Condensing the Lord's Prayer to Its Most Essential Keywords

I call this technique of learning a passage "How Few Can You Do?" and have used it with several other lessons here at rotation.org.  It not only helps the kids memorize key parts of a verse/passage, it helps them define key concepts through selection and debate!

The basic idea: 

Kids are challenged in several rounds of play to reduce the number of words in the passage of scripture to their most essential 'keywords.'  Of course, this will create debate! ....which is the point.  In the first round, you can tell them "take out half the words."  In the second round, you can tell them to reduce the remaining words to 10 essential words that still convey the most important concepts in the passage. In the third round, have them get it down to 3 or 5 words. You decided how many words. You ask the groups, "why did you leave out ____?" or "why did you include ______?"

The result can be something of a "Keyword Poem" which can also be turned into a poster or wall display.  (A teacher can come up with lots of variations on this game too.)

EXAMPLE: Here's my keyword poem distilled from Judges 4, the story of Deborah (which is a very long passage):

Israel cried
Deborah judged
God commanded
Barak attacked
Sisera fled
Jael pegged

What words/phrases would your students reduce the Lord's Prayer down to?

How to do this on the computer:

Use a program such as "Let's Talk" or "Kid Pix 4 or the newer "3D" version" which converts whatever the kids type to computer speech. That way the kids can "play" their keyword distillations for the entire class to hear.  Note: Let's Talk software is FREE to supporting members, Learn more here!

More Techniques

I've written an article about "How to Teach About Prayer" that has a =GREAT= Lord's Prayer activity in it. It's at http....  Scroll down to the end of the article for the Lord's Prayer activity.

[Editor's Note: That article has been updated, donated to rotation.org, and attached to this post.)

The Galilee Flyer software in the following lesson is now available FOR FREE to our Supporting Members. Go to https://www.rotation.org/forum...r-children-and-youth. The free download includes the game guide and numerous printables.

I have also written a different Lord's Prayer lesson that uses Cal and Marty's Scripture Memory Game software  (also now free) for the Rotation.org's Writing Team Lord's Prayer Lesson Set (open to supporting members).

The following lesson outline was originally part of a larger set of lessons I wrote about the Kingdom of God over in the Parables Forum.

There's a great BIBLE BACKGROUND on the Lord's Prayer open to all our members in the Writing Team's lesson set. It has a terrific Word Study on the words of the Lord's Prayer.

The Lord's Prayer Computer Workshop

Summary of Lesson Activity

The Lord's Prayer is one of the four lesson-games in Galilee Flyer software for PC. The pop-up notes and questions which the kids answer as they fly over the Sea of Galilee help explain the images and meanings of the Lord's Prayer. It takes a minimum of 30 minutes to play the game. Young children will need older helpers.

This is the kind of computer game you should introduce your kids to ahead of class so they can get the hang of navigating the plane using their keyboard.

Preparation

• Remember to print the game guide and flying helps.
• Download, install, preview, and explore the software.

Lesson Plan

Opening

Welcome your students and explain what they'll be learning and doing today. Find out how much they know about the Lord's Prayer. Ask how they learned it and where and with whom they pray it.

Fly to Learn!

The Galilee Flyer software itself has the scripture reading in it (it opens when you fly to the top of Mt Hippus). And the primary objective of the game is to correctly match the verse fragments -- so we recommend having an open Bible by the keyboard.

Questions students encounter while flying help reveal the meaning of various concepts and keywords in the prayer.

Discussion/Reflection:

Once they all land after completing the game, have everyone fly to the discussion area in the hills above the southern end of the sea to consider the discussion questions there.  *You'll know it by the rotating floating "D" over the ruins!  See the game guide for a list of the questions found in this area.

Closing:

Fly to Mt Hippus to open the scripture and pray the Lord's Prayer together.

For more Computer Lab lessons on the Lord's Prayer...

Neil, the author of several software programs which are now available for free to our Supporting Members, has written and poste several different lesson plans in our public Lord's Prayer Computer Workshop forum that use different software programs (some freely available).

One of those suggestions uses Cal and Marty's Scripture Memory Game software to let kids create their own Lord's Prayer scripture scramble game with comments and quiz questions. (This program is free to supporting members of Rotation.org. Learn more.)

The SunScool Bible App for Kids has several terrific presentations about the Lord's Prayer for grades 2/3 and up. Matthew 6:1-15

Here's in excerpt from Rotation.org's Outline of the app:

Level 3 (readers):

• Level 3 of the "Christian Life" group of presentations in the app's menu has four different lessons about Prayer!
  
  

Level 4: (older kids)

• A8-1: Learning about Prayer  (Lord's Prayer)
  Luke 11:1-10; Matthew 6:5-15; Luke 18:1-14; 1 Timothy 2:1-6; Philippians 4:6...

The App is free, ecumenical, and can be downloaded for use on tablets, smartphones, Windows, and Mac!    Get the download link and look up the story you need in our Outline of all 170+ stories in SunScool. That page also includes app helps.