First row: Chris Ouellet, Emma Carinie, Claire Davis, Steven Lennox, Cassie Ouellet, Claire Fowler; back row: Anneke Cairnie, visitor, Michelle Jeter-Krasnikoff; missing: teaching partner Josee Ouellet
Moses Jeopardy in Langley, B.C.
by Michelle Jeter-Krasnikoff
For the immediate Sunday school class at Langley, B.C., what started out as a Fall teaching unit on Moses, from the Cooks curriculum, gradually developed into so much more. Initially, of course, the children were fascinated with the story and the lessons about Moses. Several of them had heard many of the stories before, so they obviously appeared to be broadening their Biblical knowledge base. Then, in late October, our congregation had a Pastor Appreciation Night which coincided with our unit. Our Congregational Life Committee had generated a Pastor Appreciation Jeopardy game for the congregation to play that night as teams. The kids who were there had so much fun (as did the adults) that they decided it would be fun to create a Moses Jeopardy game after one of their teachers suggested that they could. The class took the idea and ran with it.
One Sunday school class decided to brainstorm answers for the game – information the kids knew about Moses and the Israelites. It became apparent that they had retained and learned a lot. This brainstorming was a pure demonstration of what they had absorbed because they did so without any of their study booklets. Some of their answers led to questions, which led to other answers for which we had not even studied.
Because Jeopardy is a game in which players must determine the question after reading an answer, we then generated the questions for each of the answers. Each one of the students and teachers took a number of these answer-question sets home and typed them on their computers, then brought the neatly typed version back to class. They were keen to proceed onto the next stage of becoming game-makers. We teachers were feeling very blessed and rewarded.
You may be wondering why a game board was part of their Jeopardy idea. The kids decided that it would be neat to show how Moses and the Israelites finally got to the Promised Land. what the teacher figured would be a two or three Sunday lesson activity, lengthened into some more than that. At first the students kept trying to get permission from the teacher to incorporate an idea, but after she told them that they needed to make group decisions about what to include, more communication and negotiation began to arise. More art ideas grew and transformed. A wonderful offshoot became apparent; we had new Sunday school members who had joined us in progress. This process enabled and encouraged all the children to be welcoming and accepting of all students and their ideas. The Primary Sunday school class even took an interest in the later days.
The kids asked some probing questions, many of which sent us to our Bibles for the answers. Many were easy to answer, factual ones such as, Did Moses come before Noah?, but others were deeper and more challenging, like, What happened to the dinosaurs?, What is adultery?, How do you get to Heaven? The kids made good use of their Bibles and Sunday school booklets to prove many of the events and miracles on the game board by citing the scriptural references right upon it.
What you see in the photos is the game in its completion at our annual picnic, but what you must visualize in your minds is the entire process that unfolded in its making, something so much more valuable. It was journey we all took together, learning not only about what the Bible has to teach us about Moses, Christian knowledge and faith, but also the social and interpersonal skills of…
* communication
* consultation
* negotiation
* collaboration
* teamwork
* care
* commitment
* welcoming and acceptance
* integrity
* honouring personal strengths, like art, language, leadership, humility, etc.
* joy and fun
While this Moses Jeopardy Game creation superceded many a regular scheduled lesson other Biblical topics and truths, we decided that those would always be relevant and we could save them for our next Fall series of lessons. Throughout all of this, it was clear that the Holy Spirit was working in all of us. What a blessing this has been. What a wonderful journey and what a great game there is in store for you at Langley.
Let’s play:
1. Joshua
2. Rooftop
3. 40
4. Old Testament
5. Pharaoh’s Daughter
6. Aaron
1. Who actually led the people across the river to the Promised Land?
2. Where was Rahab’s hiding spot for two years?
3. How many years did the Israelites wander in the desert with Moses?
4. What part of the Bible is Moses in?
5. Who raised Moses in Egypt?
6. Who was Moses brother?
