Students of any age are enthusiastic about playing games, and depending on the dynamic of your group, you can play them with words or pictures. Crossword puzzles or word finds can challenge the students to find key words and phrases from the sermon and also complement a lesson on vocabulary. Pictures can be paired with images or sentences from the Biblical text for matching or memory games. Students can also create their own artwork depicting scenes based on the text in the form of posters or pictures.
The Beatitudes correspond to nine verses in the Bible that are located in the fifth chapter of the Book of Matthew. You can use the numbers that correspond to the verses to test students' memorization skills after guided or independent reading of the text. You can also make math problems with the letters and words that resemble algebraic equations to integrate math with and Beatitudes lesson.
Eighth grade students aren't too old to enjoy a song, especially if it's set to a familiar tune. Many hymns are already written that include the Beatitudes, either the Biblical text or paraphrased versions, but you can also create your own lesson with music. Choose a song your students like and set the text of the Beatitudes to the music in place of the original lyrics. Setting words to music makes them easier to memorize for children and adults.
Teachers and instructors can make detailed academic projects and activities that include exercises on reading comprehension, literary symbolism, and grammatical structure. Students can approach the text from a literary standpoint and write short paragraphs interpreting its meaning or rewriting it in modern English. Themes to study can include qualities like pride, humility, mourning and happiness. Projects and activities that are more academic also work well for long-term projects and group work.