Introducing the Book of Mormon and Singing "Book of Mormon Stories" (Who's Your Hero?)

 

I am excited that this year we will be studying The Book of Mormon.  Tomorrow is the first Sunday of the year.   I will be introducing heroes from The Book of Mormon throughout the year.  Tomorrow we will talk about what a hero is and if we know of any heroes.  Here is the outline of my lesson plan tomorrow:

BEFORE PRIMARY STARTS:

Make sure everything is setup before the primary children come into the primary.  I have to leave sacrament meeting early some Sundays to be able to setup for primary since there is a ward that meets right before my ward.  For this activity, I just had to tape words and pictures up and set my flipchart on the music stand.  Anything else I used for the activity I had ready on the little table in front of the primary room.

(I taped the words "WHO'S YOUR HERO?" up on the chalkboard and then taped up pictures of the heroes in the song "Book of Mormon Stories" around the words.  You can use chalk and write the words if that works better for you.  I then taped up the names of the heroes to the side of the chalkboard.)

 Lesson/Activity Plan for Introducing The Book of Mormon:

1.   Have the new Sunbeams come up and sing “Jesus Wants me for a Sunbeam”.  (I made suns out of yellow poster boards for each Sunbeam to hold.  I cut out the middle so they could stick their face through it.)

  

     2.  Teach actions to “The Books of the Book of Mormon”.  Click on the link below to watch a video of the actions.

Actions to The Books in the Book of Mormon

3.  Introduce the Book of Mormon theme for the year.

 Ask:  What is a hero? And let the children say what they think a hero is.

 I looked up the definition of a hero and it says:

 a person who is admired or idealized for courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities.

Example:  "a war hero"

 What are “noble qualities”?

·         Courage

·         Honesty

·         Integrity

·         Honor

·         Respect

·         Kindness

·         Patience

 This year we are going to be studying The Book of Mormon.  There are heroes throughout the Book of Mormon that we will be getting to know.  As you learn about The Book of Mormon heroes, try to pick out the qualities that make them a hero. 

Did you know that you can be a hero too? 

Choose to be noble and eventually, you will have heroic qualities too!

So many things in life are unchangeable, but in this one thing we are allowed control.

4.  Activity: 

*Sing the first two verses of “Book of Mormon Stories”.  I got some visuals off of a website right here:  Book of Mormon Stories Visuals  

You do not need the visuals to do this activity.

*Explain to the children that you are going to read a short story about a Book of Mormon hero and then they will try to guess who the hero is in the story.  

*Sing the verse in "Book of Mormon Stories" that correlates to the hero in the story.  The first story is about Alma the Younger, so you would sing verse three of “Book of Mormon Stories” since verse three has to do with Alma the Younger.

*Continue with the next story, which is about Abinidi, and once the children guess who it is then sing the fourth verse which has to do with Abinidi, and so forth.

(I was pleasantly surprised at how reverent the children were as I read the stories of each hero.)

Here are the PDF short stories about each Book of Mormon hero in the song "Book of Mormon Stories": 

Here are the PDF words to verses 3-8 of the song "Book of Mormon Stories".  There are three different PDF files with words to the songs.  I put the words in page protectors and then in a 3-ring binder to make a flipchart.

 

 

 

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Extra:

You can use the lesson and activity above.  You could also add a few items.  I have big letters that spell out "WHO'S YOUR HERO?"  I will be taping them to the chalkboard in the front of the primary room.  You could write out, "WHO'S YOUR HERO?" with chalk.  

Then I am putting pictures of each of the Book of Mormon heroes in the verses of the song "Book of Mormon Stories" randomly around the "WHO'S YOUR HERO?" words on the board.  I got the pictures off the church website.  

I then printed out the name of each hero.  I will stick the names of the heroes taped on the wall by the chalkboard.  When the children guess who is in the story then I will take the name of the hero and tape the hero's name under his picture.  

I also got the visuals of "Book of Mormon Stories" off the website https://www.loveprayteach.com/ .  When the children guess the correct hero that goes with the story, I will then pick a reverent child to come up to hold the face of the prophet we are singing about.  The faces are cut out so the child can stick his/her face in it.  

I am also going to have the presidency hand out "high fives" to the children being reverent and singing their best.  I got them off of Amazon.  Just put "finger puppets" in the search bar and a bunch will come up.