Scripture: Joshua 1-4
Learning Objectives:
- Students will review how Israelites created a memorial when God led the Israelites across the Jordan with the Ark of the Covenant.
- Students will learn methods such as acronyms to help them remember information.
- Students will write their personal memorial-worthy story and prepare how to share it with others.
Guiding Question: What is an acronym and how does it help us remember things?
Materials: paper, writing utensils
Procedure: Review the story of the Israelites crossing the Jordan River with the Ark of the Covenant. Focus on God’s miracle and the importance of the 12 stones that served as a memorial for the event. Tell students that there are methods to help them remember important information even in school. Show them examples of acronyms. For example, ROY G BIV tells the color sequence of a rainbow: Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. This sentence tells the oceans: Penguins Always Play In Attics. (Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Arctic.) For fun practice, have students practice making an acronym with their name. They can list each letter of their name vertically down a piece of paper using large handwriting. Then they come up with a word that describes them to stand for each one. For example: “Sue” might be Sweet, Unique, Energetic.
Additional Questions:
- How do symbols help us remember things?
- What do you need help memorizing?
Supplemental Activity: Teach students how to visualize information to be memorized by making a memory palace. When there is a story, speech, or other list of things to memorize, divide the information into pieces. Visualize a house or “palace” in your mind with many rooms and unique features. As you go through the information you need to remember, imagine yourself placing it is specific places along a route: Under the doormat, behind the staircase, in the kitchen cabinet. Follow a specific path and make the images stick out in your mind. For instance, the doormat may have a picture of a yellow flamingo wearing sunglasses if you are trying to remember something that happened in the summer for that part of the memorization. Making the image absurd helps you remember it better. If students are studying something in school that they need to memorize, they can practice with that. They can also try to memorize Bible verses, books of the Bible, or a story that was told to them. Have students illustrate a blue print of their memory palace on paper so that it sticks with them better.