Junior Youth Activities

The following junior youth programme suggestions and links have been left from previous, more decentralised summer school formats. They may be helpful to be drawn upon by organisers of regional summer schools.

Junior Youth Spiritual Empowerment Programme

Arranging a programme for junior youth to engage in spiritual empowerment and education during summer school is relatively straightforward. Here are some tips to help you make a plan for your community’s junior youth.

NOTE: All children’s and junior youth activities must be supervised by individuals who have current child protection accreditation.

Please coordinate with organisers of the adult programme to synchronise scheduling, as appropriate.

Programme

Choose one junior youth text for your participants to complete during the 3-4 day period. It is best for junior youth to study the texts in order, starting with the entry level texts and then moving through Year 2 and Year 3 texts, but you are free to use your judgement. Consider participant age and complexity of the text.

This is the current suggested order of Bahá’í inspired junior youth texts:

• Breezes of Confirmation
• Wellspring of Joy
• Habits of an Orderly Mind
• Glimmerings of Hope
• Walking the Straight Path
• Learning About Excellence
• Thinking About Numbers
• Observation and Insight
• The Human Temple
• Drawing on the Power of the Word

You are also welcome to choose one of the texts which which explicitly explore Bahá’í teachings and are a continuation of Bahá’í children’s classes. Consult in your community about whether these texts will be appropriate and timely for your participants. They are:

• Spirit of Faith
• Power of the Holy Spirit

Most junior youth texts can be studied and completed within 3-4 days with joyful and disciplined focus. Plan your programme to include enough time for the junior youth to engage in focused study, memorisation, complementary activities and service, as well as recreation and relaxation time.

Activities

“If junior youth are to be empowered to take charge of their own development and contribute to the progress of their communities, they need to participate not only in the implementation of meaningful activities as a group but also in their formulation.

You will always be interested in discussing with other animators how you can motivate the youth to take part in the design and execution of activities that train their intellectual and spiritual faculties, help them express in practice some of their ideals through service, and reinforce their efforts to strive towards excellence.If employed imaginatively, complementary activities can serve to reinforce the lessons being learned by the junior youth in their study of the materials…you should not devise such activities on behalf of the junior youth, who will be eager to consult together and arrive at their own conclusions.”

– Book 5: Releasing the Powers of Junior Youth, Unit 3

Unlike children’s classes, junior youth need to be actively involved in designing and running their own activities in the Junior Youth Programme. Appropriate activities that the animators can help the junior youth to implement include:

• Writing scripts and performing simple dramas
• Choosing newspaper articles and organising discussions around them
• Creating artistic pieces (illustrations, songs, poems, stories, sculptures, crafts) that express the values of the programme
• Carrying out service projects that beautify an area, educate or inspire locals, provide a solution to a social issue or relieve suffering in some way

Junior youth also enjoy running games, energisers, sports and other physical activities and should be encouraged and assisted to do so. 

The best way to prepare for junior youth sessions is to…

• Be familiar with each lesson of the junior youth text
• Think of some activity ideas (just in case the junior youth have none)
• Have resources available (newspapers, art supplies, sports equipment)
• Help the junior youth to consult on the kinds of activities they wish to do
• Assist them in implementing their ideas

Collaborative games

(These games are also displayed on the Children’s class page.)

Concept / vocabulary review

This is particularly useful when working with junior youth texts. The different words/phrases/concepts from recent lessons are written on slips of paper, and one of the following methods is chosen to use to review them. It’s good to vary the method used from session to session.

1. Pictionary style – draw the concept/term; others guess
2. Charades style – act out the concept/term; others guess
3. Frozen scene – (Groups have a minute to think about how to portray the concept in a frozen tableau and then jump into position while the others guess)
4. Triple guess – (In the first round, the terms are described; second round, the terms are acted out; third round, only one word can be given as a prompt
5. Taboo style – (Teams are each given a few terms and create ‘Taboo’ style cards for these with a list of three or four words that can’t be used to describe the term. These cards are then given to another team who take turns to try to describe the word/phrase without using the forbidden words, e.g. Confirmation – wings, effort, assistance)
6. Haiku – each team has two minutes to create a Haiku for a word and say it in chorus, and the other groups guess. This can be done over a few rounds.
7. Reverse Charades – In a normal game of charades, one person from the group stands up and acts out a word or phrase while the rest of the team tries to guess. However, in reverse charades, it is flipped. One person (or a pair/panel of three) has to guess while the rest of the team must work together and act it out.

Junior Youth Text Summaries

Breezes of Confirmation Summary – Entry Level Text (Year 1)
Main theme: God confirms and assists us when we make an effort towards a noble goal.

Activity Ideas

• Drama where people experience confirmation in everyday situations
• Illustration of confirmation using the yellow bird analogy
• Painting using the metaphor of our lives bearing good fruit
• Make tiny sailboats or sail karts then blow so they move

Wellspring of Joy Summary – Entry Level Text (Year 1)
Main theme: The profound connection between joy, reliance on God and certitude. Also explores suffering, anxiety, sadness and challenges in life.

Activity Ideas

• Mountain illustrations with quote “unmoving as a mountain”
• Decorative lanterns
• Shadow puppets
• Watercolour painting of ocean – rocky surface but depths are calm
• Newspaper articles discussion around global suffering and certitude
• Service project that brings joy to the downtrodden (volunteer at an animal shelter, make an inspiring publication then distribute it locally, visit lonely elderly people).

Observation and Insight Summary – Year 2 Text
Main theme: By observing physical and spiritual reality we can uncover truths such as what is needed in order to achieve enduring prosperity

Activity ideas

• Observe nature (flowers, leaves, etc) and make displays
• Sketch items in nature
• Poems about the connectedness of the ecosystem
• Science experiments
• Drama around tradition and change