Turkey Shoot

Earlier this week in seminary we played a little Thanksgiving themed scripture mastery game. It was a turkey shoot! I try to devote at least part of one class period a week to working on scripture mastery because I think it's important. Of course, I want my students to learn from the Old Testament as we study this year and to really feel how much the stories and events of the Old Testament testify of Jesus Christ.  In addition to learning that truth, I think there's something special about having those twenty-five scriptures from each year ingrained in their minds and hearts. In the October 2011 General Conference Elder Richard G. Scott said, "Scriptures are like packets of light that illuminate our minds and give place to guidance and inspiration from on high . . . Learning, pondering, searching, and memorizing scriptures is like filling a filing cabinet with friends, values, and truths that can be called upon anytime, anywhere in the world."  My hope is that long after seminary is over they'll be able to pull these passages from their minds and feel peace, inspiration, guidance, and strength. 

So I make scripture mastery a priority in our seminary class, spending about five minutes each morning in class on the week's assigned scripture passage and an entire class period learning and reviewing the scriptures we've already worked on together. We could sit around the table and recite scriptures, but that sounds pretty boring to me so I try to fill our scripture mastery classes with fun activities and games. I'm lucky enough to benefit from the great ideas of other teachers - the internet is a wonderful thing! The idea for the turkey shoot activity was definitely not original to me, but I was happy to take it and make it my own. 

I'm grateful for daughters who like to color because it made the prep for this activity much easier. Basically, I printed up ten turkey drawings that I found online, had the girls color them, wrote a clue on the back of each picture, and then attached the pictures to plastic cups. Then I arranged the pictures at one end of the room as a sort of shooting gallery. We had a quick lesson and then it was on to the game. Each student had a nerf gun and had to stay a certain distance away from the turkeys. Once I gave the go ahead they started shooting. If they knocked a turkey over they could grab it, read the clue, and find the corresponding scripture passage in their bibles. Then I would have to verify they'd found the correct one. The student with the most turkeys at the end won! It was a fun and easy way to end our seminary morning.

Teaching seminary this year has been a big stretch for me spiritually and physically. Spiritually I feel as if I am less qualified than many other people who could be teaching seminary. The Old Testament is a book of scripture I'd never spent much time studying before and it's definitely the most difficult for me to understand. It requires a level of study and preparation on my part that I was initially surprised by and I am definitely learning right alongside my students. It's been an adjustment for me physically as well. I'm a night owl and waking up every school day at 5 a.m. is hard. I tell my alarm to shut up every morning when it starts ringing and start wishing for a nap around ten in the morning. I've had to force myself to go to bed earlier in the evening that I really want to so that my mornings are a little less bleary. Seminary has been such a big blessing in my life; I'm grateful for my students who sacrifice sleep each morning to come and learn with me!