A Year For Learning

    Last year, we had a children's class in Eliot which was not only a learning experience for the children, but also for the teachers. That was the first year we used the Ruhi Institute Children's Classes Grade 1: Some Principles of Baha'i Education. This is a book composed of twenty four lessons for children. Each lesson focuses on a different quality or virtue such as joy, truthfulness, forgiveness etc.
    We were very fortunate to have five teachers in our class as well as various community members who stepped in when one of the teachers was unavailable to be at the class.  There were on average about seven children who joined the class with ages ranging from three to six. Sometimes, we even had babies and 1 year olds sit in and listen.
      We had one teacher who played guitar, so she would play/teach the song each class that followed the lessons in the Ruhi Book. The other teachers rotated each aspect of the lesson including: leading the prayers, teaching the quote, sharing the story, and leading the game. That gave us a chance to develop our story telling skills, our creativity when teaching the quote, and our leadership skills with the game.
   We had a Helping Hands chart which I will post a picture of in one of my later posts. Each child's name was placed on the chart every week next to a certain part of the class.


*Hello Person: We began class with a hello song. We would start with the child's name who had that as a job. Hello  _________. How are you? Shake hands with someone sitting next to you. This would go around the circle until everyone had been introduced.


*After our hello song, we said prayers. There was a box that we passed around with quotes and prayers inside that we learned in previous classes to help with memorization.


*Song Person: We learned the new song for the lesson and then the song person could pick a song from a previous lesson for the group to sing together.


*Mailbox Person: There was a mailbox that had the quote for the week inside or something that had to do with that week's lesson.


*Story: We usually used the story in the Ruhi Book. Sometimes, we had some of the children help act out part of the story or used props.


*Game: We used the game in the Ruhi Book for the current lesson for that week.


*Coloring Page: The coloring in the Ruhi Book for the lesson we were on for that week.


*Snack: We had a rotating schedule for parents to bring a snack each week. The child or children of the family bringing snack would help pass out snack that week. While the children were eating snack, we also did virtue journals. Virtue journals are little booklets of paper. Each week, the child would take their virtue journal home. Either their parent or the child wrote down one virtue that they practiced that week. The virtue journals were shared with the group. A teacher gave clues as to whose virtue journal was going to be read such as the child's name starts with the same letter as snake or the child had a star on their shirt. The kids looked around the room to figure out whose virtue journal was going to be read next.








The whole year was wonderful. The children had fun, the teachers had fun, the children learned, the teachers learned, and all developed new qualities from within.