Children Reenactment of Amalickiah Uses Treachery, Murder, and Intrigue to Become King of the Lamanites

Each month we invite friends over to our home to enjoy a potluck dinner and join us in a gospel discussion. It has worked well to plan something for the children while the adults have their discussion. Last month the children had a great time Reenacting Ammon Protects Lamoni's Flocks. This month we decided to learn another exciting story.

First we told them the story found in Alma 47 where Amalickiah uses treachery, murder, and intrigue to become King of the Lamanites. None of the children knew the story when we started.

Gratefully we had a lot of children show up on Sunday. We needed Amalickiah, the king and queen, Lehonti, Amalickiah's servants, the king's guards, an obedient Lamanite army, and a rebel Lamanite army. After hearing the story, everyone decided which role they wanted to play.

We read a few verses out of the scriptures and then filmed the children while they acted out the story. It works well to read the scripture while they are acting so we have enough footage for the video. We only film a small section at a time. Most of the footage is their first run through. The idea is to have a lot of fun and learn the story. We have children of all ages, so keeping it fast paced helps keep everyone's attention. It's fun to see how the little ones follow along as the older ones lead out in the show.

This is proving to be a successful means of teaching the scriptures to young children. They learn the story, act out the story, and watch the story over and over because children love watching themselves. We included the original text from the Book of Mormon, so they learn the scriptures while watching the video.

Enjoy the show!