February 27–March 5

We Are Responsible for Our Own Learning

As you read the scriptures in this outline, record any spiritual impressions you receive. Come, Follow Me for individuals and families and this teaching outline can help you understand these scriptures.

Record Your Impressions

Improving Our Teaching

Modify activities for the age of the children you teach. Younger children often need detailed explanations, but as they mature they can contribute more and may be better at sharing their thoughts. Give children opportunities to share, testify, and participate, and provide help as needed. (See Teaching in the Savior’s Way, 29–30.)

Invite Sharing

The best way to help children learn is to inspire in them the desire to learn on their own. Encourage them to share their feelings and experiences about the principles and stories they are learning.

Teach the Doctrine

Younger Children

The scriptures are true.

Children can gain a testimony of the scriptures even before they are old enough to read them. As you study the scriptures with the children this year, you can help them know for themselves that the scriptures are true.

Possible Activities

• Show the children some storybooks, and ask them about their favorite stories. Show them the scriptures, and testify that the scriptures, unlike most storybooks, tell of people who really lived and things that really happened.

• Share the message of Joshua 1:8 and Moroni 10:4–5, helping the children to repeat a few phrases and understand that Heavenly Father wants us to study the scriptures.

• Read one of your favorite scriptures to the children, and tell them why it is special to you. Bear your testimony that the scriptures are true.

• Sing together “Search, Ponder, and Pray” (Children’s Songbook, 109). Help the children understand the meaning of the song, and make up actions to go with the words. Emphasize the line “I’ll know the scriptures are true.”

The Lord wants me to learn about Him.

As you read Jeremiah 29:12–13, think about ways to help the children you teach understand how the Lord will help them learn about Him.

Possible Activities

• Help the children understand the meaning of the words used in Jeremiah 29:12–13 that help us know how to learn about Heavenly Father—call upon, pray, hearken, seek, find, search.

• Let the children color this week’s activity page.

• Hide a picture of the Savior and give the children clues to help them find it. Help the children see how the scriptures are like “clues” that help us find the Lord. Let them take turns hiding the picture and then giving clues to other children.

Teach the Doctrine

Older Children

I need my own testimony of the scriptures.

The children you teach will need their own testimonies if they are to keep their faith strong when adversity comes. What principles do you find in Joshua 1:8 and Moroni 10:3–5 that could help the children understand how to gain their own testimonies?

Possible Activities

• Bring books to class, and ask the children to explain the difference between fiction and nonfiction books. Is the Old Testament fiction or nonfiction? Bear your testimony that the Old Testament is true, and encourage the children to gain their own testimony of it.

• Help the children find ways they can strengthen their testimonies of the principles in Joshua 1:8 and Moroni 10:3–5.

• Ask the children to search the lyrics of “Search, Ponder, and Pray” (Children’s Songbook, 109) to find ways they can strengthen their testimonies of the scriptures.

• Ask the children to help you label blocks with phrases that describe things we can do to build our testimonies. Let them “build” a testimony using those blocks.

I can study the scriptures for myself.

Children may lack confidence in their ability to study the scriptures. As you read verses with them and ask them questions, you can help them see that they can learn from the scriptures and find valuable treasures.

Possible Activities

• What do Ezra 7:10 and Psalm 119:105 teach us about how to study the scriptures?

• Bring things that provide light, such as a flashlight or a lamp (see Psalm 119:105). Help the children see how the scriptures are like these items.

• What blessings can come to us when we study the scriptures? Ask if a child is willing to share a blessing that he or she has received from studying the scriptures.

The Lord wants me to learn about Him.

As you read Jeremiah 29:12–13, think about how you learn about the Lord. What can you do to help the children learn about Him? How can you help them feel that He wants them to seek Him?

Possible Activities

• Invite the children to talk about a friend they know and how they got to be friends. Read together Jeremiah 29:12–13 to learn how we can come to know the Lord, even though we can’t see Him. When have the children felt close to Him?

• Play a game that involves searching, such as searching for a hidden word among other words or searching for hidden objects in a drawing (see this week’s activity page). Talk about what it means to “search for [God] with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13).

• Sing with the children “Seek the Lord Early” (Children’s Songbook, 108). What does it mean to seek the Lord? How do we find Him?

Encourage Learning at Home

How can you encourage children and their parents to learn from the Old Testament at home? For example, you could encourage the children to memorize “Search for me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13) and share the verse with their families.

Sharing Time

Singing Time

Children will remember the messages of the music they learn in Primary throughout their lives. Use the Children’s Songbook to select a variety of songs that reinforce the doctrine the children are learning. Here are some that relate to principles taught in March, but you can choose others:

• “I Am a Child of God,” Children’s Songbook, 2–3

• “Search, Ponder, and Pray,” Children’s Songbook, 109

Draw the children’s attention to the words in the songs that teach doctrine. Help them define any words that are unfamiliar.

Sharing by Children

Create opportunities for children to share how they are learning and living the gospel.

Younger Children

• Invite the children to tell about favorite gifts they have received for birthdays or other holidays. Bring a gift-wrapped copy of the scriptures, let a child open it, and testify that the scriptures are a gift to us from Heavenly Father.

• Ask a few children to talk about new skills they have learned recently. Help them see that Heavenly Father sent us to earth to learn how to become like Him. Ask them to share what they know about Heavenly Father. Encourage them to use sharing time as a time to share what they are learning about Heavenly Father.

Older Children

• Help the children make simple calendars that they can use to mark how often they read the scriptures. These calendars could remind them to read the scriptures every day.

• Invite the children and teachers to share their favorite scripture. Why are these scriptures important to them? How have they come to know that the scriptures are true?