Primary Lesson 32 Supplement

WHAT’S IN A NAME?—The similar names can make this lesson confusing. “Rehoboam� means “a people has enlarged.� “Jeroboam� means “the people will contend.�

ATTENTION ACTIVITY: If you choose to use the attention activity in the manual, you may want to bring magnets to demonstrate “positive attraction� and “negative attraction� related to peer pressure. You could also bring pictures of positive things (the temple, the scriptures, serving others) and negative things (alcohol or cigarette ads) to put under the appropriate magnets.

ORDERING THE STORY: As an alternative way to teach the scripture story, you can give each student a copy of the story (strips of paper containing verses without references in an envelope) and then have them place the strips in the correct order. You could divide the text this way: 1 Kings 11:43, 1 Kings 12:1-5, 1 Kings 12:6-7, 1 Kings 12:8-11, 1 Kings 12:13-15, 1 Kings 12:19-21. This is a challenging activity!

MAP ACTIVITY: (This activity uses the newest set of maps in the scriptures; if you or your students have older scriptures, you may need to adapt the references.) Begin by looking at Map #3 with your students. This map shows how the land was divided among the Twelve Tribes after the Hebrews entered the Promise Land. Have your students find the dotted dark blue line in the middle of the map. This is the division of the kingdom that comes about as a result of the rebellion in 1 Kings 12:19. What happened after this? The Assyrians took over the Northern Kingdom (i.e., everything north of that dotted blue line) and those people intermarried and otherwise mixed in with the Assyrians. They are now known as the Ten Lost Tribes because they did not maintain their identity as covenant people. (Incidentally, the Samaritans—including the Samaritan woman in John 4—are part of those people from the Northern Kingdom.) Later, the Southern Kingdom would be taken over by the Babylonians and most of the inhabitants exiled to Babylon. BUT they maintained their identity as covenant people and later returned to the Promise Land. Be sure to discuss how the seemingly small decision of Rehoboam to listen to bad counsel had huge effects on countless people as a result of the division of the kingdom. A variation of this activity is to give each student a map (these are easy to find online if you search for “map twelve tribes�) and colored pencils and have them label their own maps.

FRIENDS RUB OFF ON YOU: Give each child a piece of paper and a dark pencil. Have them write the word FRIENDS in the thickest, darkest letters possible. Then have them run a finger over the word. They’ll see that friends literally rub off on you. Talk about how important it is to choose friends who make good choices and encourage us to make good choices.

ROLE PLAYING: Once again, the topic of friendship is a great one for role-playing. Two (non-working) telephones and two chairs at the front of the room are all the props you need to have your kids enact situations such as these:

–Your friend invites you to an R rated movie and encourages you to see it because you are a good enough person that seeing one little bad thing won’t make any difference.
–Your coach tells you that if you are unwilling to practice on Sunday afternoons, you cannot be on the team.
–Your friend tells you that she has used drugs and doesn’t want you to tell anyone else.
–Some kids in the lunch room are making fun of a child who learns things slowly.
–Your sister calls you and asks you to lie to your parents about where she is that afternoon so she won’t get in trouble for being at a friend’s house that she isn’t supposed to go to.