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)