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. :)