Lesson Plan: Sacrifices

I'm teaching the lesson in Primary this week, and the topic is pretty simple. I'm teaching Lesson 5: Adam and Eve and Their Family Offered Sacrifices, which wouldn't normally seem important enough to teach a whole lesson about, but why I considered WHY Adam, Eve, and their family offered sacrifices, the lesson plan began to write itself.

As usual, we'll start with a review, teaching about how the Fall of Adam and Eve caused a lot of changes in the way the world worked, with the most important change being the introduction of sin. Because sin was a part of the world now (and because this kinda had been the plan all along), it was necessary for Jesus Christ to sacrifice Himself to accomplish the Atonement so we could be redeemed from our sins. Adam and his family was commanded to offer sacrifices to remind them of the coming sacrifice of Jesus Christ on their (and our) behalf.

Today, we  have a different way to remind us of Christ's sacrifice, and we make different sorts of sacrifices ourselves, but the core concepts remain largely the same. We all need the Atonement, so we all need ways to remind ourselves of the Atonement. In fact, this lesson is going to be mostly about the Atonement, why it was necessary, and how we remember it. After all, the Atonement is the most important part of the gospel and was the greatest sacrifice ever made. The "story" part of the lesson may be about the Fall and Adam making sacrifices, but what I really want my kids to take away from this class is the importance of the Atonement and the importance of remembering it.