The Valiant Femmes are femmes no more. Or, more correctly, not only femmes any more. I suppose it’s only to be expected in a small, transient ward like mine but still I find myself caught a little flatfooted and a little sad. Lynette’s family will be moving out of our ward in spring and Natalie will be joining Young Women’s this year. This leaves only Anna in the class. The teacher for the boy’s class has moved away. So we have a teacher without a class and a class without a teacher. I don’t think you need to have a degree in economics to figure out the same thing the Primary Presidency did.
So, starting in the New Year, I’ll be teaching a class of about six children. Other than looking for a larger room to teach them in, I don’t really know where to start. The girls responded well to the structure of the lessons in the Primary manual. I don’t think the boys will as much, especially the one who seems to have ADD. By the same token, I don’t want Anna to feel overpowered, buried and ignored as the only girl.
Meet the new class:
Nikolai: About 10 years old. Anna’s older brother who possibly has ADD. It’s hard to keep him focused.
Stephen: Eight or nine years old. Doesn’t like to participate.
Benjamin: About 10 years old. Pretty good at understanding and participation but easily distracted by his new step-brother.
Alvin: Eight years old. Youngest boy in the class and Benjamin’s new step-brother. Bilingual with some reading difficulties. His wheelchair is one reason I need a bigger classroom. He also likes to scoot around in it so I need to do something about getting him to stay still.
John: About 10 years old. Son of one of my VT ladies. Well-behaved, thoughtful and always brings his scriptures… so far, the ideal Sunday School student.
So, Bloggernacle, please share with me your thoughts, tips and suggestions for herding boys in Sunday School. I do have a cattle prod on order. 
Edit: Here’s a refresher on the girl’s info:
First is Anna, age 8. She used to refuse to read even the shortest verse but recently she volunteered and read her way through a good chunk. She was doing well with the other girls in class but she doesn’t seem as happy with a class full of rowdy boys.
Lynette is 9 and the bossiest little thing you’ve ever seen. She loves new ideas and projects and always volunteers to give a prayer.
Natalie is 11 and struggling with a number of challenges. She seems quiet and sensitive when she’s on her own and understands gospel principles easily.
January 3, 2007 at 12:30 am
Boy, you have your hands full. I would think the family dynamics would be the most problematic. I have no clue.
January 3, 2007 at 11:43 pm
Let me start by saying I completely understand your pain. What I am about to tell you is apocryphal and should never be listened to by any sane and reasonable person. However, since you’re desperate let me tell you what I did.
1. Bring snacks! Small, unmessy, inexpensive snacks. Then hold it over their little heads. If you can’t sit still for my 8 minute lesson then no snacks for you. Did I ever actually enforce it? Nah, but the carrot on the stick was very useful.
2. Break the lesson into two smaller parts. I found I that about 8 to 12 minutes at a time was the only attention I could get out of them. I would have a lesson at the beginning. Then a stupid game of some kind, then snacks and while they had snacks I had part two of the lesson as they began to wind down from the eating. It would be pretty much a variation of the first part of the lesson to help enforce it so when their parents asked them what they learned they had something to say.
3. Stupid games. Physical games. Come up with something really pathetic like toss the bean bag game. I ask a question and then toss a beanbag at them rapid fire like and they would have to give me a quick answer and toss it back just as quickly. This would keep them rivited, because no one wanted to get whacked in the head with the bean bag because they were not listening. For a second game toward the end I would do hangman and then whoever got it right got to come up and do hangman for the rest of the class. The only rule was that the word had to be somehow church related.
4. Stupid things to hold in their hands to distract them (make them unbreakable things or things you don’t care if they do break). I would often bring a bag of “things” that I changed up from time to time that were at least remotely church related (or I invented a way to make them church related) and would work it into the lesson for them to each get one of the items and hold onto it (dole them out one at a time in between saying things, again a carrot on the stick deal). Yes, they would play with them and often I would feel like they were ignoring me, but in reality since they could keep their hands busy their ears were more apt to hear what I was saying. Don’t do this every Sunday or it becomes too common place.
5. Repeat again at the end of the class what the lesson was about, so once again if their parents asked them what they learned they would remember at least the main topic. “uuuhhh, baptism…. errrr, the holy ghost”, etc., etc.
6. Art projects. Dumb ones. Like popsicle sticks, markers and glue to make the rod of iron. Or sticky note scriptures (get them to write a word on each sticky note as the lesson progressed and at the end they would have a short scripture to throw away as soon as they got home). Bring a stapler to put a stable to make it hold together long enough for them to throw it away when they get home. The point is not so much the project, but the time it kills. Bring cookie dough and have them make the cookies into a lesson related shape then quietly walk them down to the kitchen (threaten no cookies if they make a ruckus going down the hall) and throw them in and come back in ten minutes to get them out. Then have the kids eat them for their snack that day. That alone kills about 20 minutes.
7. Once in awhile have an outside of class activity. Do a two hour fun, silly do nothing but hang out and have pizza, ice cream and a movie at your place. The parents will worship you for giving them a free babysitter and you get to be a super-hero. Plus, they will see you as more then their weekly torturer.
Why am I killing so much time? Because a out of a 45 minute lesson they will remember one minute or less. Out of two 8 to 10 minute lessons intermingled with fun stuff and time killers to help make that hour of eternal suffering go by faster… they’ll remember just about all of it. Once I started doing this it become a lot more fun. Still frustrating as all get out, but the time went by much faster and guess what? The kids starting enjoying primary a lot more and I started even having a parent make a nice comment once in a blue moon. One brought me cakes and cookies once a month and almost cried because her Asperger son was actually learning things in primary. I still have those kids coming up to see me every sunday and I had that calling two years ago.
A final rule, tell NO one you are doing this. Snacks, and time wasting and super short lessons equals “What kind of a primary teacher are you?!?!?” The reality, is not a half bad one and the kids they really enjoyed class (well at least 50% of the time anyway) and even better, they remembered what they were being taught. Plus, I still have some of my sanity left. Hehehe.
January 4, 2007 at 12:01 am
I forgot number eight.
8. Sit on the ground and hold hands story time. Do it right! Have the whole class stand up and stretch their arms high in the air then come sit in a circle on the floor and MAKE them hold hands with you holding their hands as well. After a couple times they’ll fight to get to hold your hands, so change up who sits on either side of you each time you do this. Be way overly dramatic and raise and lower the pitch of your voice. Go fast and slow and whisper sometimes. Look them each in the eyes a lot while you do it. Occasionally do voices for the characters, especially like grumpy old man voice or teeny tiny mouse voice, etc. Make up the story, it doesn’t matter. Just make a fun story that partially partially disguises that the moral of the story is really the moral of the lesson and then see if they can figure it out (by giving them really big hints throughout so they’ll be dying to tell you at the end). It makes them think they figured it out even though you really spoon fed it to them. I really got into my stories (by incorporating family members or real events mixed in with silly things, or semi-scary things, or emotional things or whatever). A couple of times I cried a little while I told it. Especially one about an old woman remembering her family who died crossing the plains as pioneers. You better belive that seeing their male teacher crying as he told a story burned into their little hearts what the lesson was all about. I had every single parent come up to me and said how their kids were all about the pioneers and wanted to hear more stories when they got home that day. It was AWESOME.
Okay, I’m done now. Good luck and God speed.
January 4, 2007 at 4:57 pm
THANK you, cew-smoke! Not just for the ideas but for elaborating on them and sharing your experiences. I find it all very, very helpful!
I use the carrot-and-stick approach myself. I’ll see if it needs tweaking but so far what I’m doing works. During class they get stars for good behaviour and I take away stars for bad behaviour. If, at the end of class everyone has five stars, then everyone gets a treat. It’s a cooperative effort. I used to (back when I was first taming the girls) have it so that whoever had the requisite five stars got a treat and whoever didn’t didn’t get a treat but the chaos and tattling of such a competitive set-up quickly convinced me to make it a group effort instead.
I really like the idea of doing mini-lessons with an activity in the middle. Sounds like it’d work very well. Where do you get your ideas for games? (Other than the perennial favorite, “Hangman.”) Do you have any tips for making sure they’re church-oriented?
January 4, 2007 at 6:37 pm
I wish I could tell you I was a realy artsy craftsy guy and I had awesome sources for games and crafts. However, I come up empty on both. Mainly I would look around the house and see what I had a lot of and then sit down and see how I could use that with my lesson. The sticky note scripture idea was a necessity based on I had lots of sticky note pads, the kids like to write, but could not write very small so a word per page worked nicely. Plus it turned it into a little book when we were done and they kind of liked that.
The trick for me was try to make the game or craft a little drawn out at first. Like I would tell them that when I rang a little bell I had that the next word out of my mouth was the scripture word. It was fun to come up with a story that would have the necessary words from the scripture scattered through it. (Hence only doing really short scriptures)
Games worked best if they were physical and could provide interaction between them and I. Often the games just between the kids would cause the quiet ones to “remain invisible”. So, I solved that by integrating me into the game as a point-man (or more aptly point-person). Another game concept that worked well was to make them work to get to participate in the lesson. An example was I would write down quotes for each of them to say. I would then hide a key in the room, with one child immediately outside the door and play warm-hot-cold with all the kids as my helpers. The key opened a little box and I had the quotes inside. Once they found the key they would open the box and pull out a quote to read.
Another great one was I would blind fold all but one of the kids and then hold up a picture (usually a clip-art that I printed to fill out a page). The clip-art would be something from the lesson. Then I would have the un-blindfolded child describe the picture without saying exactly what it was and see which kid could figure it out first. That child would then come forward and get to read something or try and answer a question or whatever was necessary. Because the kids were blind-folded the quiet ones would be more apt to partipate because they seemed to lose their inhibitions when they knew everyone couldn’t see.
A craft the kids really liked was I bought some styrofoam balls and squares (big-ones) with a really big rectangle one for the base from a crafty type store and then get some long toothpick-ey type things and stuck one into each shape. I would then ask questions and whoever answered the question would get to pick the child who would come up and stick their shape on top of the last one. I would measure ahead of time how tall it would need to be for all the questions I had and put a line on the board showing that height. I would tell them they could have snacks if they got the shapes that high. Oddly enough without any prodding the kids who answered the question would pick a child who had not gone up yet. Even kids who did not get along would seem to pick a kid who had not already gone up yet regardless. It was really sweet that I would only have to gently prod them to choose a yet unchosen person to go next.
The good news was that I found all kinds of ways to re-use the styrofoam shapes in later stories and art projects and the like. I can tell you that the lesson right before Christmas had them all going home with those shapes decorated with the theme of the lesson and safely hooked so they could put them on their Christmas trees as their very own ornaments.
Well, I’m starting to get boring here, but I hope I am answering your question. The secret was in reality any object can be anything you need it to be when it comes to your lesson. The kids never needed anything concrete to get an idea. I had popsicle sticks with eyes drawn on them to represent the stripling warriors. It was a stretch but the kids never seemed to mind and they always got the point I was trying to make.
Take care.
February 11, 2007 at 3:55 pm
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