FHE: Jesus Christ is Born

I had planned to reinact the story from Luke 2 using our Little People Nativity set, but I confess... we forgot about FHE :(

Next year!

FHE: Joseph Smith

Since Joseph Smith's birthday is December 23, we always like to talk about him right before Christmas.  My husband loves church history and particularly Joseph Smith and knows a lot about him.  We started off asking the kids to guess who his 3 or 4 stories were about.  I think the sacred grove story was a dead give-away.  Good thing it was last.

We had cupcakes for a treat, sang happy birthday and everyone got to blow out a candle on our own.  The kids always love blowing out candles :)

FHE: Prophets foretold of Christ

On the back of every "Friend" magazine, this year, they had little Book of Mormon story cut-outs.  My son was very excited by this and always had me cut them out, so I've been saving them.  I pulled out the pictures of Samuel the Lamanite, and talked a bit about him and the signs he said that would foretell of Jesus's birth.

The kids were quite rowdy and not really paying attention.  Not sure if it was because of them or me.  I probably should have had the kids hold the pictures or something.

FHE: Music

ok ok, we didn't really have FHE.  I was thinking of enrolling my 2 and 4-year-olds in a music class and the sample class we could go to was on Monday night.  :(  So we just let it be our FHE this once.

FHE: My Body is Private

In our house, we've been having a lot of issues with people talking about "bathroom things" while not in the bathroom and also kids running around naked, inside and outside of the house.  I thought we should probably have a lesson about this.

We mostly just talked about how it's impolite to be naked in front of others and we should only take off our clothes when we're bathing, changing, or using the toilet (or getting a diaper changed) and occasionally at the doctor's office.

We also mentioned that we only touch our private parts when we're cleaning them or using the bathroom and that we don't touch other people's private parts or let others touch ours (unless they're changing a diaper).  We said if someone tries to touch their privates they should be loud and say, "Back off buster!!" and had them all practice.

Finally, we talked about how it's impolite to talk about "bathroom terms" (and we gave examples) outside of the bathroom and if they had questions about anything, or needed to talk about them with us, we should all go to the bathroom together and talk about it there.

This wasn't a particular "fun" lesson, but it's one of those that needs to be discussed and even though we tell them these things every time it comes up, it seems like they pay attention more at FHE.

FHE: Gratitude

With Thanksgiving coming up, we thought it appropriate to talk about gratitude.

We talked about how being grateful makes us happy because we enjoy the things we have while we have them, rather than wishing for things we don't have and being sad about it.

We all traced our hand and colored it to look like a turkey.  Then we took turns saying 5 things we were grateful for and mom & dad helped everyone write them on each finger of their turkey.

My 4-year old absolutely loved this.  He wanted to do another thing for the body.  The next morning he even woke up and said he wanted to make another hand-turkey picture, but use BOTH hands and list things he was grateful for for both hands.

FHE: Stranger Danger

Now that I have 3 kids, if I try to go to the store, only 2 can really fit in the cart, so my oldest (4-year old) tends to run off, or lag behind, drawn by toys, candy, etc.  I thought it would be a good idea to talk about "stranger danger" with my kids, since it's harder for me to keep my eye on all of them when we're out.

We mostly talked about how you shouldn't go with a stranger, or take anything from them and told our kids that if a stranger ever offers them candy or ice cream or ANYTHING tempting, they should say no and run away.  If they tell us about it when they get home, we will double their offer.  (hoping this will be an additional incentive to be safe.)

We also talked about how if a stranger tries to pick them up, they should yell, "You're not my dad!" or "you're not my mom!!" and kick, scratch, hit, anything they can do to get away, and to run to the nearest mom with young kids they can find (if they can't find us) for help.

We also briefly mentioned that sometimes people they do know might try to do something that might make them feel comfortable and told them that they should never have to take off their clothes for anyone except maybe a doctor, and mom or dad would be with them then.

I'm sure my 2-year old was oblivious, but I know my 4-year old understands and that gives me some peace of mind.

FHE: Music

I based our lesson off this one, highly summarized for my young kids.  We did her playlist using iTunes, but I wish I had just made my own playlist based on music I have, so there would be less lag time between songs.  (young kids = short attention spans)  The playlist was fun, though :)

I think I might do a "music" FHE again and have the kids request their favorite Children's Hymns and sing them!

FHE: Pumpkin Carving (Service)

This family home evening idea for pumpkin carving is a nice way to incorporate your annual pumpkin carving into an FHE.  I found it at a blog called Inspiration Organization.

Here's the part I used:

This pumpkin is going to help us remember how we can better serve God.
I can open my mind so I can learn about Heavenly Father and his plan for me to return to him.(Cut the top of the pumpkin)

I can repent when I make a wrong choice.(Clean out the inside)

I can keep my eyes open for opportunities to serve others.(Cut the eyes out in shape of heart)

I can be a good friend to everyone and not turn up my nose to anyone.(Cut a nose)

I can open my ears so I can listen and learn.(Cut the ears)

I can open my mouth so I can share the gospel with the world.(Cut the mouth)

I can follow the Saviors example and let my light shine in all that I say and do.(Place a candle inside and light it)

I made pumpkin smoothies for a treat.  (But I ignored all the vegan substitutions and used regular vanilla, milk, etc.)  but nobody liked them, so use a different recipe :)

Note: since my kids are so young (0, 2, 4) I had already scooped out all the innards of the pumpkins we were going to carve to save time.  GREAT idea.  I had even carved one to just point out the things so the lesson would go quicker and there wouldn't be such a large gap in time between them.

FHE: Honesty

I admit, I wasn't very well prepared for this one, so it was more of a quick discussion and it was a testament to me at how much better the kids pay attention when I have some kind of visual aid or have prepared better.

We just asked the kids if they knew what honesty, lies, and truth meant.  (and helped them if they didn't.)  We asked them to think about what might happen if you are dishonest- giving specific examples like daddy would lose his job if he wasn't honestly doing his work; we would lose our house if he told us he was paying the mortgage, but didn't really.

We also talked about how when you are dishonest, people will not trust you or what you say.  For example, if we didn't trust what my son said, we might make him do a chore twice because we wouldn't believe that he did it when he said he did.  Or, we might not give him a treat because we thought he took one already, even if he didn't (and said he didn't).

Finally, we mentioned that it's not always easy to be honest, especially when it might get you in trouble and I pointed out that I was proud of my 4-year-old son for telling me that he hurt his sister earlier that day, even though it might have been easier to say he didn't make her cry.

I would like to revisit this topic- I'm sure there is a better way to present it to young children.  I just found this link, and that looks pretty fun AND even Halloween appropriate :)

FHE: Staying Healthy in Cold Season

At least on member from our family has been sick for the month and at first I thought, "Great!  We'll all be healthy when the new baby comes," but we just keep getting sick and passing it around, so I thought it might be good to discuss some of the things we could do better to try and stay healthy.

Hand washing- We all talked about using soap and water to get in between fingers and the backs of hands as well.  We are great at washing food off our hands after we eat, but not as good at washing before we eat- which is more important for our health!  We made a family goal to try and remember to wash before we eat.

Hand sanitizer- if we don't have a sink, use this instead- particularly at preschool before snack, for my 4 year old.  I gave him some for his backpack.

Food- don't share dishes, food, and drinks with other people, even in the family.  They could be sick already and not show symptoms.  (and I need to stop eating the food off my kids' plates when they waste...)

Sleep- sleep is when our body does the most fixing, so we need to all make sure we get enough!

Nutrition- if we eat healthfully, our body will have what it needs to fight infection.  Keep taking our vitamins every day too.

Sneezing and Coughing- we practiced covering with our elbow and turning away especially when sneezing.  (our elbows have monsters in them that like to eat coughs and sneezes :D)

Don't touch your face (and for our kids, don't suck your thumb!)- germs get in through our eyes, noses and mouths, so we need to be sure we don't touch those with our hands unless we're sure they are clean.

FHE: Holy Ghost

I based tonight's FHE on this lesson.

Talked about who the Holy Ghost is (Heavenly Father's helper.  He doesn't have a body)

Talked about the Holy Ghost's 3 main responsibilities:
-Comforts us when sad or scared (and how we can have him comfort us)
-Testifies of truth (and what it feels like)
-Guides us and helps us choose the right (when would we need guidance?)

Then we played the hot/cold game with a little marble.  The first time I did it, I played some music really really loudly and then I only whispered.  My 4-year old son, after asking me to repeat a couple of times, asked me to talk louder.  Then we turned the music down low and talked about how the music is like the world we live in and we have to be able to "turn down" the world so that we can hear the Holy Ghost.  Then we played again, all taking turns being the Holly Ghost and being the one finding the marble.

Conference Activities

I wrote more about what we ended up doing for conference weekend with the kids at my family blog here.

FHE: Conference Prep

Since it's general conference this weekend, I wanted to give the kids a heads-up about what will be happening and who we will be privileged to hear from.  We built a fort in the family room and had FHE there today.

We happen to be reading about King Benjamin in the Book of Mormon right now, so I mentioned him and how when he spoke to the people and they turned their tents to him (hence the fort) it was like general conference, but now we get to watch on TV in our own home.

We watched the apostle song.  And talked about what kinds of quiet activities we could do during conference so mommy and daddy can listen.

I found this cute President Monson Scavenger Hunt that might be a fun FHE as well.  I'll probably wait and do it in Spring when my kids are a bit older.

As for this weekend...
I might have my kids play Conference Bingo, but they are probably too young still (4 and 2).  My plan is to cover each picture up with a candy and if they hear one of the topics, they get to take the candy off and eat it.

I'm planning to do something like these activity bags, but I'll put these Apostle Cards in them so when each apostle speaks, I'll read the info about them and then they can do the activity while we listen.

Anyone else have any great conference ideas for kids?  I found a lot of good ideas here and here too.

FHE: Liahona

There were a lot of great ideas online for young kids, like here, here, here, and here, but they all have one main similar element- let the kids find some kind of treat and then compare the Liahona to the Holy Ghost, meaning, it is our equivalent Liahona.

So, here is what we did:

I hid a treat somewhere in the family room, (or you could do outside for older kids), and told the kids that there is a treat hiding somewhere and they have to find it.  I made sure it was too hard to find.

Then when they gave up, I talked about Nephi and his family in the wilderness (we've been reading about it in the Book of Mormon Stories) and how they needed direction to know where to go and remind them that they found the Liahona.  (showed pictures from the Gospel Art Book on pages 68 and 71).

I told them briefly about how it worked- one needs to be righteous and obedient for the Liahona to guide them.  (It would be fun to make your own Liahona to hold, maybe paint a styrofoam ball, but I didn't bother this time.)  I printed out this Liahona image and pretended to get instructions from it and then I gave clues about where the treat was hidden and what it looked like, etc until they found it.  Once they found the treat, while they ate it, I asked them if we have a Liahona to guide us today.  They didn't know and so I talked about the Holy Ghost and how just like the Liahona, it guides us when we are obedient and righteous.

FHE: Where does food come from?

I was really sick this week- stomach bug and a cold (and pregnant) and didn't plan anything.  My husband took the kids out to dinner while I slept at home (was still sleeping...) and kind of had an impromptu lesson about where our food comes from that we eat.

Now when we pray at dinner, the kids often throw in "and thank you for cows" or whatever animal we are eating that night.  It's kind of funny yet sweet.  My son asked me out of the blue one time, "Mom?  What animal do potatoes come from?"

FHE: Brass Plates

I recently decided that we should abandon reading out of The Book of Mormon with the kids, and go back to the illustrated version, because it just seemed like they weren't getting very much out of it, and my 2-year old might actually understand better with the pictures.  (my 4-year old did, perhaps glean nuggets but...)  So, even though we had made it to 2 Ne in the other, we started over in Book of Mormon Stories.

There is a lot of mention of plates in the first part because it starts off telling where The Book of Mormon comes from and then the second story is about Nephi and his brothers going back to Jerusalem to get the brass plates from Laban.  I thought it might be fun to try and make those feel more real and talk about what they are and why records would need to be kept on metal, instead of paper.

All I did was fold a piece of aluminum foil in half twice and give a "sheet" to everyone with a toothpick to "write" with.  While we talked about why the records were kept on metal, we all "carved" pictures and words into our "plate".

I also showed them some pictures from the Gospel Art Book where plates are shown, and a brief 2-sentence summary of what is going on in each pictures.  Pictures #73, #86, and #92.  (making sure to mention that Joseph did not actually translate The Book of Mormon as depicted in that last picture).

I was going to make a book out of them at the end, but my 2-year old decided to rip hers to bits after drawing on it.  We also talked a bit about how the bible was kept (Monks spent their life copying them by hand to preserve them) and I was surprised that my 4-year old knew about illuminated bibles.  (or that they had pictures in them)

I thought it went pretty well :)

FHE: Death

My grandmother died recently and so my whole family attended her funeral last week.  I thought this might be a fitting opportunity to talk about death with my children.

I made a paper-bag puppet that kind of looked like "gi-gi" (as we call her) and I made the analogy of my hand being her spirit and the bag being her body which gets left on Earth.  I thought about making a sock puppet for my hand to be the spirit, but I didn't go that far.

We talked a bit about the pre-existence- how we lived with Heavenly Father as spirits there, and then we got our body.  i.e. our spirits "moved into" our bodies and they dwell there now, on Earth.  We talked about how everyone dies and that means our spirit leaves our body to go be with Heavenly Father again.  We reminded them of Easter and Jesus' death and resurrection and mentioned that we will all be resurrected again one day when Christ comes again to the Earth.

My 2-year old really just wanted to try out the puppet, but I think it was good for my 4-year old.

FHE: Prayer Reverance

My kids have been having a hard time staying reverent during prayers and so I thought I would focus a lesson just on being reverent during prayers- as opposed to general reverence.

I made the print-out boy from this site and called him "reverent Rex".  We started by having him do things like wave hello, jump, wink, blink, sit, etc. while the kids copied him and then we used him as an example of how to be reverent during a prayer.  We all practiced a couple of times

update: all week long before a prayer we would say, "now, remember what reverent Rex does during a prayer" and they were both MUCH more reverent this week.  It was awesome!

FHE: Prophets

This week is president Monson's birthday, and were we not already having another birthday this week, I might have made cupcakes for it...  Nevertheless, I thought we'd have another lesson on Prophets.

This was very simple.  I just printed out a picture of our prophet for my kids to color and while they colored, we talked about what a prophet is, who is our current one, and a little bit about other prophets they might know.

I was so proud that my almost 4-year-old son knew about Daniel and Adam.  The cutest was when he was trying to get us to guess Adam and described him as, "wearing green all the time and helping things to grow".  Adorable!

FHE: President Monson

Since it is the Prophet's birthday month, I thought it would be fitting to learn a bit more about him.  We played President Monson Bingo which taught us some fun facts about him.

I thought it would be fun to let the kids cover their pictures with M&Ms and they could eat them at the end as a treat, but actually, my almost-2-year old just cried the whole time because she couldn't eat hers.  haha.  My almost 4-year-old had fun though!

I also printed out a coloring page here, but decided we had enough and didn't need to do that also.  Maybe next week.

FHE: Contributing to the Family

So, I decided it's time to let the almost 4-year-old start having some basic chores and this seemed like a great way to introduce it.  I came up with a plan for displaying a daily schedule for him, and there are chores, fun things, and also some educational activities interwoven throughout the day.

I explain my chart too thoroughly here, if you're interested.

We talked about how I'm having a baby in a few months and how I'll need some extra help and he (well, both of my kids) are big enough to do one thing every day to help me out.  (although, there are really a few things on there... They've already had to help out cleaning up their toys and I think clearing your own plate after you eat is regular enough that it should just be a habit, not really a chore.)

Then I showed them their schedules (not chore charts) and how they work and I've waited awhile to post anything so I could say how well it's working out.  I must say, it's been working quite well!

Here's some pics of the charts:

And here's a link to the cards I put together, printed out, cut apart, laminated, and then display in two 3x3 pocket page protectors.

FHE: Baptism

We were out of town for the first 3 Mondays in July (flying in a plane for 2 of them) so I didn't do FHE then.  Last week, I probably should have, but the hubby was gone directing a tour to Nauvoo, so I just decided to be lazy until our whole family was together again.

I admit, tonight I just winged it... the kids really really really needed a bath, so we decided to talk about baptism while they took one.  I just showed pictures from the Gospel Art Book- the one where the girl gets baptized and confirmed and where Jesus is getting baptized by John the Baptist, and I asked questions to my almost 4-year old about it.  (I was surprised by how much he knew!)

-How old do you need to be to get baptized? (8)
-Who does the baptizing? (a priesthood holder, like your dad.  My dad baptized me, but daddy was baptized by a missionary)
-What happens?  (wear white, special prayer, get dunked under water)
-Why do they dunk you all the way? (represents washing our sins away like we wash dirt in the bath, also we lie down completely as if we have died and come back up as if we have resurrected (like Jesus did at Easter) into our new life- free from sin)
-I compared covenants to a "pinky swear" with Heavenly Father, because he knows about those, and talked about what we promise and what He promises us.
That lead us to talk about the gift of the Holy Ghost a little bit.
-Why did Jesus have to be baptized?  Does he have sins?  (no, He doesn't, but everyone needs to make those covenants with Heavenly Father to live with him again.  Jesus also needed to set an example to teach those around him what the proper way to be baptized is.)

My son had a funny interpretation :)  He thought we meant the Holy Ghost gives us presents- "like on Easter".  hehe  We had to explain that the Holy Ghost IS a gift from Heavenly Father.

It wasn't the most "exciting" or "fun" lesson, but I was surprised by how engaged my son was anyway.  When we were done talking about baptism, he started flipping through the gospel art book and asking us about who different prophets were and what was going on in each picture.  I feel like we covered a lot tonight!

FHE: Loving Everyone

I based this weeks FHE lesson on this classic lesson from primary.  I also printed out this sign. (note: for some reason in google docs, when you have a document in landscape it doesn't print landscape, so you have to first download it as a pdf, under "file", and then print the pdf.  weird.)

My son wanted to put the pieces together after I read the story the first time, so I ended up reading the story twice.  Then we talked about how everyone is different and some people might have things very different about them, but that everyone has feelings and wants friends and it makes us feel happy when we are friends with others- especially if it makes them happy too.

FHE: Manners

I found a cute idea for talking about manners with your kids using a story about dinosaurs.  There was supposed to be a printable that went with the story, but after several different googling sessions, it appears that all the links on the internet, so far as I can tell, take you here (an awesome website btw), but the link to the printable doesn't work.  So, I instead just tracked down some images that would work ok (I had to change some names from the story slightly to go better with the pictures), printed them all on different colored card-stock (making sure to write down the dino's name on the back) and called it good.  Here are the ones I used:
STINGY-STEGO
ANGRY-RAPTOR
TATTLE-ETRODON
YELLING-ODACTYL
RUDE-REX (http://www.best-coloring-pages.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/dinosaur-8.jpg)
POUT-OSAUR
BUTT-IN-BRONTO
POKY-CERATOPS (http://www.best-coloring-pages.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/dinosaur-3.jpg)
HAPPY-OSAURUS

And just because I'm a perfectionist, I just wanted to make a little disclaimer that the Butt-in-bronto is not actually a brontosaurus and the Yelling-odactyl is not actually at Pterodactyl.  I hope it won't ruin it for your smarty kids.  Without further ado, here's my slightly modified story you can read:

I went to a land… not far from here where dinosaurs roamed with manners I’d fear.

First of all I came across STINGY-STEGO. He’s big and greedy. He thinks he should always be first in line, first one to play games, first one to eat, first one for everything.  He acts like he’s the only one that’s important.  He turns green with envy if you have something that he doesn’t.  He gets upset until he gets his way, then he’s happy.  However, by then everyone else is miserable.  But he’s too greedy to realize that.

I quietly sneaked out of STINGY-STEGO’s and no sooner had I done this, I came upon an ANGRY-RAPTOR.  Now he’s okay to be around if he’s in a good mood.  He can be more fun than a truckload of dinosaur tracks when everything’s going his way.  But if it doesn’t, you better watch out because then he gets angry and pouts.  Let me tell you some of the things that upset him and makes him feel sorry for himself.  If he feels like his mother makes him do more chores than anyone in the family, then he is angry.  If his teacher doesn’t call on him first, then he is angry.  He seldom has fun because he’s too busy being angry!  Do you happen to know any ANGRY-RAPTORS in your land?

Better watch out, here comes TATTLE-ETRODON better known as the whine-osaurus.  She’s always on the look out for something or someone to tattle on.  She doesn’t play with the others a lot because she’s too busy trying to catch them doing something wrong.  Then her favorite thing to do is go whining to a grown-up.  “They won’t play with me. She called me names.  He hit me.”  It’s a good thing her feet are so big, so she doesn’t have to take so many steps running in and out whining and tattling.

After coming across the whine-osaurus.  I decided this trip into the land not far from here was pretty exhausting, so I stopped for a quick picnic lunch high up in a tree.  All of the sudden I could hear this terrible noise.  It was the well-known YELLING-ODACTYL, and boy was he noisy!  You could hear him wherever he was. In fact, when he’s around it’s impossible to hear anyone else!  He zooms and yells wherever he goes.  He may not be big, but he’s loud.  Have you ever heard the voice of the YELLING-ODACTYL before?  I climbed out of that tree as quickly as I could.

Boy, I didn’t know which way to go; no matter what way I turned I seemed to come across something I dreaded.  Wouldn’t you know that the next one I’d see would be RUDE-REX.  He wants to be the center of attention.  He doesn’t think it’s important to say “please” or “thank you”.  He doesn’t ask permission. Do you know what he did?  He just grabbed my lunch!  When it’s time to be quiet, he talks real loud.  He even burps real loud just to be rude because he thinks it’s funny.  He doesn’t have any manners and if he’s not careful, pretty soon he won’t have any friends. Have there been any sightings of RUDE-REX near your place?

Oh, I hope you’re feeling sympathetic today, because here comes POUT-OSAUR.  Shhhh!  Be real careful what you say around her because she gets her feelings hurt real easy.  She is always discouraged and sad about something.  She feels bad because she says she can’t draw as well as everyone else or because she can’t spell as well.  She gets her feelings hurt if someone can’t play with her.  Nothing much looks good to POUT-OSAUR.

Oh-oh.  I think I see BUTT-IN-BRONTO.  I better hurry and talk before he gets here or he will butt-in and then I won’t get a chance.  Whenever anyone tries to talk when he’s around, BUTT-IN-BRONTO butts-in and talks louder and takes over the whole conversation.  You don’t get much of a chance to talk when he’s around.  I wish BUTT-IN-BRONTO would just butt-out.

Oh, my goodness, here comes POKY-CERATOPS!  I almost forgot about her!  She is always late.  She pokes around until the last minute and then she can’t catch up.  She makes her mother call her and call her trying to get her up in the morning.  After she gets up she plays around getting dressed and eating breakfast.  Then she’s the last one out the door.  She’s the last one to school, the last one to dinner, she’s even the last one to play.  Have you seen a slow POKY-CERATOPS in your territory?

Well, it sure has been a long day. So I stumbled to my feet, and slid my backpack on and decided to head home when I came upon the most gorgeous sight you have ever seen!  I had seen miserable faces all day long and I couldn’t believe my eyes!  I saw the biggest most  beautiful dinosaur of all.  It had a smile on it like you wouldn’t believe. I quickly reached inside my backpack to pull out my book on dinosaurs.  I learned that it was the
HAPPY-OSAURUS.  And that he’s everyone’s friend.  He’s courteous and friendly. He never interrupts.  Nor is he stingy, he’s always willing to share.  He never pouts, and he rarely tattles or whines. Sure of course sometimes he feels sad and discouraged; that’s only natural. But he doesn’t carry it to extremes.  And he feels real bad when he’s late and makes other’s wait for him.

I’ve been thinking, I guess I know what makes HAPPY-OSAURUS different than the other dinosaurs, and the kind of friend you’d like roaming in your valley.  He’s polite, friendly, well behaved and most of all he’s happy!  He’s the kind of guy that knows that he’s special too!

I sure hope that you’re lucky enough to have a lot of HAPPY-OSAURUSes living in your place.  Because to be rude and inconsiderate is like living in the age of the dinosaurs.  The dinosaurs are extinct and I hope bad manners in your home are extinct too.

Update:  My kids were excited about the dinosaurs but I'm not sure how much of the story sunk in.  For my 3 and 1-year old I should have maybe edited it to make it shorter.

FHE: Memorial Day

I confess.  We had dinner with family on Memorial Day and didn't do a formal lesson.  But I don't really feel that bad about it because that's what Family Home Evening is all about, right?  Being with family :)

FHE: Obeying Mommy and Daddy

Since our number one family rule we came up with was to "obey mommy and daddy", and that seems to be the hardest rule to keep for my 3-year old, I thought it would be good to dedicate a whole lesson just to that.  I am basically copying what was done here and here.

We started with a couple of games of "red light, green light" using some "lights" I made out of card stock and popsicle sticks.

Then we played the "repeat my action" game, where they copy what I do.  (stretch arms, spin once, touch toes, sit down, fold arms, etc) to help them calm down.

Then we talked about how both of those games rely on obedience or they wouldn't be fun.  (what does obedience mean?)

Then I got out a toy farm animal and put it in the fence made of blocks and we talked about why farm animals have fences.  (to protect them from getting lost or hurt and so the farmer knows where they are and kind make sure they're healthy and fed, etc.)  Then we compared the fence to rules and that we need to be obedient to mommy and daddy's rules because they just want the kids to be safe and healthy and happy.

Then we brainstormed a list of things that mommy and daddy ask the kids to do: brush teeth, stay within site at a store, don't cross the street without an adult, be kind, pick up toys, take a vitamin, etc.

I printed out a blank calendar (not even with days of the week) for each child to hang up and the plan is that at the end of every day, we draw a picture of something they did that was obedient.  (note: for some reason Google Docs has issues trying to print in landscape, at least at my house... so download it to your computer (File>Download as...) in something else and edit the name at the top before printing.)

I'll update to see how well the calendar idea takes.

I thought of also printing out a kind of "chore chart" with simple toddler things like "get dressed", "take vitamin", "pick up toys", "brush teeth", etc that we could mark off through the day, but I thought some of the bigger things like holding hands in a parking lot would be better to reward for at this point, so I may do that later on, maybe at the end of the month of obedience...

FHE: Missionaries

I was inspired by this FHE idea, and was particularly excited by the badges you can print out at home at the bottom of the post.  Since we are feeding the missionaries on Wednesday night, I thought it might be a fitting topic to talk about who missionaries are and what they do.

We started by asking my 3 and 1-year olds (really mostly my 3-year old son) if he knows what a missionary is.  "Yes," he replies.  "What do they do?" I asked a bit surprised.  "They mish," he says.

ah.

I showed a picture of Jesus and asked if everyone knew who that was and told them that not everybody knows who Jesus is and so that's why we have missionaries- to teach the world about Jesus, because knowing about Jesus makes us happy and we want everyone to be happy.
I asked my two kids if they want to be missionaries, and they both said yes (luckily) and so I pulled out my badges I had printed out and pinned them to their shirts.  (which my daughter promptly made me take off.. haha)
We also talked about the importance of the Book of Mormon and how our church is the only one that knows about it and so we want to share this additional testament of Jesus with people who already know about Jesus too.
We mentioned that if you want to be a missionary, you need to know all about Jesus and the Book of Mormon so you will be able to teach others about them, so it's important that we keep reading the Book of Mormon and other scriptures every day.
We also talked about other things missionaries sometimes do, besides teach the gospel, such as service, teaching English, teaching music (my mom taught piano on a recent mission in Chile, which we mentioned), etc.

By the end, everyone was quite rowdy and so we gave up and had some ice cream.

FHE: House Rules

I've been having a bit of a rough bout with my 3-year-old following the rules and so I thought that maybe if we talked about them together and picked 3-5 all-encompassing house rules that HE helped us pick out, maybe I could get better cooperation?

We talked about why there are rules in any setting (a classroom, at home, the law) and that they are meant to protect us.

After much discussion- i.e. us telling a short story about a negative scenario that happens in our house all the time, where my son would end up unhappy, and then we would think of a rule to protect him from this happening again.
These are the rules we came up with. (and I wrote these out on a large piece of paper with stick-figure images to help him remember).

1.  Obey Mommy & Daddy
2.  Always tell the truth
3.  Respect others and their things.
(and if I were to do it again, I might add "be grateful for what you have" and/or "pick up after yourself", although the latter can be appointed through #1)

So far, these have covered all incidents (thank goodness for #1 :D)

FHE: Service

looked through this website under the topic of "service".  (how do all of you get ideas for FHE topics?)

After reading through all of them, I decided to do a bit from more than one.

I started by "accidentally" tripping and spilling crayons all over the floor.  I hoped someone would offer to help me clean up... luckily, everyone came over and helped :)

I used the printable from this lesson, though not in the way she suggested.  I wrote each family member's name on the back of the badges and everyone drew one out.  Then we colored them while we talked about what we were going to do with them.  This week we are all "Secret Servateers".  Everyone got someone's name who they would serve sometime this week, secretly, and then leave the badge behind as a symbol of the secret service being provided.

I talked about how serving others makes me happy- giving examples of how everyone had served me or someone that day- and I know it will make them happy too.  (and it's especially fun to do it secretly...)

Then we all took turns brainstorming ideas for how we could serve each person.  It was funny to hear my 3-year-old son talk about ways we could serve him.  (you could say "boo!" to me)

We'll see how it goes this week!

FHE: FAIL

So... I DID plan a lesson for this week.  But my husband was out of town on Monday, to return on Tuesday and I thought I'd rather wait for the whole family to be together.

Tuesday, my hubby is home, but he is really tired and has a headache from essentially waking up at 1am our time to get home on his flight and slept before and right after dinner, so I thought we could put it off until Wednesday.

Wednesday, my sister was in town and spent the day here, but got here later and stayed later than I anticipated so I thought we could do FHE the next night...

Thursday, my brother last minute needed someone to watch his kids all day (and I mean 12 hours all day) and so on top of them being over until after my kids were asleep, my son, I guess from all the excitement, somehow managed to fall asleep on the sofa 10 minutes before dinner and slept ALL NIGHT.  So we couldn't have FHE.

Friday, after a crazy afternoon, I decided we should go out for crepes for dinner instead of cooking.  The place wasn't expecting the crowd it had at 4:45 pm and the ONE person working there (taking orders and cooking everything) took an HOUR to get us our food.  (two more people finally came in to help as we were just finishing eating and the place was empty.  of course.) My son fell asleep in the car on the way home.

Moral of the story?  Just have FHE on Monday because other stuff will just come up.

FHE: Earthquake Safety

Here is a great handout I found about earthquake safety.  We basically just talked about what an earthquake is/feels like and went over some of the basic safety info in the handout.  We practiced getting under a table/desk, covering and holding on. We also practiced what to do if you woke up in an earthquake and took turns causing "earthquakes" for each other in their sleep so they could practice, which everyone found very fun.  This lesson was much quicker than fire safety, I don't think there is as much to go over, but I feel good that my children are more prepared and they both had fun (even if my 19-mo old was oblivious to what we were really trying to get across...)

Side note: I was thrilled that my 3 year old sond remembered what we talked about last week (fire safety) and remembered what to do if his clothes ever caught on fire. :)

FHE: Fire Safety

I don't know why I thought of this topic, and after reading a lot of information, I began to be nervous that I was going to give my kids (mostly my 3-year old boy) dangerous ideas about "fun" things he could do with fire, so I decided to mostly focus on the "what if our house/you is/are on fire" aspect of fire safety.  I also worried that it may make my children paranoid, but I think that if they know what to do and are prepared, hopefully they will feel safe.

We talked about "Stop, Drop, and Roll", and practiced that several times.  (you can bet that was fun for them)  And talked about not playing with fire, matches, or candles.  There should ALWAYS be an adult around if there is fire around.

We talked about a smoke alarm, where they are, what they do, and demonstrated what they sound like so they would know.

We talked about if you hear it and you're in a room with the door closed, you should first feel the doorknob.  If it's hot, stay where you are because the fire is on the other side of the door.  If not, you can open it.

We talked about firemen and not to be scared of them, even though they might look funny with their gas mask on.  (I showed them a picture like this)

You should always crawl to avoid the smoke.  Practice crawling around between rooms or having crawling races.

We talked about our escape plan, where to go if you're in different parts of the house, and how to get out, and we practiced.  We also got out the fire ladder kept in my husband's closet and made sure we knew how to use it to get down from our balcony.

This lesson kind of gave me a sense of peace, because I don't think I really ever thought about where I would go or what I would do if there were ever a fire in the middle of the night.  My husband's house burned down when he was younger, so to me that makes it more real (Even though we're hoping that means our chances of dealing with that are lower than average.  How many people deal with that twice in one lifetime?)

We had s'mores for a treat. :)

I'll update later if I seemed to have caused any nightmares in my 3-year old and how I dealt with it.  I'm hoping it will be ok though.  (My 18-mo old is surely too young for that).

Update:  it's now Thursday and no sign of any nightmares. :)

FHE: Easter

I got this idea from here.  Though I've edited their stuff slightly to remove the weird symbols that appear there.

This Easter Egg Hunt/Easter story went over very very well.  My 3-year old loves finding eggs, and after it was over wanted to hide them, find them, and go through the Easter story again. :)

I started out reading the scriptures, but stopped halfway through because they just weren't helpful for my young audience (3 &1yr) and they lost interest listening to them.

I hid an extra egg for each child with a treat in it and we opened those very last and enjoyed our treat :)

Will do this again for sure.

Note:  for the perfume one, I used a tissue instead of a cloth and when we asked my 3 year old what was inside he said "a booger wiper!"  So maybe I should have used fabric...  I made a cross with trimmed toothpicks (so they'd fit in the egg) and thread and that worked pretty well.  I also cut out a fake leaf from felt.  I'm hoping to maybe reuse some of these props year after year.

FHE: General Conference

Since general conference is this weekend, I wanted to prep the kids for what it actually is- which I was surprised to find that my 3-year-old son did.  (They must have talked about it in Sunbeams yesterday?)
Then we talked about one of the earliest "general conferences" we know of- King Benjamin's address in the Book of Mormon (Words of Mormon and early Mosiah).  (There is a good picture of King Benjamin in the Gospel Art Book that we looked at pg 74.)
I, of course, had to build a "fort" (two chairs with a blanket over) and we all huddled in there around the kids' illustrated Book of Mormon Stories and briefly went over the things King Benjamin talked about.
We talked about why the people were in tents, and the difference between conference back then (no TV, microphones, he was the only speaker, etc) and now and how lucky we are to hear the prophet speak so easily.
At the end I asked if they could remember King Benjamin's name, and where the people sat when they listened to him.  I also asked if they could remember our prophet's name (which they couldn't) and we practiced saying it a couple of times.

I think it went over fairly well- once we got over the excitement of having a tent.  It admittedly took a bit of time to get my son to calm down about that.

FHE: Nephi Builds a Boat "Puppet Show"

We started family daily scripture study in the mornings (just 3 verses a day) and we just got to the point where Nephi starts building a boat.  I saw this FHE lesson and thought it would be very relevant and maybe help make the story seem more familiar as we read it.

I pretty much followed this exactly, hiding behind a chair and holding up the cut out puppets as I told it.

My kids had a hard time paying attention to it, and next time I wouldn't read anything and try to make it more of a dialogue (having dad chime in with some kind of voice of God).  They did enjoy taking turns giving their own puppet shows after mine, though.  (my 18-mo-old just stood behind the chair and kept saying "hi!" with Nephi. It was pretty funny)

Not sure how much they got out of it, but we did it :)

FHE: The Prophet

I thought since conference is coming up in a few weeks, it might be good to make sure our kids knew who the prophet is and what a prophet is.

I have a cute "popsicle stick puzzle" my neighbor made at a busy-bag swap where she cut a picture of President Monson into strips and modge podged them onto tongue depressors, and then you can line them up as a sort of puzzle.  Great quiet church activity that fits into a snack bag and doesn't have too many pieces!  BUT, you could always print a picture of the prophet and just cut it up into pieces.

I would ask a question about prophets (who is our prophet now, what does a prophet do, why do we need one, which prophet restored the gospel, can you name any other prophets from the scriptures...) and as we answered them, we put one popsicle stick down to complete the picture.  You might ask "who is our prophet now?" last so you can show them the completed picture.

I think it went pretty well.  My 3-year-old son wanted to put the puzzle together again after :)

FHE: Healthy Food and Exercise

This week I'm pretty much planning to use this lesson.  Everyone will get a present from Heavenly Father that they will open with a picture of them inside- their body.  We'll talk about healthy eating, (using these pictures) what different food groups do for our body, and why we need exercise to stay healthy.  We will probably just eat oranges for a treat since I bought a hug box of them recently and we need to eat them :)

update: For some reason, if you try to print the images in google docs, it tries to make you do it in portrait and shrink the images to fit.  If you go to file>download and then print from your computer, it should work.  It's fine the other way too, the images will just be slightly smaller.

FHE: Plan of Salvation

I just finished making the printouts for this weeks lesson.  We're going to go on a "journey" through the Plan of Salvation by following yarn through the house to different places along the plan- Pre-mortal Existence, Earth, Spirit Prison/Paradise, Judgement, and the 3 Kingdoms of Glory.  I will probably hang the signs in each room for the kids to find.  We will of course end up in the Celestial Kingdom (the kitchen) and have a treat, but alternatively, you could color the pictures you found and review. :)

update: This was a great success!  My 3 year-old even said to me later in the week how much fun he had following the string.  Also, while we ate our "celestial cookie" I laid out the pictures from each room and asked him to tell me which one was first, next etc. and I was surprised that he was able to choose them all in the right order! :)

FHE: What Is My Spirit?

Last week we just talked about how we existed before we came to Earth as spirits, where we lived with our Heavenly Father- the father of our spirits.  When we came to Earth we got bodies (from our "earthly parents") and when we die, our spirits will leave our bodies to be with Heavenly Father until the resurrection, where we get our bodies in their perfected forms.  Then we all had a puppet (ours happen to be lizards and turtles) and we had our hands be spirits and when our hands went inside the puppets they got bodies, and then they'd leave again when they died, but our hands could still talk to each other without the bodies :)

FHE: Love

Before I mention this week's lesson, I thought I'd just point out that I've added some links to the side-bar of a few other helpful blogs (similar to this) with helpful ideas for FHE and other LDS callings (Activity Days, etc.) for your (and my) convenience. :)

So, this week it seemed only fitting to talk about love, since Valentine's Day was on Tuesday.  We didn't go very deep...  All we did was get out some paper and scissors and everyone was to cut out hearts (well, Peach- my 1 year old- didn't, and The Frog - my 3 year old- just cut whatever...) and then each person would finish this sentence for each other family member:
"I love mommy/daddy/Peach/Frog because..."
I wrote the responses on the hearts and we decorated our closet door in the kitchen with them.  My favorite one was
"I love Peach because she always chases me. Love, The Frog"

I didn't plan a treat (because I was already planning to make creme brûlée on V-Day) and at the last minute decided to give the kids graham cracker frosting sandwiches with some leftover strawberry frosting from a baby shower (which just happened to be the appropriate Valentine's color).  They were thrilled. :)

What did I learn?  I think with such young kids, it would have been better if I had previously cut out the hearts and even had "I love NAME because..."  already written on them because I lost The Frog by the end...  For older kids, though, it would probably be great to let everyone cut out one heart for all the family members themselves.

FHE: The Creation

You can find some other great ideas here. (especially for older kids)
I printed pictures and summarized what Genesis 1 says about what was created when.  You can see my lesson plan and pictures here.

As I was doing it, I also thought, with older kids, it might be fun to have people contribute to a large picture, what was created as it is mentioned, or have each person draw their own picture, adding in things that are mentioned.

I had some left-over sugar cookie dough from a baby shower that we used up and just made some cookies.  (I baked them before the lesson and we frosted them and ate them after).

This lesson may have been a bit too long for my little ones, BUT they were ok with it because of the treat after :)

FHE: Heavenly Father and Jesus Love Me

I got this topic idea here.
For this, I printed out some pictures of things we are blessed with from Heavenly Father:
Food, animals, family, church, flowers, sun...
I just googled: "free coloring page sun", etc.
You could even have them color the pictures, but I didn't. (my son is not big on coloring and my daughter mostly eats the crayons...)
Then, I taped them up around the room and had the kids try to find them.  As they found each one, we talked about what it is and how we know Heavenly Father and Jesus love us because they gave us each of these things.

This was a big success.  My son, the next day, even played with the pictures and talked about them to his little sister. :)

FHE: Prayer

All I did was make a paper-bag puppet, inspired by an idea listed here, though I didn't use their puppet.  All I did was use marker to draw eyes (open), nose and mouth where one would normally draw the inside of a puppet's mouth, and then draw a praying puppet (eyes closed) on the outside.  I drew arms folded as well.  I made sure to make the puppet when my 3-year-old was around so he would ask questions about what I was doing and it led naturally to the discussion.

Now you have a puppet that when it "bows" its head, it's praying. :)

Keep in mind, I'm a LOUSY artist, but little kids don't care and I thought this was a big success.  This also reiterated things from discussing reverence last week.

I also made sure to mention the parts of prayer:
1) Dear Heavenly Father,
2) We thank thee for.....
3) Please bless, or please help with...
4) In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

At night when we say bed-time prayers, we make sure to ask (if my son doesn't want to pray, which is most of the time) what he was thankful for that day and are sure to include it in the prayer.  It's important to practice keeping a straight face :)  We've been thankful for dinosaurs and windows...

FHE: Reverence

This was one of the first ideas we had because we have a great need for reverence in our family- especially during prayers at home and also during Sacrament meeting on Sundays.

The Activity:
I just printed off a full body picture of my 3-year-old son, and cut it into pieces: eyes, mouth, ear, neck, arms, and legs.  I put them in a bag and let my two kids take turns pulling out a piece.  We talked about what body part it was (even my 1 year old could do this) and then what that body part needs to do to be reverent.  We had fun putting the pieces together on the floor too. You could even tape them up on the wall or something.

This was a great success!  Now we'll see if reverence holds...

Here is my source and another idea as well.

FHE: Baptism

We went to my niece's baptism last weekend, so I thought it might be a good opportunity to talk about it.

All we did was look at pictures of baptism from the Gospel Art Book and talk a bit about them- who's in the picture, etc.  And briefly what is baptism, when we can decide to be baptized, what we are covenanting (what is a covenant).  You can go here for more ideas.
-#35 John the Baptists Baptizing Jesus
-#76 Alma Baptizing in the Waters of Mormon
-#103 Young Man Being Baptized
-#104 Girl Being Baptized

It was fine, but didn't hold their attention long.  Glad it was short :)

FHE!

So, a new year and a shift in topics.  I SHOULD continue to post about scripture reading (but some how needing to read AND be insightful every day feels a bit daunting), and perhaps I will, periodically mention tidbits I glean, but I've been focusing more lately on having FHE, and really planning something- not like last  year where I would just fly by the seat of my pants using the Friend.  (and a big thanks to fheplanner.blogspot.com for ideas.  she doesn't post anymore, which is a big impetus for me to post my experiences here :D)

My kids are young - 1 and 3.  So for me, my goals are
1) To form the habit of FHE so everyone will plan on and around it for the rest of their time living at home.
2) To bond as a family
3) To make sure to have gospel things discussed at home so my kids will know I have a testimony and know they can come to me with questions.
4) I'd LIKE it to be a pleasant experience.  So, hopefully that means I can think of some fun activity every week- even if it's just coloring a picture.

Right now this is the planned FHE agenda-
-Opening song (usually will be Once There Was a Snowman, but the kids can pick)
-Opening prayer (mom and dad have a rotation, but we always ask for volunteers before we take over)
-Hi-Lo: everyone in the family says their Hi (best/favorite thing that happened to them) and Low (worst/least favorite thing that happened).  We use this in our Sunday School class each week (12-13 year olds) and we found that it has really helped to open the door for a discussion-friendly environment, as well as giving everyone a taste of everyone else's lives.
-Go over the schedule of events for that week, in case there are coordination things that need to happen.  I find it also helps me remember things I might normally forget- like doctor appointments.
-Lesson/Activity
-If we remember, closing song/prayer, but we seem to forget that a lot and end with we-need-to-get-the-kids-in-bed-pronto

I'm hoping to plan my lesson on Sunday, but we'll see how that goes.  We have 11am church this year and I always feel like my whole day is gone with later church, for some reason...

I still don't have a great way of planning the topics- so far I just add a topic to my calendar when I see a particular need (ahem, reverence...), or if I think of a fun activity.  Right now, I'm set until the end of February.  Hopefully I'll keep coming up with ideas and stay ahead...

The main reason I want to keep track of what we do here, is so I can look back and maybe reuse old ideas that worked, or modify them to work better next time.  AND if maybe it will help someone else, hurray!  I haven't told anyone about this blog yet, so I'm not planning on many comments yet, but if you happen to find this and have helpful ideas, GREAT and thanks in advance :)