HELP! Sunbeam ideas.


annjapan
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My husband and I are teaching a sunbeam class. We have six kids in the class and we are put in a room with no toys and no snacks. The primary president does not want us to have toys in the room and thinks that they can sit through a 30 min. lesson.

So, does anyone have any ideas of activities we can do with the kids?Games, hands on lesson ideas, whatever will entertain them!

My husband and I are both college students so the less "equipment" the better!

Thanks in advance!

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Lots of art-related activities: Painting, coloring, music, etc. You can make crafts with them as well and one of you teach a short lesson. Their attention span is very short so whatever you do has to be fun.

If my daughter's Sunbeam teacher had a painting activity in class while my daughter was in her nice church dress, the Primary president would be hearing from me before she even got home from church.

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Ohhh... Sunbeams are FUN!!!

30 minutes really go by fast in Sunbeam. Prepare your activities so that each section is only 5 minutes long unless they're doing artwork and such, then they can do 10 minutes of that. This is what we usually do in Sunbeam:

5 minutes - settle down, opening prayer, review of last lesson, wiggle activity if they have trouble being reverent. Perfect time to do hangman for the kids to guess what today's topic is about.

5 minutes - If they are already reading, they can take turns reading one line of scripture. If they're not reading, you can tell a scripture story - There are books about this - Book of Mormon Stories for Children or Heroes of the Book of Mormon or Heroes of the Old Testament, etc. You can make this into a theater if you like (this is really easy to make and you can use over and over - just put a roll of paper in thin PVC or dowel and stick the dowels in a shoe box - one towards the top and the other towards the bottom - draw the story onto the paper - then roll the dowels so that the pictures move up as you tell them the story). You can also do a "shadow theater"... get a white blanket or tablecloth, put a flashlight behind it and then put cardboard cut-outs of the characters of the story on bbq sticks and put it infront of the flashlight behind the white blanket. They love this stuff!

5 minutes - discussion - you can do a question or answer activity or anything that gets them talking about the topic... it's their turn to talk here.

10 minutes - coloring, painting, puzzles, etc. you can use smocks to keep clothes clean - they're very easy to make (look up snugglie pattern on the internet).

5 minutes - closing prayer and clean-up.

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I've been teaching sunbeams for a little over a year now. It's crazy. Accept that now. But just because it's crazy does not mean that it can't be a good class. Here are a couple things I do to keep it more interesting to the kids even without toys and snacks.

Anything where the kids can pull something out of a bag is awesome. The kids all want a turn and it keeps things moving and changing. For instance this weeks lesson involves a bunch of pictures to discuss. Put them in a bag and let kids take a turn coming up to the front of the class and getting a picture to hold in front of the class. It takes up time and the kids are into it.

Buy a pack or crayons and just keep it in your primary bag with your manual. The coloring page is probably the most exciting part for the kids. I get most of my coloring pages from mormonshare.com they really do have something for almost every lesson. Also keep a stash of blank paper for when you forget to print out a coloring page.

I have a bean bag that I also keep in my primary bag. At the end of class I toss each of them the bean bag and ask them a simple question about the lesson. Don't be discouraged if their answers don't make any sense. They're three. It encourages kids to get back in their chair just so they can catch the bean bag.

Since we always finish our lesson early we sing fun songs while we wait for parents. Do as I'm Doing, Once there was a snowman, Head,shoulders, knees and toes, etc.

Final word of advice. Always keep tissues handy. :)

Good Luck!

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  • 7 years later...

Will definitely put some of these to use!

Any more suggestions for me to pray and ponder about?

I started off subbing for two weeks. First was excellent: we ended with making marshmallow temples. Week two, definitively awful. My lesson on prayer lasted ten minutes and I learned the hard way to over prepare in the future. I've learned one boy and one girl are physically clingy to teachers. That same boy is very vocal about wanting a turn and not getting one. Otherwise, they're pretty middle of the road behavior wise in that they have a lot of energy and will use it. I feel like my "qualifications" are that I'm only five feet tall (not intimidating and actually more comfortable in the small chairs than the large ones) and can be relentlessly cheerful. 

The Primary Pres gave me the lowdown this week. Three girls, three boys, all pretty consistent in attendance. Their last teacher was there every week until she moved a month or so ago. Unfortunately, the previous PP (current is about two months in) was never able to call a co-teacher and struggled finding subs so the teacher just let them run wild and/or play in Nursery.

Basically my first order of business is going to be establishing a routine, which will probably be best done if I pick one this week and stick to it for the rest of the year.

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If they listen to the lesson, they get to play Duck, duck, goose

https://www.kidspot.com.au/things-to-do/activity-articles/duck-duck-goose/news-story/db6d250d75e48a6f55302675796ff1f4

My sunbeams loved it!

in my class, we opened with prayer. I picked a student to come to the front of the class to say it.

i had a very short lesson

Then we coloured something about the lesson

Duck, duck, goose

Closing prayer

AND then we practised what we would tell Mommy and Daddy about today’s lesson. My sunbeam’s LOVED this! I will show Mommy this drawing and tell her...

We also had a little segment for what to tell siblings.

My brother steals my dolls and rips their head’s off! Well, we tell him: Jesus would never do that! Most enjoyable! 

Edited by Sunday21
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2 hours ago, Sunday21 said:

If they listen to the lesson, they get to play Duck, duck, goose

https://www.kidspot.com.au/things-to-do/activity-articles/duck-duck-goose/news-story/db6d250d75e48a6f55302675796ff1f4

My sunbeams loved it!

in my class, we opened with prayer. I picked a student to come to the front of the class to say it.

i had a very short lesson

Then we coloured something about the lesson

Duck, duck, goose

Closing prayer

AND then we practised what we would tell Mommy and Daddy about today’s lesson. My sunbeam’s LOVED this! I will show Mommy this drawing and tell her...

We also had a little segment for what to tell siblings.

My brother steals my dolls and rips their head’s off! Well, we tell him: Jesus would never do that! Most enjoyable! 

There is a lesson manual for the Sunbeams, that should list everything needed to teach and occupy them. Also when I was in the Primary Presidency, we were told by the Stake Primary Presidency that only church approved music could be played or taught - https://www.lds.org/callings/primary/leader-resources/music/nursery?lang=eng

If it wasn't in the Children's Songbook, it wasn't to be sung, played or taught to them.

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7 minutes ago, Iggy said:

There is a lesson manual for the Sunbeams, that should list everything needed to teach and occupy them. Also when I was in the Primary Presidency, we were told by the Stake Primary Presidency that only church approved music could be played or taught - https://www.lds.org/callings/primary/leader-resources/music/nursery?lang=eng

If it wasn't in the Children's Songbook, it wasn't to be sung, played or taught to them.

We are Mavericks! 

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17 hours ago, Sunday21 said:

You clearly hail from a different part of Zion. We are not so regimented here. Duck, duck, goose rules! 

Yes I guess I am, the part of Zion where we listen to and follow the Prophet and what the 1st Presidency tells us via the  many manuals, conference talks, leadership meetings, published by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, etc. Where they have told us NOT to use songs, stories, games FROM the world, but to stick with what is published by The LDS Church. That part of Zion. 

 

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I'm teaching CTR 5.  A bit older, but not much different.  Our classes are 40 minutes long.  So we divided it up to 4 sections, 10 minutes each.  We make sure the kids move around every 10 minutes.

0 - 10:  Kids come into the room, pull their face magnets stuck to the board, and put it in the attendance box.  We then pick a face from the box to say the opening the prayer, put the face back on the board so they don't get to be pulled out of the box twice.  We do opening prayer,  then review last week's lesson and introduce today's lesson.

11-20:  Game activity - something that gets them moving.  So we pick another face from the attendance box.  That kid would then pull the activity out of the activity box.  Kids really love pulling things out of boxes.  Hah hah.  Activities are - Sing a song, do a play, game show, i-spy,  movie theater, etc.  all related to the lesson.  This is what we spend most of our prep time during the week preparing.  Lots of ideas on the internet.

21-30:  Lesson review.  We ask kids what they learned or if they have anything to add to the lesson.  It's basically 10 minutes of them talking with us.

31-40:  Art.  We usually do coloring pages.  Our class is on 3rd hour, so we do closing prayer (pick another face out of the attendance box) and they continue to color until their parents pick them up.

Things we have in our classroom - we have a 0.5" binder for each of our kids.  All their finished coloring pages or anything else we hand out to them during the lesson are in there.  So, we show the folder to the parents when they pick them up but then they stay in the primary closet until next week.  We give the entire folder to the parents at the end of the year.  We also have a baseball card holder plastic sheet in the binder.  Each sheet has 9 sections.  We put pictures of prophets or important people in the scripture there that we hand out during class.  Like last week, we handed out Solomon.  We print the pictures the size of a baseball card on cardstock and cut them up for each kid.  This way, we can print it in color and not waste too much ink.

Edited by anatess2
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