Luke 2:52 in the Classroom

In my previous post, I wrote a quasi-review about the book, Emma's Journal, by Ed Rowell. Now I want to share with you how I have used it in the classroom:

1. First, I made a bulletin board like so. . .
Because I teach primary, I made a simple bulletin board--and one that we can write on each month and erase. Instead of using words, like "intellectual", I changed it to primary-friendly phrases, like "With my mind."

2. Next, we had a classroom meeting. this usually happens weekly to talk about issues going on in the school, in the classroom and with our peers. We role-play scenarios and talk about ways to figure out our problems. This time, we read the Bible--Luke Chapter 2. then we talked specifically about verse 52, and how the verse can be broken up into these four areas. We talked about how we want to praise God with our whole beings (insert words of song, Let Everything That Has Breath Praise the Lord here--sure mixes the meeting up by doing a random song!) then we talked about 4 ways that we, as a class, could praise God with our whole beings.

3. We came up with this:

-say one thing we are thankful for each day

-use these words: "please" and "thank-you"

-run or walk around the track one time each day

-read one Fall or Pumpkin book (our current unit) at home with our families

Not bad for a bunch of cute, adorable, eager, wonderful, energetic little primary kiddos!

So. . .now for the rest of the month, we will remind ourselves and check ourselves to see if we can "complete" these goals. If we can, cool, we'll make new ones to grow on these! If we can't, we will break these current goals into smaller steps, so we will eventually be able to do it!