Building Bridges in History---the Kick-off for our school year

Ezra Taft Benson once said, "Secular scholarship though useful, provides an incomplete and sometimes inaccurate view of our history."   This year we hope to teach and lead our children to recognize how historical events and people pre-1830 led to the Restoration and everything after leads to the Second Coming.  We want them to see how God allows people and events to fulfill his purposes.  We hope that we can help them see the Hand of Providence and His purposes in the rise and fall of great nations, armies, individuals...but most importantly in themselves.  Thus this year we want to help them see the bridges--or how a certain event or person helped bring about the Lords plan...to help them see beyond a secular history (though the stories, for and in themselves are great, but how does it relate to our Saviors goal of "to bring about the immortality and eternal life of man"... we desire to have them  see history in a more providential viewpoint.

We gather each Monday with our friends the Brame's and Mattson's to study and learn about history and math.  We kicked off our school year with a 'Building Bridges' theme.  We introduced to them the point of view we plan to take while learning the events, timeline and stories of history.

We had four types of materials and asked them to build a bridge from one chair (picture above) to the other.  On the first chair was our history materials....the other chair had a picture of Christ on it.  They were ingenues with their bridges.   One group had toothpicks and marshmallows, another used duplo blocks.  The older group were given only a deck of cards and nothing else.  The other group got tape and straws.

They had a difficult task, but great minds overcame and built a self supporting bridge.

Yep, they completed the mission....a bridge was made!

By tearing and interlocking the cards they got these cards to form a bridge.

These cuties did make a functional bridge....I just got there a bit too late for the photo.  Once I got there the wieght of the bridge collaped and now all they had was this jumbled mess, but they got the idea!

Ahhh, a perfect triangular formed bridge.  Great for strong bridge building.

Afterwards we had the kids get on the computer and use Gospel Link and LDS.org to search any topic...and find out if that topic is in the scriptures.  They searched for scary (under fear) turtles, tomatoes and other such random words.  They found that most every word can be found.  Chocolate was even mentioned....sort of....'Thou shalt have no other God's before me"  or thou shalt not envy....or covet....which ever fits!  We will have them use these tools as they research the peoples and events to see what the prophets have said about them.  They will be giving our devotionals this year.

They then hit the books and found the ingredients to scripture cookies.

3/4 cup “The words of his mouth were smoother than ____” (Ps. 55:21)
1/3 cup “Come unto me all ye ends of the earth, buy ____ and honey” (2 Ne. 26:25)
1 1/2 cups “To what purpose cometh there to me … the ____ ____ from a far country?” (Jer. 6:20)
2 “As one gathereth ____ that are left, have I gathered all the earth” (Isa. 10:14)
2 cups “And Solomon’s provision for one day was thirty measures of fine ____” (1 Kgs. 4:22)
1 teaspoon “Take thou also unto thee principal spices, … and of sweet ____ half so much” (Ex. 30:23)
1 teaspoon “Ye are the ____ of the earth” (Matt. 5:13)
1/2 teaspoon “The kingdom of heaven is like unto ____ (Matt. 13:33)
3 cups “Nevertheless, … ____ for the horse” (D&C 89:17)
1 cup “And they gave him … two clusters of ____” (1 Sam. 30:12)

1. Beat first four ingredients together.

2. Mix in remaining ingredients.

3. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto greased cookie sheet.

4. Bake at 350° F (175° C) for 15 minutes.

Searching....searching....searching....

Mmmmm, now they put their hard searching skills to use and make the cookies!  They were delicious!!

Elder Holland challenged those educating the youth of Zion, when he said, "I am making an unabashed appeal for a distinctly LDS approach to education."  Sister Esplin said (last conference) that  it is more than imparting information.  It is  teaching our children to understand their academic subjects in the light of revealed gospel truth.  This can be done by all parents during family dinner discussions, FHE, scripture study, and any other times as they may arise.  I'm just super excited and lucky that I get to do it during our school time too.