Foundation of Faith

I posted a year ago about displaying pictures of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve during General Conference. As April's General Conference ended, my husband and I decided that we didn't want this to be a twice a year event. We decided to teach our kids FHE lessons based on General Conference talks during the next six months and pull out the picture of the speaker to help them remember their faces.

My kids are 4 and 2.5, so this is pretty basic, but I covered President Eyring's talk (Mountains to Climb) last week. I focused on having a foundation of faith. First we discussed what a foundation is. I used some blocks to build first an unstable and then a stable foundation under their playhouse. Then we looked at each of the blocks in the foundation and gave ideas for what they could represent: personal prayer, family prayer, reading the Book of Mormon, memorizing Articles of Faith, sharing, forgiving, etc. As we named them, we used them to build a foundation and then put the house on it to see how stable it was.

Foundation of Faith

We are all different. We are all loved.

My dad dressed up in outback gear and talking to school children about his home country.

My three year old started to notice and point out (not always in the best way!) that people look different. We decided that it was a good time for a FHE lesson on this.

I collected a bunch of different pictures of people from various places as well as pictures of the places that people were from on the internet. I also grabbed my family photo book.  We started the lesson by telling our three year old that people looked different all over the world and that heavenly father loves them all. We then told him that we are suppose to love them all too. We had him go through each of the pictures. We pointed out the various physical characteristics. After each picture we had our son say that heavenly father loved them. After looking at all the pictures we asked our son if heavenly father loved each person in the pictures.  We asked if he, my son, was suppose to love them too.


Game: I thought it would be fun to play guess who. The people in that game look very different from each other and we pointed this out to our son before playing the game and reiterated the point of the lesson again.

Adaptions: With older children you can focus on more than just the physical characteristics of people. We didn't do much more than this since our oldest is just three years old.

Song idea: Jesus said love everyone

We are all different. We are all loved.

Nativity Act Out

Every year around Christmas, we get together with the cousins and act out the Nativity. The children dress up very simply. We use towels, adult dress shirts, robes, ties, and scarves. We also use props like angel wings, stars, and crowns. 

The children each get a piece of a nativity set and dress up as that character. We then read the Christmas story from Luke. As the child's part is read, the child comes into the room and places his or her piece in the stable and stands in place. 

This is a very effective way to teach children the story of the nativity! You can apply the dressing up to any scripture story you want to focus on.

Nativity Act Out

Families are Important

Cousins with their Grandpa

My husband and I both have big families and many of them don't live nearby so our children rarely see them and have a hard time remembering them. I decided to make a picture album with a picture of each family.

After I made this album we showed it to our children for FHE and emphasized the importance of our families. We talked about how important it is to help each other out and pray for each other (among other things). We talked about how we are sealed together as a family and can be together always. We then went through the photo album and looked at each family and named everyone off. We tried to talk about past experiences with certain cousins and/or aunts and uncles so that our children would better recognize and remember them.

We now keep the photo album in our living room for our children to look at. We look at it on occasion and go over everyone with our children. Our kids have a lot of fun looking at it. We also try to send home made birthday cards to family members when it is their birthday. When doing this we refer to our photo album so my kids have a better understanding of who they are making the card for.

Song Ideas: A Happy Family, Families can Be Together Forever

Families are Important

I am thankful for the earth

For FHE a couple months ago my family decided to go up the canyon to take a look at nature. We brought dinner and had a picnic and then after dinner went on a hike. 

During the hike we talked about all the beautiful things we saw and how Heavenly Father made everything on the earth. We emphasized how we need to try to be thankful for everything he has given us. We had our three year old point out all the things he could see in nature. He got really into it and was super excited as he walked by and pointed out every tree and rock and bush. We had him try to figure out what his favorite thing in nature was. It also started to rain which was another learning opportunity for our kids. Being in Utah, it was raining and sunny at the same time...

Just the other day we did something similar to this but went to cascade springs and walked around. We once again talked about all the beautiful things in nature and how heavenly father made them for us. We encouraged our children to be thankful for all these things. Since the leaves were changing colors, we also gave a little lesson on the season fall.

Hiking with young children is very possible. We do it all the time, lasting several hours sometimes. All you need is a good  baby/toddler carrier and you are set!

I am thankful for the earth

Children Activities for General Conference

If you are looking for ways to keep your children busy and quiet during conference there is a great LDS link found here: http://lds.org/general-conference/children?lang=eng

It includes coloring pages and other sorts of activities to keep a child's mind conference oriented. Come... listen to a prophets voice!!

Children Activities for General Conference

Role Playing

An idea for Family Home Evening is to do some role playing. We all know of things our children need to work on. It could be sharing, it could be responding happily when given an instruction, responding to friends, etc. These things are most easily addressed in what you call "role-playing." This is also best at times of non-conflict. You don't teach about sharing while two children are fighting over a toy. 

You best teach before the child is in the situation. Our church teaching our youth with this idea all of the time. We implore our youth constantly to have a plan for situations (drugs, dating, parties, etc.). You respond best if you have a plan already in your head. 

We recently chose answering the door for our Family Home Evening Lesson. We have a couple of extremes in our house. If our son answers the door, you will be greeted in a not-very-friendly manner. If our oldest daughter answers the door, you will be asked to come in and relax. That is great unless a stranger comes by. 

We talked about what to do in each scenario (someone we know, someone we don't know, a friend, someone for mom, and so forth). We then practiced. We dressed up, knocked differently, and had a lot of fun with it.

You might be wondering what this has to do with Family Home Evening and church-related lessons. I think learning proper manners is a great thing to know for life and especially for missionary work--whether from home or out in the actual field. We sometimes expect children to just know things like social customs. Some are socially adept enough to figure it out, but others need help. I think even the adept children benefit from teaching (like my daughter and strangers). 

Role Playing

Quick and Simple Lesson Ideas

Sometimes the simplest lessons are the best...and the easiest when preparation time is tight!

• If you teach church, teach your children the same lesson on Monday that you taught on Sunday. If you are a primary teacher you might not need to make any adjustments to the lesson!
• Choose an article of faith to talk about and possibly memorize. You can also do a discussion of the articles of faith as a whole.
• Choose one of the commandments to talk about and memorize. You can also do a discussion of the commandments as a whole.
• Pick a favorite church song and talk about the words in it or learn a new church song that you can discuss as you learn it.

Quick and Simple Lesson Ideas

Being Honest

Something we’ve had to deal with in our home lately is honesty. We are trying to teach our 4yr-old the importance of telling the truth. So, we did this honesty family Home Evening the other night. I felt it was really important to stress that not only would she get in trouble by mom and dad if she lied, but that lie would make Hevenly Father very sad because He has asked us to be honest in all that we do. April’s issue of The Friend had some great resources for this lesson.

Read the story Niya's Choice from the April 2011 Friend.

Talk about the choice Niya had to make. What would have happened if Niya made the wrong choice? What happened because she was honest?

Give your children the Honesty Quiz from the same Friend.

Songs:
 I Believe in Being Honest - CSB#149
The Commandments - #112

Being Honest

Because I have Been Given Much

Opening Song: Hymn #219: Because I Have been Given Much

Scripture: Mosiah 2:17  And behold, I tell you these things that ye may learn ^awisdom; that ye may learn that when ye are in the ^bservice of your ^cfellow beings ye are only in the service of your God.

It is important for children to not only learn about service while they are young, but to actively take part in serving. Whether it be others in your immediate family, a neighbor, friend, relative or even a complete stranger, it is vital to their understanding it's importance. There are many ways you can encourage service. Here is one example we are working on currently in our little family.

In our neighborhood there is a family who is expecting their first child within a couple weeks. They are not currently active in the church. The husband has been out of work for at least two years, maybe longer. They have very little, especially considering the needs of a new baby.

As luck would have it, they are expecting a baby girl. We have two girls and have been blessed with much in way of clothing for our children. So, although we may not be able to help this family out monetarily we can give them some of our childrens clothing. For our FHE activity we went through our overflowing boxes and put together a couple large bags full of clothing. Although we have never met this couple, it gives us great joy and satisfaction know we can serve them. It is wonderful to be able to include our children in this service and to see how willing they are to give to those in need.

Because I have Been Given Much