RUHI BOOK 3 GRADE 3 SET 1

WELCOME TO SET ONE

THERE ARE THREE LESSONS IN THIS SET

1. God’s Manifestations are like perfect  Mirrors reflecting God’s attributes
2. God’s Manifestations illumine human hearts  with the Knowledge of God
3. The promise of universal peace made by all the Manifestations of God has been fulfilled in the Person of Baha’u’llah.

Grade 3 has more information to deliver than previous classes. The format, while similar in layout, will have concepts delivered in the welcome section and then the stories will highlight the topic of that lesson such as a particular Manifestation.

The opening devotions will set the tone for the time you will spend together with your students and will serve as a spiritual preparation for learning.  By the third grade, the children may be eager to organize this portion of the class themselves, so after the first session of the year, you could ask a few students to plan the opening devotions for each of the subsequent class periods.

We suggest one particular prayer that the children might learn by heart in this set

Introducing The Principal Theme

The aim of the three lessons in this set is to impress upon the children that seeking knowledge of God should be the central concern of their lives and that His Manifestations shine the light of His knowledge on the world of humanity, guiding it and helping it to advance, materially and spiritually.

This first lesson should enhance the children’s understanding of the truth that God’s Manifestations are the source of our knowledge of that which is good, for these special Beings reflect, to the utmost perfection, all of His names and attributes.

You may want to dedicate some time during to reminding the children of what they have done and learned together over the last two years.

This is an opportunity for you to express great joy at noting the progress they have made. You can shower them with praise, which will in no way be empty, for they have surely advanced well in their efforts to acquire spiritual qualities and develop a character befitting their nobility.

You could then ask them to name as many qualities as they are able, encouraging them to think of all their friends in the class and seeing how the qualities of love, kindness, generosity, trustworthiness and so forth are reflected in them and in their actions.

This review should prepare the way for you to pose a question that will introduce the children not only to this first set of lessons but to all three sets in this grade:

“How do we know about all these wonderful qualities we should develop?

How did we learn, for example, that we must be truthful, loving and kind?

You could guide the conversation that ensues along these lines:

“It is correct to say that we learned about these fundamental truths from our parents and our teachers. But who taught them? And who taught the ones that taught them? If we keep asking this question, we finally see that in every region of the world people heard about these truths from the Manifestations of God. In the same way that we have studied quotations from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, the Manifestation of God for today, people throughout time have read and heard the words of earlier Manifestations of God. The names of some of these Manifestations may be familiar to you. Abraham is one. Can you name some others?”

You could help your students to mention Moses, Krishna, Buddha, Zoroaster, Jesus, and Muḥammad, as well as the Báb.

Now you could move the conversation towards the theme of these lessons in this set.

LESSONS 1 TO 3 CAN BE FOUND HERE

Lesson 1 here

Lesson 2 here

Lesson 3 here