Sharing Time September 2012 Week 4: I Should Respect Others

This week I am in charge of doing Sharing Time at my church. It is about a 20-25 minute lesson for the children aged 3-11. Most of the churches around us break it up into two age groups within that, but we're so small that we don't. It's difficult sometimes to target everyone within that age group, but I usually find some way to not lose the younger ones while getting the older ones involved.  Anyways, I wanted to post my thoughts to maybe get some people brainstorming.

The first thing I'll do is share a short story about a friend of mine and how we are really great friends but have different talents. I am doing this to illustrate that everyone is good a something, even if it is just being kind to others, it doesn't have to be the piano, singing, or drawing. I am then going to have the children go around and say one thing that makes them unique. It could be something like the piano, or it could be something along the lines of "I really like bugs." (We don't have very many children so I think we'll be able to go through this quickly, you may have to nix this idea if you have lots of kids.) Again, the point of this is to illustrate that we are all unique and special in our own ways. I have some stickers my mom gave me a while ago that say "I am special" and "I am a child of God," I am going to hand these out while they're doing this.

Then I am going to draw a parellel between the idea that we are all unique and special, and Heavenly Father loves us, to the idea that we need to be kind and respectful to others. This should be pretty simple. I just want them to understand that we need to remember that everyone is special in their own way so we should be kind and loving towards them. I will probably use the word respectful instead, and that way they can brainstorm what it is to be respectful.

I got this idea from someone posting on Sugardoodle. The link for Sugardoodle is at the bottom of this page and her comments are in that section. I'm not sure how to work it in quite yet but I really like it. I'm thinking maybe at this point would be a good place. If not, I will just veto the whole idea and move onto the next part. What you do is start by inviting a child up to talk about something. It can be to read a scripture, talk about their week, share an experience, it doesn't really matter what it is they're sharing. I am going to go and talk to another adult in the room a little noisely. I am probably going to choose for them to read a scripture. Maybe the ten commandments? The whole point of this is for the children to be a little distracted and to illustrate how disrespectful it is to talk while someone else is supposed to have the floor. I am going to ask the child who stood up how it felt when I was being rude.
I try to use scriptures as often as possible in these, so I am going to have an older child read Mosiah 18:21, and then hopefully explain the idea behind it.

Then I want to tie in the idea of the Good Samaritan. I may be short on time, but I really like the idea of using scriptures, to get the children used to pulling them out and being familiar with them. So I am hoping to make it to this part so we can read it outloud and discuss why this demonstrates respect. I also found a good coloring or activity page about the Good Samaritan for them to take home (or if this, by some miracle, is really short, can fill in the remaining time). You can see where I got it here.

I will close by sharing my testimony on loving thy neighbor, the ten commandments, and how respecting others can make us happier and our lives better.


Here is a link to the official guideline from the church for this week. (On Sugardoodle)