Let's Talk Lesson Sketches

Peter Sinks in the Water

1-- Start with Life of Christ CD Lesson #20 -- Peter’s Walk on the Water.  Skip the question asked at the end of the LOF presentation. We’re going to revise that in Let’s Talk. Take the LOF six question quiz, then turn on the Let’s Talk program.  Note: If you don’t have Life of Christ CD, you can create your own talking version of Lesson 20 using the Lesson Builder module in Let’s Talk, or you can introduce the story by reading it straight from the Bible.  

2-- Go to the “Talk Now” module in Let’s Talk menu. Have your students create an animated character to speak aloud their responses to some of the following questions. Mix and match. Follow-up some of their responses with more discussion, perhaps creating a new question to respond to in Talk Now -based on a student’s comment.                      

Question to ask in Talk Now:  How do you think Peter felt when Jesus asked him to come out of the boat? What would you have said to Jesus? What would you have been thinking inside!  What thoughts were going through the minds of the other disciples? What was going through Jesus' mind as he decided to walk across the water to the boat? -What was he wanting to show? What was going through the Disciple's minds about Jesus and Peter when they saw Peter sink?  Which meaning do you think this story is about:  We don’t have enough faith, or Jesus is here to help us?  What is the safe place in your life? What are the stormy-wave-tossed places?  What difficult things does Jesus ask us to do? How would you describe your faith: “ready to get out of the boat -or- afraid to get out –or- sinking –or- feeling Jesus’ hand grab yours.”  How does Jesus reach out and save us?  (Be ready to provide life examples to the children. This would be a good time to share some difficult/trying times in your life when you felt Jesus reach out to you.).

3—After some discussion, conclude by creating a computer-spoken prayer for Jesus’ hand to grab us (something like that).  Have each student create a line in the prayer and play it through Talk Now when you point at their computer. Give them some hints on what to pray for. Example: for faith, or for Then have everyone type and play “Amen” at the same time.

Younger children adaptation: Lesson 20 is ok for them. And they love to type in Let’s Talk, even if they can’t spell. They just need someone to help them.

Mary & Martha’s Argument

Their story only appears briefly in one other program (Bibleland.com which I’m not going to use) but can be re-created center-stage with the Lesson Builder and/or Conversation Now modules in our new Let’s Talk CD. 

Option 1:  For my older children, after studying and discussing the story with me using their Bibles, they will create their own talking version of the lesson, then switch computer and play back each others lessons and quiz about story. When they add their 3 Discussion questions to the end of their lesson, I’ll give them this idea to work with: “Imagine the conversation AFTER Jesus had left the house. --How would MARY defend her actions to Martha?  --What could Martha have done differently so as not to miss the opportunity to learn from Jesus?  

Option 2:  The teacher could prepare the talking lesson in advance and copy it to each computer for playback. Then when the kids got to the discussion questions, they could type in their responses and play them back for the entire class to hear. The teacher points to each computer when it’s their turn to playback their response.  For younger children, help them type their responses. They think typing is fun.

Option 3:  After the Bible Study, students are prompted to open up the Conversation Now module in Let’s Talk.  This looks like an INSTANT MESSAGING screen. One student creates and names an onscreen character –which can talk to a second onscreen character created by the other student at the same computer. The teacher begins the conversation with a “scenario” which the two onscreen will create DIALOG about.  

Scenario One:  “Student #1 you are Martha. Student #2 you are Jesus.  Martha, ask Jesus to explain his answer to your complaint. If his answer doesn’t make sense to you, tell him that and have him explain it again.”    

Scenario Two:  “Student #1 you are Mary. Student #2 you are Martha. After Jesus has left your house, start an argument. Mary, you job is to explain again why you chose learning and listening to Jesus over doing your chores. Martha, your job is to suggest how Mary might have helped you so you could BOTH spend time with Jesus.”

The Woman’s Excuses at the Well

1—Start with Life of Christ CD  Lesson #14 –Jesus tells his story to a Lonely Woman.  It ends with these two questions and a quiz:  Do you reject people who are loved by God? How do you introduce others to God?  However in the next lesson step, we’re going to get personal just like Jesus did. He knew what the woman needed, and she wanted to change the subject.

2—Go to the Conversation Now module in Let’s Talk. One person (preferably the teacher/assistant) will take on the role of Jesus. The other responder in this “instant messaging” –like format will be the students themselves. Students will type in EXCUSES they (or other people) use for lack of faith, , not reading scriptures, lack of prayer, lack of attendance, lack of contributing to God’s work.    

Younger children option:  have a teacher/older student play the role of Jesus –responding to the student’s messages (“excuses”) by typing back challenges their excuses. Help younger children type their responses.

Where were you Thomas?

Thomas' story doesn’t appear in Life of Christ CD. And he also isn’t present when the risen Jesus first meets the disciples! 

Where was he? Why wasn’t he with them? Didn’t he expect Jesus? Had he lost heart? Was he too busy?

1--  Students will rewrite the Doubting Thomas story in Let’s Talk Lesson Builder from the point of view of Thomas. What was going through his mind? Why wasn’t he there? What did he think of the Disciples’ reports about Jesus?  After creating their lesson, they’ll switch computers and listen to other’s groups/computers’ version of the Thomas story.

2--  After we’ve heard each other’s versions of the story, the teacher will pose a series of questions to the class. The students will respond aloud to everyone in the classroom by having their onscreen character voice their responses in Talk Now. 

Possible Teacher Questions:   A) What would you ask Jesus if he appeared right now in our room?   B) Jesus can come to us anywhere in our lives. Name 3 places in your life where you think Jesus might come and talk to you.  C) In what ways does Jesus come to us and make his voice heard to us today?

 

JOHN 1-1-18  In the beginning was the Word...

It's full of heavy language and imagery which we needed to "decode" for the older elementary class.

After a Bible study, we set them to work in Let's Talk's Lesson Builder module. Working in pairs they each recreated in their own words the first several verses of John.  They wrote quiz questions about these verses and created a discussion question. After everyone was done, we traveled to each computer to see & hear each presentation, answer the questions and respond to their reflection question. Class ended at 10:15 and it took us til 10:25 to shoo them away from Let's Talk.

The Answer Man

Don't know how this is going to go yet, but a Let's Talk Customer has plans this summer during VBS to project a Let's Talk Character on the wall using a data projector, then hide behind a screen with the computer and type words to make the character talk to kids as they walk up to him. He said he was going to "cover up" the portions of the screen which show the text appearing, plus the Say and Clear buttons. Sounds fun.

Job

The book of Job is essentially a series of conversations or monologues, each trying to explain the nature of evil ("why bad things happen").  As the teacher, you could pose a series of questions to your students after study, which the students would respond to using the TALK NOW module. Or, after study, you could invite each computer workgroup to compose their OWN lesson/explanation in the Lesson Builder summarizing Job's story and the answer God gives him.

For older students, you should also go ahead and have them try their hand at ARGUING (convincingly) using the CONVERSATION NOW instant messenger module. Have them "practice" their explanation about evil in the world with another student (who plays the "devil's advocate" or "provocateur" if you wish). As the teacher, pay close attention to the student's answers and talk with them about how they might better respond to the provocateur who says things like "if there was a God, how could God allow bad things, like genocide." Help your students learn the vocabulary of arguing their beliefs. Soon enough, if not already, they will encounter people who say things that require a response. Help them learn how to EXPRESS THEIR BELIEFS !

Call of the Disciples

Did this last year in my lab...  Imagine the disciples were NOT fisherman. Imagine contemporary jobs, imagine if they were ELEMENTARY students too!  Where would Jesus have approached them? And what would Jesus have said to them?  Create that story. Then...  put some realistic responses in the mouths of those contemporary disciples. Jesus walks into a schoolyard and calls you. How does he talk to students in "student" language -as opposed to fishermen metaphors?  What are your reservations? How to you answer him? What do you say to your parents and teachers?

You can create the 'new' story using the Lesson Builder. Alternately, you can use the 'Conversation Now' module to have kids take on different roles (you be Jesus, I'll be the elementary student). Alternately, you can use the 'Talk Now' option and have the teacher invite kids at two computers to respond to each other. This would work best if you have older helpers/assistant teachers helping kids to think through their responses before typing them. Alternately, the teacher could be a one computer and pose questions to the kids at another computer who use 'Talk Now' to respond to the teacher out loud. Lots of options here depending on your age group, number of computers, and number of helpers.

Karen at St. James United in Toronto liked this lesson idea so much that she expanded the "Let's Talk" concept out onto their walls. They had the kids outline themselves on big sheets of kraft paper, cut them out, decorate them, and add talking points to each "disciple". It's a great example of combining computers and artwork in a lesson to great effect! 

Resurrection 'Breakfast' with Jesus by the lake

If I was on a boat fishing and saw the resurrected Jesus on the seashore cooking a fish, I'd have a million questions, wouldn't you? That's the premise behind this quick lesson outline, a version of which I did two years ago in my own lab. Using the "Talk Now" feature in Let's Talk (which allows kids to create quick spoken responses to playback), each computer station creates a talking character then composes responses to the question I pose to them while standing in the middle of the lab. Then we playback their answers and discuss them. Then I pose another question. With some questions, I pose as Jesus talking to them -asking my disciples (the kids) questions. With other questions, I pretend that I'm the disciple and they craft responses as if THEY were Jesus.  If you have younger kids, they like to come up with responses, -just need an older child to help them type.

Sample Questions:

Jesus to his Disciples:
What was going through your mind before you saw me?
When you saw me on the shore, what did you think to yourself?
Why were you out fishing instead of telling people about me?
How come Peter is the only one to jump out and run to me?
How are you going to stay faithful to me after I'm gone?

The Disciples to Jesus:
Where have you been since your resurrection?
Why are you cooking us a fish? Why not just stand there and yell to us?
Why did you want to meet us here in Galilee?
How are we supposed to Feed your Sheep? We can't even catch fish for ourselves! How can we do this without you?



 

Wedding at Cana

We did a fun Let's-Talk lesson writing "Letters About the Wedding" that was quite fun. The idea:  Jehosaphat was at the wedding and is writing to his friend Betty. They discuss what it means, who Jesus might be, and what to do NEXT with this information. Betty is a bit of a skeptic.

"Dear Betty, I was at this wedding over the weekend and you'll never guess what happened." 

"Dear Jehosaphat, I don't believe you!  Who can turn water into wine and what do you think it means?" 

Dear Betty, Here's what the people there were saying to each other about Jesus.  What do you think I should do next? How will I know he's The One?"

You can do this a number of ways:
 
1) Have the TEACHER pose as "Betty the skeptic," and pose questions to the kids at the computers who respond with the "Say It" module Ex: "Okay Jehosphat, you're pulling my leg. WHO can turn water into wine and WHY would anyone do that? What are they trying to prove?"

2) You can have older kids use the "Conversation Now" chat module to take a role and respond to each other at their workstations. Give each workstation a list of suggested questions to go through. You can also use this module in a small group and have everyone gather around, assigning some to be "believers" and some to be "skeptics in the the crowd" debating what happened and then coming up with a plan to "figure out who this Jesus is"... what they can do to investigate him and his message more closely.

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System Minimum:
Windows* 98se, ME, XP, Vista
300mhz, 64mb Ram, 6 mb videoram minimum. Will run faster on better computers.

*Requires the installation of the Sapi4.0 Microsoft Speech Engine and the Microsoft "Spchapi" runtime program. Depending on your Windows system and setup, you may need to install one or both of these programs. They are both provided at our Let's Talk Tech Page ...www.sundaysoftware.com/lets-talk/trial.htm

Age Range is 5 to 80.
Non-readers can use this program because it can speak to them, and you can help them type their responses.

Tech Note for Let's Talk... Let's Talk uses the Microsoft text-to-speech application "Sapi 4.0".  You may need to install it on your computer to get Let's Talk working. We have included the install files in a folder on the CD (install both sapi4 and sapi5 files).   Visit our tech support page for more details if you need them. www.sundaysoftware.com/support

Questions?  Email me.  <>< Neil MacQueen, Sunday Software

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