Teaching 4-Year-Olds About the Death of Christ

As a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints I have really been enjoying the new lesson format that was introduced at the beginning of the year. The entire church is now learning the same lesson each week no matter the age group, which is just amazing! The first book of scripture we are studying is the New Testament. We are learning more about the man for which our church is named and it has been incredibly humbling to teach these lessons to our daughter's primary class. Jesus loved the small children and my husband and I are learning why.

Today's lesson taught me something special. Early in the week I read the scriptures and started stewing about how to teach a group of soon to be kindergartners about the crucifixion of Christ. These little ones are so tender. As we have taught them about the miracles that Christ performed in his life and how he was once a child as they were I have seen these little people learn to love Jesus and now I have to tell them that the people chose to kill Jesus.

The Come, Follow Me--For Primary manual did give really good ideas for how to teach the little ones but I was still pretty nervous. As the lesson began we sang a song we have been learning during singing time called The Miracle. The chorus talks about that the greatest miracle Christ did was to rescue me. The lesson progressed and one of the girls started getting teary and I struggled to keep from getting teary myself. I reassured this sweet little spirit that what happened to Jesus was special and we can be sad, but we can and should also be happy that Christ loves us enough to have done such an amazing and wonderful thing just for us.

I knew that this would be a tricky lesson to teach to a group of kids this young without confusing them, or traumatizing them. But what I didn't expect was the reaction of this one little girl. I could tell she was clearly sad about what was done to our Savior. However, I could also tell that she was touched by the spirit. I got a harsh reminder that the children I teach each sudden are special. They understand more than we realize because they are a chosen generation, meant for these days to learn and teach older generations.