Primary Lesson 31 Supplement

INTRODUCTORY ACTIVITY: Give strips of paper stating the following to two students:

You are a mother of an infant. You woke up one morning to find that your baby had died. You are convinced that a woman who lives in your house, who is also a new mother, swapped babies with you in the middle of the night when her child died. You are going to go before the king to convince him that you are the mother of the living baby.

Tell the class that they will play the role of the king. Give the mothers a few minutes to make their cases and then ask your class for suggestions on how to solve the conflict.

INTRODUCTORY ACTIVITY: Using about 40 small pieces of paper, write one thing people value on each piece. Some should be flippant (ice cream, a good haircut) and some serious (a nice home, a testimony, family) and be sure to include wisdom. Go around the room and have each person take out of the pile and throw away the paper with the item that is of least importance to them. This is easy at first and gets harder as you go. See what rank of importance wisdom ends up with and use this to introduce the scripture story.

WRITING ACTIVITY: Give each child a piece of paper. Ask them to write W I S D O M down the side of the paper and then to write a word beginning with each letter that has something to do with wisdom. (For example, on I they could write intelligence, inspiration, inquisitive, etc.) Use these to discuss the aspects of wisdom. A variation of this activity is to make a game of it similar to Scattergories: after everyone has had a few minutes to write their words, go around the room and have each child read their words. Anyone who has the same word as someone else must cross off their word. (This favors people with unique words.) The person with the most words left at the end can be declared ‘the wisest.’

SOLOMON’S TEMPLE: If you want to teach about Solomon’s Temple, you can use the following resources from The Friend:

–“Sharing Time: Temples in All Times,â€? June 2002, has an activity where the children make a mobile of temples throughout the ages.
–“Sharing Time: The Lord Commands His People to Build Temples,â€? Friend, Feb. 1993, contains riddle, with pictures, of temple builders throughout the ages including Solomon.
–“Temples—a Sign of the True Church,â€? Friend, June 2002, contains a template to make a paper model of Solomon’s Temple.

MEMORIZATION ACTIVITY: Bring a very soft ball to class. Write “Learn wisdom in thy youth� (Alma 37:35) on the board. Have the students throw the ball to each other. As each student catches the ball, they should say the next word in the verse.