baha’i children’s class ideas.

learning concepts
Truthfulness is a law that Bahá’u'lláh has established that the world may be united. We should tell the truth at all times, even if it is difficult. This way, we will be worthy of the trust of others.

activities
story: The Boy Who Cried Wolf. There is an excellent retelling in Book 2 of Bahá’í Education for Children, aka the Furútan curriculum. Our children could relate to it a lot.
song: “Tell the Truth” or “Truthfulness”, from Ruhi Book 3.
craft: Nine-pointed stars—cut out three equilateral triangles for each child; help them put them together to form a regular nine-pointed star. They may either (1) place them on another piece of paper, trace them, and cut out the resulting nine-pointed star, or (2) glue the three triangles together to form a nine-pointed star. They can then decorate the star as they wish; they may also want to punch a hole in one point and run a string through to hang it somewhere when finished.

reading/prayer for study
Let truthfulness and courtesy be your adorning. (Bahá’u'lláh)

Truthfulness is the foundation of all human virtues. (‘Abdu’l-Bahá)

reference
O SON OF MAN! Neglect not My commandments if thou lovest My beauty, and forget not My counsels if thou wouldst attain My good pleasure. (Bahá’u'lláh, Arabic Hidden Word no.39)

experience
December 2, 2006: 2 hours, 10 children, average age 6-7. Pretty good class this afternoon; our only hang-up, lesson-wise, was that I didn’t prepare the craft in time, and we ended up cutting out the triangles at the last minute. Miraculously, the kids didn’t implode out of impatience. I was surprised to find such an amazing retelling of The Boy Who Cried Wolf, too. The kids weren’t looking forward to the story too much today—too much sitting quietly, I guess—but all of them got into it and could empathize with the main character. The story focused on the consequences of the boy’s actions (which were mainly along the lines of disappointing his family and his community and losing their trust) and wasn’t cheesy at all. I was afraid that telling that story would elicit groans from the kids—everyone’s heard that story way too many times, right? I was happily mistaken.

A quick word about our renewed focus on discipline: we have been taking certain steps to quiet the children down at the beginning of the class, and it seems to be paying off. While the children aren’t necessarily at their best every moment of each class, the class seems to be more manageable now. We haven’t yet had the need to apply a punishment (what Ruhi Book 3 refers to as “sanctions”—in our case, sitting apart from the class during the colouring period that now follows prayers); God willing, we won’t have to, but in the meantime all of us (the co-teachers) have to be ready to do so if disruptive behaviour arises.

August 17, 2007: 1 hours, 3 children, average age 7-8. Our calmest outreach class so far! Due to rain, we had to move the classes inside for the evening, at the home of a Baha’i who recently moved into the area. (more in a bit.)

December 5, 2007: 1 hour, 3 children, average age 8. Outreach class. wow. pretty interesting class. discipline went well even though we had some normally feisty kids in the class – things have gone better since we introduced the painting activity, which has given our more tactile/kinesthetic learners a stronger reason to engage themselves in the class. after reading prayers and singing two songs (“Tell the Truth” and “Blessed is the Spot”), we memorized the quotation (“Truthfulness is the foundation of all human virtues”), which brought us into a discussion about what a “foundation” means. I think we got the idea across well enough—we introduced the idea of the foundation of a house, and how a house would fall over if it didn’t have a good enough foundation; we then compared our souls to those houses, and explained that without truthfulness, our “soul houses” (as it were) would have nothing to stand on, just like a real house. We then launched into the story—which I hammed up a great deal, but which again seemed to have gotten the point across—and, to end off the class, we had about five or ten minutes to paint with the kids. usually we have more time to paint, but I guess I hammed up the story a little too much!

One of the children told me something interesting that made me think; I’ll share with you an abridged version. She said she had gotten into the habit of lying about little things, for example, making a mess in the house—and then blaming said mess on one of her younger sisters out of the fear of punishment. When guilt finally overtook her later on, she would confess the truth to her parents, at which point she would be punished—perhaps worse than if she had told the truth in the first place. We encouraged her to see that as a good reason to tell the truth up front, but instead she cited the inevitable punishments as being “why I don’t tell the truth anymore”. yikes. How do you go about helping a child to learn to love telling the truth when they come out with something like that? (comments welcome…)

July 3, 2010: Trying it yet again! Outreach again this time. A group of us have been doing outreach in Chinatown and met some families all living in one apartment building who showed interest in a children’s class. After meeting a few times and sharing Anna’s presentation with the families (through a significant language barrier), we finally had a class of sorts, with 4-6 boys (I’d say about 5-8 years old). We played a lot more games than usual for us, and they loved it. in fact the class was mostly games, proportion-wise. all the same, we worked on memorizing “O God, guide me” and the quote on truthfulness. The prayers were amazing, as the older children stayed in quiet meditation for a full minute after the prayers were done–I’ve never seen that in all my time doing children’s classes. My co-teacher suggested it might have been due to their Buddhist background… in any case, it was astounding and MOST welcome, and we’ll encourage them to continue doing this for sure. They loved the story about the Boy Who Cried Wolf, and they seemed to grasp all the concepts well. overall, a great summer class after a very uneventful spring season.

learning concepts
Baha’u'llah teaches us that when we are sick, we must seek the advice of competent physicians. Prayers are important for healing, but are not sufficient.

activities
story: the children write their own story! ask the children about a time when they paid a visit to a doctor, either because they were sick, or simply for a check-up. help them to describe their visit by asking questions: what season was it? was the doctor in an office building or a house? was the doctor a man or a woman? Did he or she give you medication? A shot? Did you lie on a table, or sit on a chair? then, ask the children to draw a picture of their visit, and to write a few lines below it to tell the story.
game: help the sick, aka learning rescue carries.
drama: Ruhi Book 3A (the old book 5) often has the children performing skits, and this would be a perfect opportunity for one—one child plays the doctor, one plays a parent and another plays the child. they can act out a story told by one of the children during the lesson, or make up a scenario about a visit to the doctor.

reference
Resort ye, in times of sickness, to competent physicians; We have not set aside the use of material means, rather have We confirmed it through this Pen, which God hath made to be the Dawning-place of His shining and glorious Cause. (Baha’u'llah, Kitab-i-Aqdas, para. 113)

experience
Nov. 10, 2007: 1.5 hours, 7 children, average age 7-8. Great class! There is a lot to be said for team efforts. The class started with beautiful prayers—which the children love and vie with each other to say (!)—and continued with songs in which everyone joined in. We had four Haitian children (all related), so one of the songs we sang was “O God, Guide Me” in Haitian Creole, which is fun to sing and has a catchy rhythm. All the kids like singing it. Then we continued on with the lesson, which I had read a few times the night before—I still found I needed the sheet in front of me, though, and I still started to waffle on at some points (caught myself before losing the kids’ attention, though). The children had so much to say about visiting the doctor that we had to moderate the conversation a lot. It was really a topic they got into. So much so, in fact, that while we were working on the activity later on, they were so focused that you could hear a pin drop. Part of that, of course, should fall onto the skill of the teacher who animated that part of the class.

The activity itself worked out quite well; since they seemed to have a natural interest in the topic, it was perfectly natural for them to express their own experiences visiting the doctor’s office. We put together a sheet similar to the one provided in the Alaskan Materials for the Furutan lessons, with a quote at the top, an empty space to draw, and a few lines at the bottom to tell the story. We noticed a few things during the activity: the children shared limited materials together (pencils, markers, etc), which is important for them to develop collaboration skills, and, thanks to having three teachers on hand, we were able to give at least a little time to help each of them bring out their ideas and nurture their own creativity. We focused on getting some of the younger children to practice their handwriting skills, and allowed them to finish by colouring their drawings.

learning concepts
The best way to attain nearness to God is to serve Him; we can do this by serving humanity. We should serve everyone, without considering their race, nationality, religion, status, or sex.

activities
projects: The children can be encouraged to take on a service project to learn about the importance of serving humanity. Examples could include putting together care packages for disadvantaged families, weeding and/or planting a garden, cleaning the local Baha’i centre or other gathering place, and so on.
story of Lua Getsinger: ‘Abdu’l-Bahá asks Lua to take care of a sick man. Ruhi Book 3, Lesson 5.
song: “Look At Me, Follow Me”.
drama/skits: The children can act out different scenarios of service, including the story of Lua Getsinger (without attempting to portray ‘Abdu’l-Baha, of course).
game: “Help the Sick”. one child pretends to be sick, while two others clasp their hands to form a chair and carry the “sick” child over to the “health center”. children can be taught various rescue carries in this way. Ruhi Book 3, Lesson 5.
drawing: “Tending the Garden”. Children can either colour a black-and-white drawing of someone tending a garden, or draw themselves tending a garden. The teachers may accompany this drawing with the quote of ‘Abdu’l-Baha given below.

reading/prayer for study
“That one indeed is a man who, today, dedicateth himself to the service of the entire human race.”

reference
That one indeed is a man who, today, dedicateth himself to the service of the entire human race. The Great Being saith: Blessed and happy is he that ariseth to promote the best interests of the peoples and kindreds of the earth. In another passage He hath proclaimed: It is not for him to pride himself who loveth his own country, but rather for him who loveth the whole world. The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens. (Baha’u'llah, Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p.250)

“To one who visited in Haifa, ‘Abdu’l-Baha said substantially, in likening the Cause of God to a Garden: ‘At the gate of the garden some stand and look within, but do not care to enter. Others step inside, behold its beauty, but do not penetrate far. Still others encircle this garden inhaling the fragrance of the flowers, having enjoyed its full beauty, pass out again by the same gate. But there are always some who enter and, becoming intoxicated with the splendor of what they behold, remain for life to tend the garden’.” (“The Garden of the Heart”, a compilation by Frances Esty)

experience
August 4, 2007: ~2 hours, 2 children, average age 8.
With a little maternal help (thanks mom!) we weeded the garden inside the patio at the Baha’i Centre and planted a beautiful row of geraniums there. To give a little bit of context, we looked at a photo of the terraces at the Baha’i World Centre beforehand and explained how the Baha’is had created the beautiful gardens there for the entire world to enjoy.

our garden supplies.

weeding the garden.

mom gives the kids a botany lesson.

our kids with a stubborn root they helped dig up.

after weeding and planting.

August 16, 2007: ~1 hour, 4 children, average age 6-7. Outreach class. Our last outdoor outreach class during the two-week pilot phase. With a week and a half’s worth of experience with these children under our belt, we were able to manage the class better than before. We used lots of movement-based activities to accommodate the uppity ones; they all enjoyed learning the “rescue carry” maneuver during the game. The entire class was basically taken straight from Lesson 5 of Ruhi Book 3, including the song (“Look At Me, Follow Me”), the quote, and the story. I think the children liked it, although there was an incident where I had to physically restrain one of the children while telling the story to avoid allowing him to fight with others. I took him aside afterwards, before we played the games, and told him firmly that he was welcome to stay in the class as long as he cooperated in the activities and respected the other children in the class—meaning no more fighting. It seems to have helped, even though we still had to monitor him very closely to curb any further outbursts.

August 18, 2007: 1.5 hours, 8 children, average age 8. Our last regular children’s class before school starts again! We had five of our usual kids and three cousins, and the group dynamic was great—although there was a little too much between-cousins tousling for the spiritual atmosphere of the children’s class. After two weeks of daily outreach classes, though, I had gotten used to playing kindergarten cop, so it was manageable. Most of the children said prayers, after which we memorized “O God, guide me” for the sake of our new students (and to refresh the memory of the kids who hadn’t been around during the summer) and then sang the same prayer in Haitian Creole (since several of our children come from Haitian families). We used the “step game” to help memorize the quote, but we noticed a couple of problems with it: 1) the game doesn’t work so well when there are lots of children (say, eight or more) in a line; 2) the game doesn’t work so well when the children can’t read well. We may adapt it for use with this class, which typically takes place indoors rather than outdoors and has fewer high-energy children than the outreach class. One nice thing is that we involved the children in snack time more than usual; for example, one set out a plate of cookies and poured juice for the others, while another helped wash dishes afterwards, and others helped to put away the colouring materials before we went outside for the end of class. The child who washed dishes—usually a rather distracted child—even thanked us for letting him serve in that way. nice :)