Scripture: Proverbs 6, 10-29
Learning Objectives:
- Students will review Proverbs about our behavior.
- Students will create small booklets to record life-applicable advice from peers and adults.
Guiding Questions:
What is a proverb?
How can I learn memorable advice from other people about how to live?
Materials: paper or small notebooks, pencil
Procedure: Review some of the Proverbs about behavior. Review that proverbs are bits of wisdom that reveal truth and can be applied to our lives. They are like road signs that keep our actions on the right path. Emphasize how the wise advice is given in poetic couplets. Each one is short and simple, but very meaningful. Let students share common quotes or clichés that they have heard from parents, teachers, etc. Discuss how listening to others’ advice helps us in our own lives.
Instruct students in assembling a book of advice from peers and adults. Students will record short bits of advice from each other and adults that they talk to. Help students prepare a question to ask such as “What is one piece of advice that you would give me based on what you have learned about life?” Encourage students to think about the advice that they will give others too. What have they learned from life. Discuss how often times we learn the most from either major successes or mistakes that we have made. Let students freely talk with one another and other teachers/guides to get advice. If someone gives them a long, wordy answer discuss how to summarize it to make it something short and easy to memorize. Encourage students to illustrate the written advice in their book.
If you have time, students can make small notebooks themselves. They fold several sheets of paper in half. Then stack them on top of each other with the creases lined up in the middle. Staple the center so that it makes a book spine. This makes a little booklet for writing in. Let them write a title and illustrate. Instead of writing “written by: _____” tell them that they will write “assembled by:____” because the words are not all their own. (This could be a good opportunity for a brief discussion on plagiarism.)
Additional Questions:
- Why do you think there are so many Proverbs about how we should speak?
- Did any of the advice surprise you? Why?
- Some advice is easy to understand, but hard to do. What advice did you get that you think is the hardest? How is the reward worth the hard work?
Supplemental Activities:
- Have students read through some of the Proverbs in the Bible and chose a piece of advice that they has been proven truthful in their personal life. Have a teacher share first to set the example.
- Have students look up proverbs/maxims that originate in their culture or location. Are there similarities between these proverbs and the Bible’s Proverb’s? Do some of them disagree with scripture or rely on superstition? Challenge students to find proverbs that reflect the ones in proverbs. Discuss how it further proves the legitimacy of the advice when multiple people agree. Emphasize that the Bible is the supreme authority on such matters.