived with Heavenly Father in the pre-mortal life (hold up circle 1), then Miss Kate came to earth to get a body (circle 2), Miss Kate and her husband are going to live happily in heaven (circle 3). I picked a kid to help tape up each of my circles to the wall. I passed out the blue circles to everyone and let them start coloring as I pulled out the earth circles.
I held up the earth circle and talked about how we lived on Earth now where we have bodies and get to grow up to be big and more like our Heavenly Father. Steve and baby Eliza knocked on the door just then. Perfect timing. I thought, I have them now, they'll see the baby and be interested. I was SO wrong. I asked them about the baby and the daddy and I got BLANK stares and no response. I was so sad. I really expected them to like the baby. At this point I would have pulled out the big shoes to play with but they were not to be had. Instead I passed out the earth circles to each of them with a handful of stickers in the middle of the table that they could decorate their earth with.
I told them about heaven and how Heavenly Father wants us to come back and be with him with our families. I asked if they loved their family and who the loved in their family. Then I passed out the heaven circles and helped some of them draw their families in. Others were happy to have their Heavenly family be composed of horse stickers. At that point I was fine with that too.
I and the other nursery workers went around and helped each kid tape their circles to strings attached to the hanger. They seemed to like their mobiles okay. They really liked playing with the tape. The ones who finished got up and started swinging their mobiles around. They were having a great time, but I started to worry someone was going to get a hanger in the eye. I confiscated the mobiles and we danced the last five minutes of class away. That might have been enough, but grown up class went ten minutes over again. I pulled out the bubbles. And everyone survived.
If any of you are wondering why I didn't rock all three degrees of glory it's because I got tired of cutting circles and I figured that all of these kids "are redeemed from the foundation of the world through the atoning sacrifice of Him who died to save us all." I was willing to be optimistic in the case of myself and my husband.
I'd give myself a 6 out of 10 for how well it went this week. Sort of disappointing. Hopefully next week will be better. It's Lesson 4: I can pray to Heavenly Father. I'm thinking about letting the kids make a phone call on my cell phone. Is that a bad idea?
I'm telling you, this is the only time I spend with kids. I feel a little out of touch so your advice is appreciated/LOVED.
