FHE: Fire Safety

I basically just did this lesson again.  Thought it was a good idea since we have moved since then and my daughter would not have remembered last time.  Practice was key to making it fun :)  and it was :)

FHE: Trust

We have had issues with our kids telling the truth lately, and we wanted to demonstrate why it's important to always tell the truth so that you will gain a reputation of trustworthiness.

This was a simple exercise but also very effective.

Daddy put a piece of candy in one of his hands behind his back and showed me which hand had candy.  Then he put his hands out front and said that the kids had to guess, and that I knew where it was.  After the kids had decided on a hand, I incorrectly told them which hand had candy in it.  They trusted me and then didn't get the candy.  We did it again.  Again, I told them the wrong hand, and again they trusted me and didn't get the candy.  The third time, I told the kids the correct hand that really had candy in it, but the kids didn't believe me and chose the wrong hand again.

My son got very upset and said, "MOM!  I'm never trusting you again!!" and this was a great way for me to talk about some times during the week when the kids didn't tell the truth and how I feel like I can no longer trust them.  We talked a bit more about how we have to be honest for the world to function properly - there needs to be trust for everyday business transactions etc.

In the end, we all promised to tell the truth all the time.

FHE: Why Keep the Commandments

Tonight I used President Uchdorf's talk from the General Womens Meeting as inspiration.  He gave the analogy that the Lord is constantly showering down blessings and we block them with an umbrella of sin.

Tonight over dinner, I asked the kids about why Heavenly Father gives commandments.  (because he loves us and wants us to be happy)  Then I pointed out that some commandments have natural consequences that are blessings like keeping the Word of Wisdom keeps us healthier, or being kind to others helps them be kind to us.  Then I asked them about other commandments that may not have obvious, immediate blessings tied to them.  (Like tithing, fasting...)

I had 5 balloons blown up and I told the kids they are blessings we get from Heavenly Father.  I asked them to list 5 blessings and then wrote them down on the balloons.  (I think we did "Family Forever", "Inspiration from the Holy Ghost", "Knowledge and Truth", "Health", and "Financial and Temporal Security")  We gave each child an umbrella and then, Jay and I pretended to be Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother and said things like, "let's give our children inspiration from the Holly Ghost!" and in order to put their umbrella down to "get" the blessing, they had to say what commandment they would follow to get that blessing.

We sang "Keep the Commandments" at the beginning and "Count Your Blessings" at the end.

I think it went over really well!

FHE: Follow the Prophet

Yikes!  We moved over the summer!!  We've been having FHE, but I haven't been documenting it!!  (We didn't have internet for about 6 weeks)  I'll try my best to do a bit of remembering but....

September 8th, we took some chocolate zucchini muffins to all our new neighbors to introduce ourselves.  So glad we did.  I admit was terrified, but it was really a great idea.

September 15th, we talked to the kids about "We reap what we sow" over dinner and we just happened to have had a plumber and our landlord there at the time and it ended up in a lengthy discussion between our landlord and us about Mormonism and what we believe.  It was really awesome!  (and I think the plumber was eavesdropping :D)

September 22nd, I was feeling overwhelmed about a gigantic pile of laundry that needed folding, and decided to teach the kids (6, 4, and almost 2) how to fold laundry and we played a game where we put clothes on from the basket in a silly way and ran them over to the piles and fold them.  It got kind of crazy and only a little bit actually got folded, but I think the kids had fun and we spent time together as a family, right?

Tomorrow, I'm planning to talk about "Follow the Prophet" as a precursor to conference this weekend.  We are going to make sure everyone knows who the prophet is, what a prophet is, and we are going to play a game where one person is blindfolded and someone else helps them with instructions to put a puzzle or a toy together or something.  Then we will play "Follow the Leader" or "The Prophet (Simon) Says"  and the leader will have a picture of the prophet.

update: we did the puzzle thing and it occurred to me after that it probably would have been more effective to have someone try to put the puzzle together by themselves blind-folded and then have someone help them after so they could see how much easier it is when you follow the instructions.

FHE: Bible Stories

Today was super crazy, and last week was spent sick, so I'm quite behind on my planning.  We just whipped out this lift-the-flap bible stories book we have and read through some of the stories and talked about what we can learn from them.  Then we played "hide the sunglasses".  The object that you hide can be anything. Peach decided what we would hide today.

The kids had so much fun with the activity last week they asked what it was today, and I think it is important that we do them every week.  I wish I was better at thinking about activities that are relevant to our lesson.

FHE: Child Led from Gospel Art Book

This month, The Frog picked the picture "with the volcano", the one on pg 20 "Elijah contends against the priests of Baal".  My husband told the story behind the picture and then we played Sardines.  They loved it!  (daddy hid last and nobody could find him...)

FHE: The Power of Prayer

I asked them: Is Prayer your steering wheel or your spare tire?  We asked them about what that might mean, and then explained what it means.

They didn't know what a spare tire was, and so we told them, and how each of us has only ever used one a couple of times. The steering wheel must be used every time you want to go anywhere.  We should pray every day, rather than only in emergencies.

FHE: Faith is like a seed

We just talked about faith and how it's like a seed.  We had little flower pots & seeds I got at Target for $1.  (sorry so short.  I'm retroactively writing these down and I don't remember many details)

FHE: Child Led from Gospel Art Book

This week, The Frog asked about the picture on page 16- "Moses and the brass serpent".  Jay told the story behind it.

FHE: Holy Week

I've been meaning to try and make the week before Easter more focused on Christ and have wanted to start some kind of tradition.  This year I am going to read each of these on each day during dinner and talk about the questions and maybe do some of the activities that I think are particularly poignant with the kids.  For Monday, we grabbed dinner at some food trucks and then drove to the temple and talked about this from the parking lot.  Then we sang "I love to see the temple" on the drive home.

FHE: Bearing Each Other's Burdens

I basically copied this lesson making it more of a "be helpful" emphasis, rather than an atonement/sin emphasis.  I made sure to only write burdens my kids could relate to on the cans.  The kids all really wanted to try carrying the burdens upstairs by themselves.  My 3-year old and 5-year old were able to carry all 10 cans by themselves, though quite difficult for the 3-year old.  However, I think they still understood that it's easier if we all help out.

It was fun and a great analogy.  We'll see if I can bring it up during the week to really get it to stick.  I could see doing this again with older kids and making it more about the burden of sin (which I didn't focus on, since young kids can't really sin...)

FHE: Forgiveness

I just read this story from the March 2014 Friend and we talked about it while the kids ate their treats.  I think it went over pretty well, but I'm still waiting for them to ACT more kindly...

FHE: Baptism

I decided to try letting my 5-year-old be in charge of FHE tonight.  He looked through the April Friend magazine that we got today and chose pg 7 to talk about.  It's about baptism.  So I told them all about being baptized, and we even practiced getting baptized with daddy in the family room :)  We talked about the symbolism of wearing white, and what promises are made and how it relates to the sacrament.  We also talked about getting the gift of the Holy Ghost and why we want it.

Then, my son said he wanted to make play a memory game.  We made it by printing off this sheet twice, and cutting all the pictures apart.  (you could also just google "lds bingo" and do the same thing with one of those bingo cards.)  My 5 and 3-year olds both really loved it!  I'm sure we'll do it again for an activity.

FHE: Daniel and the Lion's Den

Tonight, I read chapter 43- "Daniel and the Lion's Den" in the LDS Old Testament Stories book (though I've just now discovered that there is also a movie I could have shown...) and then we acted it out a couple of times.  We made a little "den" in the corner and the king sat on a certain chair as the throne, etc.  I even had a tutu to put on the lion's face as a mane, but the kids found it annoying, so we didn't end up using it.

It was short and sweet and rather fun.  I'll do something like this again, for sure. :)

PS when I said we were going to act out a story, my 3-year-old said, "can I be the giant?"  referencing when we did this for the story of David and Goliath in January. Yay!  She remembered!

FHE: Child Driven from Gospel Art Book

I had the kids look through the pictures in the Gospel Art Book and pick one they wanted to hear the story behind.  They chose the one with Moses and the snake on the staff when the people wouldn't look to be healed.  Probably would have been better if we didn't wing the story, but it turned out ok.

FHE: Gordon B. Hinckley

We sang the "Latter Day Prophets" song for opening hymn, while cycling through all the pictures of the prophets we've talked about so far.

I read through the back inside cover of the Friend magazine and then talked about the "6 Be's".  I printed out this worksheet I made, cut the 6 Be's apart, and taped them around the room for the kids to find.  We talked about each one as they found them and talked about how we could do that "Be".  We made a goal to focus on one "Be" each day of the week.

FHE: All Choices Have Consequences

I feel like I've been having a hard time with my 3-year-old lately, and I hoped this lesson might particularly help her.

I basically talked about how we were all given the gift of agency as part of Jesus Christ's plan, which means we all have the ability to choose for ourself how we will behave.  BUT all choices have consequences.  Good choices have good consequences and bad choices have bad consequences.  Then I listed a bunch of choices on paper, cut them out and had the kids take turn pulling them out of a bag.  I asked the kids to tell me what they thought the consequence would be and if it was a good choice or not.

Here are some I used:

Playing outside in the winter without a coat.
Never putting toys away when we're done playing with them.
Helping mommy the first time she asked.
Waiting so long to use the bathroom that there's not enough time to get to the toilet.
Sharing our toys with friends or family.
Waking up too early in the morning or staying up too late.
Never doing school work.
Only eating cookies.
Cleaning up after ourselves without being asked.
Always being kind to others.
Reading our scriptures every day.

I added a few more that I thought of from "real world examples" of actual occurrences from the day as well.

Then we talked about what to do if you need to make a choice and you don't know which choice is good or bad.  (ask for advice and/or pray)

This could be a good opportunity to talk about "good, better, best" but that could also be an FHE topic of it's own, I think.

The kids were really engaged and participated well in the discussion.  It's amazing what drawing mysterious things from a paper sack will do for maintaining attention!

FHE: The Parable of the Popcorn

The kids had school off today and dad didn't have to work, so we decided to mix things up and have Family Home Afternoon :)

I told this story (I adapted it from another version that uses language meant to sound scriptural, but I thought it would be confusing for the kids...):
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In the fall, farmers gathered their special ears of corn that are dried and used to make popcorn.  Then you and me bought the popcorn and took it home to make a delicious snack.

All the kernels of corn looked the same on the outside.

We put the corn in the hot popper.

Some of the popcorn exploded and made themselves much bigger and fluffier and white- which looks and tastes yummy. (show this kind of kernel)

Some of the kernels popped a little, but still had a hard part that we had to spit out so that it doesn't hurt our teeth.  (show this kind of kernel)

Finally, there were even some kernels that did not pop at all.  (show this kind)  Even though all the kernels were surrounded by the same amount of heat, these ones just sat in the warmth and kept everything they had for themselves.

The popcorn that puffed big and fluffy helped bring joy and delight for others, but those that did not were thrown in the garbage and not fit to eat.

"and thus we see that in the beginning all appear alike, but when the heat is on, some come forth and give their all, while others fail to pop and verily become like unto chaff, to be discarded and forgotten."
--------------------------------

I think this parable could be related to a couple of different ideas:
-magnifying your callings or doing chores/helping out in the family
-how we handle our trials (the 3 kinds of kernels can be 1)someone who endures to the end is positive and is made better from the heat, 2) someone who deals with the trial, but complains the whole time they are dealing with it and 3) someone who gives up and is not edified but trapped.

Because my kids are still so small, I talked about contributing to the family and doing your chores so that we can all enjoy having an orderly, clean house.

Then we ate popcorn and watched a movie (which we wouldn't have had time for if it were after dinner....)

Update: my son woke up the next morning telling me that he made his bed without any wrinkles so he is like the puffy popcorn :)

FHE: Love One Another

We revisited our Valentine's activity last year because it was a success (and was again).  We talked about how we can show our love to each other in the family.  (being kind, following mommy and daddy's directions the first time, service, spending time together, gifts, sharing) and then we all wrote down things we love about each family member on a heart (parents helped the younger kids do this).  Our hearts are now on the wall as a Valentine's decoration and a reminder that we love each other :)

This year my 5-year-old wrote them all himself.  So cute!

FHE: Howard W. Hunter

We are so close to going over all the modern day prophets!!  We sang the "Latter-day Prophets" song, while flipping through all the photos of the prophets we have saved from the Friend magazines all last year up until now.  We, as usual, just used the inside back cover of the February Friend magazine and read what was there about Howard W. Hunter.  I should probably try harder...

FHE: Family Tree

I have a lot of siblings, living all over, and they all have kids, and my husband's family lives across the country.  I thought it would be good to review who are relatives are :)

I first talked about the term "family tree" and I had actually drawn a picture of a tree on a piece of paper.  I had printed out a picture of each relative (and used a circle punch to cut out only their heads, so they would all fit on our "tree" easier) and put them on the table upside-down.  We took turns choosing a head and saying who it was, and I made sure they understood how they were related to us, (ex. this is daddy's sister Kama's husband, Uncle Todd).  They thought it was fun and there were a few people they didn't know.  It was interesting to me to note who they did and didn't know and that also tells me who we need to spend more time with! :)

I probably should have made a sibling tree, because we had to just put siblings and families off to each side of the tree trunk (one side was for my relatives, and the other for my husbands') so probably I would do that next time, so we can also put the siblings in age order.  But this was fine for now.  I'm thinking about turning these pictures into a "go fish" game or a memory matching game of some kind where people are a match when they are in the same family.  That almost works, except a couple families have an odd number of people.  maybe go fish would be better?

FHE: We Can Do Anything with the Lord

This lesson turned out quite fun, but the kids were quite rowdy by the end and I'm still wondering if anything sunk in at all...

I started out with some lunch sacks with a "mysterious item" in each one.  I asked the kids if they were afraid to stick their hand in without looking.  They said no, and I suggested that there could be a poisonous spider or snake, or maybe a knife inside... something dangerous.  They still said they weren't scared, so I asked my 5-year-old son to stick his hand inside without looking and he got really nervous and wouldn't do it.  So my 3-year-old daughter did it instead.  (it was a pincushion)  Seeing that it was nothing poisonous, he braved up and I let all three kids take turns pulling something out of each bag, guessing what was inside before pulling it out.

Then I read the story of David and Goliath while the kids colored this picture.  After reading it once, we acted it out a couple of times, first my 3-year old being David, my husband being the giant, and the rest of us being "brothers".  "David" got 5 pieces of crumpled paper to throw at the "Giant".  Then, of course, my 5-year old had to have a turn being David, and my 3-year old wanted to be the giant. :)

After all that, I asked my kids what we can learn from this story...  Do we have to fight giants?  (5-year old: Giants aren't even real, mom!)  But do we have to do hard things? (yes)  Can Heavenly Father help us to hard things? (yes) How?  and how do we ask him to help us?  (The Holy Ghost can help us.  We can pray to ask for help)

Then, I put the pincushion inside a clear plastic bag and asked them if they would be afraid to stick their hand in now.  (of course they said, no) and I asked why not?  (because they could see what was inside!)  I then **tried** to make an analogy, but everyone was being quite rowdy and excited about throwing pieces of paper at each other...  I told them that having a clear bag was like having the Lord's help - we don't need to be afraid if we do what the Lord wants, we know we will be blessed for keeping the commandments.

FHE: Remembering our Ancestors

Since today is my late Grandmother's birthday (Gi-gi, as my kids know her) I thought it would be appropriate to remember her.  I showed pictures of her with each of them on my computer, and told them some things I love about her.  We had cupcakes and then I taught my 5-year old and 3-year old how to play "Go Fish", the first (of many) card games my Grandma taught me over the years.  It was really fun!

FHE: Ezra Taft Benson

We just sand the "Latter-Day Prophet" song, while my 5-year-old son flipped through all the "Portrait of a Prophet" pages we have been saving from The Friend Magazine from the past year.  This month was, Ezra Taft Benson, and we read through that one and I talked about how he was the prophet when I was in Primary, and the first modern day prophet I really remember.

Not a particularly memorable FHE... Probably I should have done more research ahead of time.  I'd like to go through all the modern-day prophets again when they're older, and assign the kids to read about them and share their favorite things about each one.