Cupcake Wars

This last Sunday it was my turn to teach the "Priesthood Organization" lesson in Gospel Essentials Sunday School class. I was a little apprehensive, because its one of the more difficult lessons for me to teach, as I don't feel I'm an expert on the topic. Also, its a little bit more difficult to keep a lesson like that interesting because it is mostly about which duties which go with which office. I wanted it to be informative and interesting, but I wasn't sure how to do that.

I don't normally like to 'bribe' students with treats, so thats not the norm for me, but I wanted to come up with a way to make the lesson more interesting and educational, and cupcakes were the answer for this particular lesson. I decided to give the lesson as given in the manual, but then divide the class into two groups for a trivia challenge -with mini cupcakes as a 'prize' for the winning team.

I announced this special in-class activity to class members that morning before church with a handout featuring a picture of a cupcake and a short explanation. We had a pretty good turnout....

First off, I always try to put students at ease by telling them that I won't call on them to answer a question unless they raise their hand. That usually brings the stress-level in the room down quite a bit!

I tried to get the teams to name themselves, but nobody on the first team volunteered a name, so I called them, 'Team Super-Righteous'. The second team called themselves 'The prophets'.
I had prepared a list of very simple questions from the lesson - all were questions that anyone in the class could answer, even if it was their first time at church because we had just covered the material (and I also made sure that everyone had a copy of the manual or another printed version of the lesson to refer to, if they wanted). There were even a few questions that simply involved me writing a word on the board and asking them to pronounce it correctly (like, 'Aaronic').

It turned out to be really fun... (Team Super-Righteous won by 2 points, if you're wondering)....and of course, both teams got cupcakes. The best part was that a couple of people who have never EVER answered a question in class before actually answered questions for the game! I was shocked!

Another great thing was a comment that another person (who hasn't been to class in a while) made - 'I'd forgotten how fun that class is!' which told me that the class is worthwhile, even without the occaisional cupcakes!