Family Home Evening: Gratitude

With all of the help that my family has been receiving from our ward during my difficult pregnancy, I have an ever growing list of thank you notes to write.

While most of the help is for my benefit, everyone in the family is better off.

I decided that it would be a fun idea to involve everyone writing thank you cards.

From that desire came an idea for our Family Home Evening last week.

Opening Song: Heavenly Father Loves Me (I like to choose a familiar song for our opening.)

Prayer

Practice Song: Thank Thee for Everything

 (We do practice songs mostly for me and my husband. We don't get to go to primary to learn new songs, so this is our chance. I also think it is good to learn new songs because primary songs and hymns have a lot of good lessons that can add to the tone of family night.)

Scripture: Doctrine and Covenants 46:32 "And ye must give thanks unto God in the Spirit for whatsoever blessings ye are blessed with."

Activity: Personalizing thank you cards

I had some blank cards and envelopes left over from our wedding, so after we talked about saying thank you to people when they help us we all sat down to the table to decorate our thank you cards.

We even got the markers out for the special occasion!

The Final Product (a small sample)

With my children being 2 and 1 years old, we only decorated the cards. The card writing stills falls on me.

Older kids could write their own thank you cards or tell you what they want to say. We could all do a little more to show our gratitude.

We had a great time with this activity. The great thing is is that you can personalize this activity to fit your family and the different ages of your kids. Just have fun!

Happy Family Home Evening!

~Lisa~

FHE: I am a Child of God

As I was preparing for Family Home Evening this week, I knew that I would be writing this post. I also knew that it would be Mother's Day right after. I thought about doing a lesson on mothers. But, I thought it felt a little weird for me, the mom, to give a lesson about moms.

I decided, instead, to give a lesson about being a child of God.

I believe that this is one of the most important things I can teach my children.

I like to use the Primary lesson manuals as a starting point for preparing my lessons. I just find it helps me focus my thoughts. Because my kids are 2 years old and 1 year old, I use both the Nursery manual and the Sunbeam manual for ideas. (All church manuals can be found online at lds.org)

Nursery Manual

Sunbeam Manual

For my lesson I decided to take ideas from both of these lessons, but put my own twist on them.

I had two objectives for my lesson.

1) I wanted to help my kids understand that because they are children of Heavenly Father they can grow up to be like Him.

2) I wanted to teach my kids that we are all children of our Heavenly Father.

To teach the first concept, I found pictures of different animals as babies and as adults (i.e. puppy-dog, kitten-cat).

 I put these pictures into a powerpoint slideshow.

(The manual said to find pictures in magazines, but I don't have magazines in our house. And, I don't have a flannel board, so flannel board stories were out of the question.)

My powerpoint slideshow was simple (keep in mind the young age of my children), but they loved it! I let them push the buttons to change the slides as we read the captions to each picture.

Here is the slideshow in picture format. You'll get the idea.

I am in NO WAY an expert at powerpoint. I am sure that many of you moms out there will do a much better job than me. That said, I found that using powerpoint was a fun way to show my kids pictures that took relatively little preparation time.

My son liked the pictures so much that he asked to watch the slideshow again and again throughout the week. I took this to be a good sign. It was also another chance to reinforce the lesson.

To finish up the lesson and meet my second goal, I found pictures of everyone in our family and both sets of grandparents. While I played the song "I am a Child of God" in the background, we looked at the pictures and talked about each person is a child of God. (Then, of course, we closed with a prayer.)

Well, there you have it. I know the lesson was short, but it got right to the point. I know that my kids enjoyed it and continue to enjoy the pictures. Hopefully you will be able get some ideas from our humble efforts.

How have you taught your kids the principle of being a child of God?

If you have any ideas for family home evenings we would love to hear them, whether they be about being a child of God or another gospel topic. Please leave a comment or send us at email at thevillageformoms@gmail.com

Lisa

FHE: Honesty for Toddlers

We have been having some issues with our three-year-old telling lies...often. I know that she doesn't entirely understand what a lie even is, and especially doesn't grasp the idea of why it's wrong. This week, we are going to focus on honesty for Family Home Evening to help her understand the need to tell the truth and what that means.

Prep: Create your smiley and frowny face cards (draw your own or find images online) and/or the pictures for The Lie Monster. You may want to come up with child-specific examples (see below) in advance if you don't want to think of them on the spot.

Song: Keep the Commandments or I Believe in Being Honest

Scriptures: Exodus 20:16, 13th Article of Faith

Lesson: Explain in simple terms that telling the truth means saying things that really happened. Telling a lie means we say something that isn't true or that didn't really happen. Give a few examples of truth and lies and have your child identify which is which. Start with easy ones:

~The sky is purple
~Dad is wearing pants
~I have a cat on my head
~The door is closed

Explain that when we tell the truth, we make ourselves and those around us happy. Most importantly, we make Jesus happy. Choose one of the following activities, depending on which you think would be more appropriate for your child and family.

Option 1: Happy or Sad

Give each person one smiling face and one frowning face card. Share a story that happened during the day, like "We had sandwiches for lunch today" or "We played with our friends today." Each person should hold up the smiling face. Do a few examples of truth, pointing out that telling the truth makes us and others happy.

Next, share a few examples of things that didn't really happen, like "We flew in an airplane today" or "We went to a party today." Each person should hold up the frowning face. Explain that telling a lie, or saying something that is not true, makes us and other people sad. We should tell the truth so we can be happy.

Go through as many examples of truths and lies as you want to help your child understand the difference.

Option 2: The Lie Monster

This activity is from sugardoodle.net. Click here for the story. Read the story aloud and display the pictures as indicated. Discuss why lying makes things harder for Tommy and what he can do to fix it.

Closing

Throughout the week, pay attention to when your child tells the truth and acknowledge it positively. If they do tell a lie, gently remind them that it makes us sad when we tell lies and help them fix it so they can tell the truth.

FHE: Building Temples in your Home

Song: I Love to See the Temple

Scripture: Mosiah 2:1

"...the people gathered themselves together throughout all the land, that they might go up to the temple to hear the words..."

For a simple introduction to temples for our toddlers, we found several pictures of different temples. Some good resources may be the Gospel Art kit or this website.

Our activity was Playdough Temples. You can choose a particular temple to recreate from looking at the picture...

...or you can follow the Spirit and make your own best rendition. ;)

This is a simple, quick activity ideal for young children. You can certainly expand your lesson to include more in-depth information about the temple if you feel it would be appropriate for your family.

FHE: Scripture Treasure Hunt

I did this activity with my then two-year-old about nine months ago. I still look back on it as one of the funnest FHE nights we've had thus far, so I thought I'd share it here.

Song: Search, Ponder and Pray from Children's Songbook

Scripture: There are a bunch mixed in with the activity!

Prep: Find the list of scriptures below. Write each scripture reference on an index card or slip of paper and hide it in the appropriate location. Each card will lead you to the next. Display a picture of Jesus somewhere near a tree (if you can go outside) for your final location and "treasure".

Alma 34:26
(leads to closet--start with this one, it's not hidden anywhere)

Matt. 10:42
(put this on the closet, leads to cup cupboard)

Ps. 26:6
(put this in the cup cupboard, leads to bathroom sink)

Matt. 9:6
(leads to a bed)

1 Ne. 8:10
(leads to a tree outside)

Activity/Lesson: The scriptures are very special and if we will read them, we can find a very special treasure. We are going to read scriptures to find clues to help us figure out what the treasure is.


Read each verse. If your children are old enough, let them help read. Otherwise, read the verse to them and help them decipher the clues and find the next card.

When you reach the end, you find the treasure!

Concluding Scripture: D&C 18:34-36

Notes: You are welcome to adapt this idea by choosing different verses that may fit your house or your children better. You may also want to add a few more or cut back depending on your child's attention span and interest level.

General Conference, Toddler Style

Today and tomorrow bring the 181st Annual General Conference for the LDS church. Hooray for conference! For Family Home Evening this week, we are focusing on the First Presidency, who they are and why they are important.


For a small bonus this week, I have a few ideas that you may want to try with your kids during the conference sessions.


Hang a poster of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. (You can purchase one from the Distribution Center or Deseret Book, or you can take out the center pages from a previous Conference issue of the Ensign.) Each time one of those brethren speak, let your child put a sticker over their picture.

image from nuturemama.blogspot.com

Choose one "Special Word" for each session of conference, such as prayer, temple, scriptures, etc. Each time your child hears the word, let them choose a treat. We are using m&ms. :)


There are several activity packets online for free downloads. Here are links to my favorites.

Oopsey Daisy has a packet that includes a picture, interesting fact, and a place for notes or a picture for each apostle's talk. There is even a spot for coloring their ties.

Deseret Morning News created this packet for the last October Conference, but the information is still current. I particularly like this one for the Bingo cards at the end.

The Church provides several different note packets for a variety of ages. These can be found here.


And that's during Conference. For our follow-up with FHE on Monday, I have a short outline of what I plan to do with my family.

Keep in mind: this is what I have chosen to do with my won family. Please take these ideas and adapt them to suit your own family's needs!

Conference talks are available to listen to and watch online shortly after they air live through lds.org. My husband and I will each choose a portion of a talk we enjoyed to listen to again together, discussing what the talk was about in a way our daughters can understand.

I found these Apostle Cards on lds.about.org. Two things I want to do. I have printed off the large versions of just the First Presidency. I want my daughters to recognize their faces and hopefully at least remember their last names. We will practice all together.

Second, I printed off two sets of the small cards of all 15 apostles. I kept one set together and cut the other apart for a matching game.

Song: Keep the Commandments

Scripture: Mosiah 2:22


That was long, but you get the double-whammy of Conference and Family Home Evening this week! I hope at least some portion of this might be a benefit to your family. :)


~Laura