Welcome back you guys, it's time for the creative side of week 10.

So like I said last week, I think anytime you're teaching Isaiah, you need visuals.

It's just hard for.

This language to cross those barriers.

So I feel like anything we can do to help our kids be excited by the

words of Isaiah will give them a gateway to get more out of them.

So I've got three really good options for you to work with this week.

I am, I'm excited to get into the creative.

Okay.

I'm going to walk you through the supplies list first and show you a

quick preview of what we have in store.

And then I'll take you through each one individually so that you'll know.

how to pull them off or how to adapt them to your own kids and classes.

Okay, the first one.

I think it's really hard, especially this week, to understand what Isaiah is talking

about because he uses so many allusions.

You know, he talks about Babylon or Assyria and he uses their historical

experiences to be a type for What will happen at the end of time?

What's hard is if you don't know the history, then all those

shadows and types are lost on you.

So I wanted to give you some way that you could help your kids get it.

And I've created a printable to do just that.

And it involves dinosaurs.

You just roll with me.

There's a really good reason for it.

The visual that kept coming to mind this week for me when I heard about one

kingdom conquering another and then a bigger kingdom coming and conquering

them, I kept thinking of the dinosaur kingdom and that this basically happens.

And so I wanted to create.

A printable based around that.

So I'm giving you a map of the areas that, that Isaiah speaks about so that

you can kind of get yourselves oriented.

And then there's an interactive component to the map when you.

I'll walk you through it in just a second.

Basically for this one you only need the printable and, I mean, cardstock

to print it on and then just a little bit of glue to hold the dinosaurs

together, but that's all you're going to need for the first one.

Okay.

Second one.

This one is all about that beautiful prophecy about the stem of Jesse.

Isaiah teaches this so clearly.

He talks about the Savior, uh, Jesus Christ being this stem, and then

he talks about roots and branches and how you will see something

new growing out of this stem.

And I wanted some cool visual for that, so I created a printable that

I'm calling an expanding tree, because this one's been used a few times,

so it's puffing out at the top.

Basically, you're going to make a rod, which will be kind of a straight stick,

and then you're going to pull it, and it will create a giant, like, Five foot

tree that your kids can play with you.

You just wait.

It's it's gonna be worth it.

Okay third one This is the most adventurous of all three.

I had to bring this one back This is from our Old Testament course when

we said these same words of Isaiah talking about how When people see the

adversary for who he really is, they will look on him narrowly, and they

will say, Is this the man that, you know, caused the kingdoms to shake?

It's that beautiful message that you find from Isaiah.

The way we taught it in the Old Testament is with a ping pong ball and a lighter.

So if you weren't with us in the Old Testament, or maybe you just didn't

try this object lesson, then this is one your kids will never forget.

As soon as I brought it up, my kids were like, oh, yeah, we're doing that one.

So.

This one, you just need a ping pong ball.

We did find that the best ping pong balls are the cheaper ones.

So don't go get your fancy ping pong balls, get two stars or

lower and then a lighter and then something to contain it in.

It will make a very big flame.

So you need something kind of big, like a glass bowl, something heat proof that

has some high walls to contain the flames.

And I'll tell you why in just a second.

In chapter 25, Nephi gives us some tips on how to understand the words of Isaiah.

And one of my favorites is that you have to know the region's roundabout.

Remember, Nephi grew up in Jerusalem.

He would have known all these areas that Isaiah is speaking about.

But his younger siblings and their kids, their kids kids wouldn't.

And so he's trying to help them get a mental picture of what

these promises are all about.

I have to tell you, like one of the richest things I found this week was found

through the geography and the history.

Because I studied the Old Testament with you guys in so much depth,

going back into my notes and pulling out old things I had studied.

really helped me see things that I had never seen before.

And I really want my kids to have that same experience.

But I don't think they're gonna give it the time that I gave it

to study the geography of Isaiah.

So I thought I needed some cool fun way for them to make it memorable.

So I've created basically more of a teaching tool.

It's not so much an object lesson as it is a way for you to teach the

geography of Isaiah's prophecies in a really memorable way.

So like I showed you, first you're going to create this map, just a simple

one page printable of the areas that are mentioned in this week's study.

Then you're going to create dinosaurs.

So in the printable, you're going to find these little like nesting doll type.

dinosaurs.

So the biggest one is Persia because they eventually conquer everything.

If you look, the next one in is Babylon.

Babylon gets conquered by Persia.

So you're going to like show your kids this process.

The way I would set this up is if you look on the printable, I also give you this.

essentially kind of a lesson plan.

It's a script that your kids could walk through to see the history of the

children of Israel in these prophecies.

So on the printable you'll hear, you'll, you'll read a little

paragraph about the history and then it will tell you in colored.

writing what to do, which dinosaur to move on top of the other one.

So for example, when at the beginning of the prophecies, Israel and Syria

make an alliance, and then they try to get King Ahab of Judah to join

them, and he doesn't, you're going to combine Israel and Syria into one.

They're going to try and battle Assyria.

But because Assyria is bigger, Assyria conquers them, and he swallows them up.

So the idea is that these bigger printable dinosaurs will

swallow up the smaller ones.

And then as you go through that lesson, you see that whole thing play out.

You see that over the course of time, Assyria tries to get

Judah, but doesn't quite get it.

So the instructions will tell you how to like almost conquer Judah,

but then pull off again, just like what happens with Assyria.

Then you'll see that big triceratops of Babylon come

and eventually conquer Assyria.

And then ultimately, after they've taken all the Jews back to Babylon,

Babylon itself gets conquered by the big, the big T Rex of Persia.

And you can kind of watch your kids.

through the story.

What I found is by making my kids teach this lesson, so I kind of demonstrated

it for them really briefly first and then I just had them teach each other.

I had Sam try to teach Will and he just followed the script and

then demonstrated it with moving the little dinosaurs around.

What was powerful is within one or two times of teaching it to each

other and then me quizzing them on what they learned, they could tell me

the story of the children of Israel.

But that's a remarkable thing, you guys.

It's something that took me years to figure it all out,

but they were able to catch it.

They understood the idea of one nation conquering another.

In fact, to me, one of the most powerful parts of this experience is at the end of

that script, it talks about how every one of those nations gets conquered in time.

So all those dinosaurs tip over, except for those who are gathered back in.

So this is when you put Judah and Israel back together in one kingdom and you

talk about the gathering of Israel.

Why it happens, where it happens, and who is leading that charge.

And it's just this sweet and simple way to teach your kids how to understand

Isaiah and the importance of their work of gathering Israel at the same time.

I think you're going to love it.

All of your kids have seen branches growing out of tree

trunks and stumps before.

That's not new.

The problem is it happens so slowly, you know, over the course of years that

none of us really notice it happening.

So when Isaiah uses that as a prophecy and a visual, sometimes it's hard to

grasp how miraculous it really is.

He's talking about the stem of Jesse, that the Savior himself, there will be these

roots and branches that grow up out of it.

He calls it a rod.

And then you can go in the notes and learn from the Doctrine and Covenants and from

modern prophets that this is a reference to Joseph Smith and the restoration of

the priesthood keys that allow these.

Covenant connections to be made again.

So you can go into the notes and learn a lot more, but I wanted some

way to show my kids how miraculous it really is that something that appears

to be stagnant, especially during the time of the apostasy, that it

appears to be cut off, grows again.

And there's just no better way to do it than creating an expanding tree.

So to create this rod, you're basically going to lay out eight pieces of paper.

So on the printable, you'll have seven that have this kind

of leafy pattern on the top.

I made it pretty light so you wouldn't have to use a ton of ink.

There's a black and white version and a color version, but you're going to lay

out seven pieces of this leafy paper.

And then at the very end, you're going to create this wrap of bark around it.

So that when you roll that paper up on itself, you'll tape all those

pieces together and you'll roll it up.

On itself and then you'll.

We just put like a little rubber band around it to kind of hold it in place.

It will just look like a stick.

In fact, it'll just look like a tube, you know, she looked like a stick with

bark on the outside and there's nothing particularly remarkable about it.

So this is when you talk to your kids about That stem of Jesse

and what it represents, that it represents the savior himself.

And then you talk about the miracle of the restoration when

something grows from it, and that's where you grabbed your scissors.

So this is when you make four cuts.

So on the printable, I've created a line.

There's a little dotted line.

You're just going to cut four slits kind of at each of the

four corners of your circle, you know, like opposite each other.

And you cut all the way down to that dotted line.

Then you'll gently sort of fold those.

Paper is back a little bit and this is where the magic happens.

This is when you talk about what grows out of that stem of Jesse.

So you'll pull from the very center of your rod, and you'll gently tug up.

And what's so cool, you guys, is that as you gently tug up, it expands.

And not just a foot, not just two feet, like four feet tall, five feet tall,

depending on how much you can stretch it.

Your kids will be holding a tree that used to be, you know, 10 inches, and now

it's turned into something four feet.

And that's when you testify about the marvelous work and wonder that

is the restoration of Jesus Christ.

His gospel is here.

The Book of Mormon offers us that opportunity to see a marvelous work

carried out in front of us, and it will have Huge ramifications.

My hope is that your kids will see that process and get an increased

appreciation for the day they live in.

This is a day of miracles.

It is a day where unexpected things are happening in order to bring God's children

home and our kids get to be a part of it.

I just think it's exciting.

In fact, this is an object lesson that you can do over and over again.

That's why this Mine looks so fluffy on the top because

we've done this back and forth.

So if you want to shrink it back down, so maybe if you were making this in a

primary class or seminary class and you wanted your kids to not carry around

a four foot tree, you can actually condense it all back down again.

That's why I do a rubber band on mine instead of taping everything in place

because that allows you to kind of take off the rubber band and sort of tap it and

get it to all compress back down again.

If your kids struggle to get it to tap into place, you can also unroll

it and just re roll it back up again, and then Pull it back out.

But every time, every time they pull it up and every time they

show the transformation from a rod to a tree, their testimony of

what that represents can deepen.

Now that's my hope with this object lesson.

This third object lesson I call the disintegrating ping pong ball fight

because it's sort of like the stem of Jesse object lesson in reverse,

where the stem of Jesse is something small that turns into something big.

This object lesson teaches us about the adversary.

So it is something that looks big that actually turns into

something very, very small.

And it's inspired by those verses in Isaiah's writings about the king

of Babylon, when it says, he goes to hell and the other kings who used

to be so intimidated by him, see him and they look on him narrowly.

And they say, is this the king that caused everybody to.

You know, what was all the fuss about?

He's nothing.

And I feel like that's our experience with the adversary.

The only reason I would think that is because of what we

read from Moses's story.

Remember in the Pearl of Great Price when we studied this and he

encounters the Lord and his glory and his goodness and he feels connection.

And then he experiences the adversary and he basically says, Who are

you that I should worship you?

I don't think it's that the adversary all of a sudden looks smaller.

I think the reason Moses can look on him narrowly is because,

in comparison, He has no glory.

There is no light about him.

There is no brightness to him.

There is nothing worthy of worship.

And that's what I think we want our kids to understand.

We want to help them see that, yes, Satan puts on a big show, but it cannot last.

Isaiah's writings teach us that over and over and over again.

Everything that is not of the Savior will eventually topple.

And the way you show that is with a little bit of fire and a ping pong ball.

So if you don't know this about ping pong balls, they are pretty

flammable, especially the cheaper ones.

So you want to be kind of careful with this object.

Listen, obviously, if this is too dangerous for your kids, or

if you're in a church situation where you can't, I give you some

links in the notes to some videos.

You could watch up many, many ping pong balls starting on fire.

But if you have a chance to demonstrate it.

I promise it's so much more memorable.

This is one I would recommend you go outside because burning plastic just

kind of has a gross smell and because it can create a little bit of smoke.

So we did it inside first with three ping pong balls, but we use the fancier ones

and they did not burn nearly as well.

So my recommendation is look for the cheaper ones.

The ones we used were two star and they worked great and

you want to put them outside.

So go outside.

Our deck was covered with snow, so it was easy.

keep things safe.

But if you don't have that option, make sure you have some water

or a fire extinguisher nearby.

And then obviously I would recommend that an adult to do this experiment.

Since I was recording, Will did this one, but have someone old and responsible

manage the ping pong ball burning.

To set it on fire, it's really easy.

You're just going to set it inside a heat proof container of some kind.

We liked using one that was clear, just because then you could see the full

effect of the flame and you want to touch it with a long neck lighter, a short

lighter will be hard and kind of risky for your hand to be close to the flame.

So you really want something that has a longer neck and you're going to let that

flame touch the ball for a few seconds.

I think it was like four or five seconds and then it will ignite.

It's not that there's a fancy gas inside this ping pong ball.

It's just the kind of.

material it's made of.

This celluloid is very flammable, so it will make a big show.

In fact, it is shocking how big of a flame you get from one ping pong ball.

When Will did it, we put two in that vase and, I mean, you have

a flame that's easily six, ten inches above the rim of that vase.

It is a big fire for such a small thing.

What's powerful is what happens next.

So after that fire burns out, which is pretty fast, like within

a minute, it burns out, what's left behind is this fine black mesh.

It's there's almost nothing to it.

You can barely pick it up.

So after the container cools off, then you want to pick up that

black mesh that's left over and let your kids hold it in their hands.

And talk about the difference.

What this ball looked like when it was on fire was big and blustery and hot.

And what it looks like after it's done is this disintegrating mesh.

In fact, if you rub it in your hands, it will literally just crumble

to ash and blow off your hand.

That's the power of the adversary.

That's why we will look on Him narrowly, not because He changes, but

because the closer we come to God in this life and in the next one, the

more we will see Him for who He is.

That all that bluster and all that show was just that.

It was a show and there's not much, there won't be anything to

worship or anything to follow.

We will look on Him narrowly.

See, I told you it was going to be a good week.

Okay, I hope you enjoyed these tools.

Remember, you can access the printables on the course over at gather.

macmom.

com or if you're not interested in the subscription, you can usually

find them on my Etsy site as well.

Just go search MacMom on Etsy and you'll find it.

Or I think we've got a link in the description.

The other thing I would tell you is if you want extra help, you're welcome to

come join me on the live, whether you're a subscriber of the course or not.

Just come to gather.

mecmom.

com sign up for a free account and you can join us on the live where

we have kind of an interactive study Monday morning at 10 a.

m.

Mountain Time.

We will talk through these chapters.

I'll add some insights and ideas that I couldn't quite fit into the

videos and also just field questions.

If you have questions about Isaiah's writings, if you have Questions about

how to pull off the object lessons.

Come join me for the live and I will try to answer those.

If you can't catch it live, you are more than welcome to watch it afterwards.

It's always available on the site.

In fact, you can see every week previous if you want to, if you

want to seek it over on gather.

macmom.

com.

Otherwise, I hope you enjoy this week of study.

I know Isaiah is intense and it's a lot, but I actually

think it's so doable this week.

And there's so much modern day application to what Isaiah was trying to teach us.

I really do think you're going to enjoy it.

You just have to give yourself enough time to.

Dig in.

So, open up the notes, grab those scriptures, and I promise you'll

find goodness in the pages.

Alright you guys, enjoy your week, and I'll see you on Monday.