February 11–17

John 2–4

“Ye Must Be Born Again”

Your preparation to teach begins as you read John 2–4. Come, Follow Me—For Individuals and Families can help you understand these chapters, and this outline can give you teaching ideas.

Record Your Impressions

Invite Sharing

Encourage the children to share what they are learning and experiencing by asking them what they did recently to be “fishers of men” (Matthew 4:19). You may need to review last week’s lesson with them.

Teach the Doctrine

Younger Children

John 3:1–10

I need to be baptized and confirmed to return to live with Heavenly Father.

The children you teach are preparing to take important steps to live with Heavenly Father again by being baptized (born of water) and confirmed (born of the Spirit). How can you help them understand the importance of these two ordinances?

Possible Activities

• Summarize the story of Jesus teaching Nicodemus. Promise the children that when they are baptized, Heavenly Father will give them the gift of the Holy Ghost.

• Use John 3:5 and this week’s activity page to teach that we need to be baptized and confirmed to live with Heavenly Father again.

• Ask the children to talk about what they do to wash their hands. Show the picture Girl Being Baptized (Gospel Art Book, no. 104), and help the children compare washing our hands with water to becoming spiritually clean through baptism.

John 3:16

Heavenly Father loves me, so He gave me a Savior.

How can you help children learn this precious truth?

Possible Activities

• Ask the children to complete sentences like this one: “Because my parents love me, they. …” Read John 3:16. Then help each child repeat John 3:16, replacing the words “the world” with his or her own name, and have the children listen for what Heavenly Father did because He loves us. Invite the children to draw pictures of things that help them feel Heavenly Father’s love for them (such as family, nature, the scriptures, and so on). Let them share their drawings with each other.

• Let the children hold up a picture of Jesus every time they sing “Son” in “He Sent His Son,” Children’s Songbook, 34–35.

John 4:5–15

Jesus Christ is my “living water.”

Children in your class can all relate to feeling thirsty. How can you use that experience to help children understand how much we need the living water Jesus Christ offers?

Possible Activities

• Use the picture in this week’s outline in Come, Follow Me—For Individuals and Families to tell the story of Jesus and the woman at the well. Ask the children to retell the story.

• Show a glass of water, and ask the children what would happen if we were very thirsty and the glass was empty. Briefly summarize John 4:5–15, and testify that Jesus Christ and His gospel give life to our spirits, just as water gives life to our bodies.

Teach the Doctrine

Older Children

John 2:1–11

I can honor my mother as Jesus did.

At the wedding in Cana, Mary told Jesus that the wine had run out. According to the Joseph Smith Translation, Jesus responded to His mother by asking, “Woman, what wilt thou have me to do for thee? that will I do” (John 2:4, footnote a). Jesus is an example of how the children should treat their mothers.

Possible Activities

• Invite the children to read John 2:1–11 and take turns retelling parts of it in their own words.

• Ask the children to list things their mother might need help with. Invite them to practice what they could say to her using some of Jesus’s words: “What wilt thou have me to do for thee?” (John 2:4, footnote a).

• Invite some mothers to visit your class and share what their children do to show respect for them.

Jesus said to his mother, “What wilt thou have me to do for thee?” (Joseph Smith Translation, John 2:4 [in John 2:4, footnote a]).

John 3:1–8

Being baptized and confirmed is like being born again.

When we are baptized, which Jesus called being “born of water,” we receive a remission of our sins and can “enter into the kingdom of God” (John 3:5). How can you help the children you teach understand what being born again means?

Possible Activities

• Scramble the Savior’s words in John 3:3 and let the children put them in the correct order. How is being baptized and confirmed like being born again?

• Display a picture of a newborn baby and of someone getting baptized and confirmed (see Gospel Art Book, nos. 104 and 105). How are we like a newborn baby after we are baptized and confirmed? (see John 3:3–5).

• Invite the children to share memories of their baptisms. Read Mosiah 18:8–10 and Doctrine and Covenants 20:37 to review the baptismal covenant. Teach the children that taking the sacrament thoughtfully every week is a way to continue the process of being born again.

• Help the children memorize Articles of Faith 1:4.

John 3:16–17

Heavenly Father loves me, so He sent His Son.

How can you help the children know that Jesus Christ was sent to earth as an expression of Heavenly Father’s love?

Possible Activities

• Ask the children to draw a picture of their favorite gift and the person who gave them that gift. Then ask a child to read John 3:16. What gift did Heavenly Father give us? How does this gift show His love?

• Ask the children to listen for answers to the question, “Why did Heavenly Father send us Jesus Christ?” as they sing or listen to “He Sent His Son,” Children’s Songbook, 34–35.

John 4:6–23

Jesus Christ offers me “living water.”

Just as Jesus used water to teach the woman of Samaria, you can use water to teach the children why we need the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Possible Activities

• Give the children a drink of water, and ask them to share experiences when they were thirsty. Talk about how it felt to finally get a drink of water.

• Write summary sentences from the story of the woman at the well, and ask the children to refer to John 4:6–23 to put the sentences in the correct order. What was Jesus trying to teach the woman?

• Draw on the board a cup of water and a spring or river. Invite the children to name things that, like a cup of water, satisfy us for the moment. What things are like “living water” that can satisfy us forever?

• Write on the board How is the gospel like water? Ask the children to think about how they would answer this question as they read John 4:6–23.

Encourage Learning at Home

Consider asking the children to give their family members a drink of water when they get home. As they do, they could share what they learned about living water.

Improving Our Teaching

Use activity pages. As the children complete activity pages, use the time to review principles from the lesson.