We like to have family night every week on Mondays. It's fun to look forward to the weekly tradition of doing something together as a family, especially now since we've had kids. We usually sing a children's song or hymn, have a family prayer and an activity. However, since we've had kids, it's really difficult to do things that keep the attention span of a toddler and a crawling baby. Jeremy and I never had Family Home Evening as young kids ourselves, so we don't have many ideas on what works well for little ones.
I'm just wondering...what do you do for family night? Any ideas/tips you can share?
Jr. Prom
3 days ago
10 comments:
We have to keep ours short and sweet with simple lessons. Also we let the kids color while we are talking or if possible teach while playing an easy kid game. My kids favorite game was when we used a fishing pole to pick ideas, objects ect,then talk about them. Just hang in there it does get easier.
Good ideas. I need to make/get a fishing pole! I think it would be useful for FHE and other times.
Confession: we usually do a fun activity together as a family. I find we talk about the gospel a lot throughout the week when we read scriptures each night or when we see an example of a gospel principle in our lives, but we don't see daddy a lot and get to play with him. We often work in the garden and sing "the prophet said to plant a garden" or go feed the ducks and tell the kids how important it is to respect all of Heavenly Father's creations or go get ice cream and spend our time giggling even though there is absolutely no gospel-centered theme involved. That said...when we do have a full blown lesson I turn to my wonderful friend, The Nursury Manual "Behold your Little Ones" and we do a 5-10 minute lesson from there - usually when we are still at the dinner table. Certainly nothing glamorous but it seems to work ok for us!
Jen-That's kind of what we've been trying to do for the lesson. I'll use Miranda's handout from nursery to help her remember the lesson from the week and review that topic. I think it's good to keep it simple, too.
This is a great post topic. I've loved reading the comments. We use song sticks I posted about them this week. It helps Mary feel a part of FHE.
I love your song sticks, Lindsey. I especially like that they are small enough to fit into an envelope or file folder, so we can just store all of our FHE activities in a few folders. I bought some foam and I'm going to cut out some shapes to mount them on popsicle sticks and make my own!
I bought a Nursery Manual and we use it every week for a short lesson (it's usually not their favorite 5 minutes, I'll admit). I also have a few props I made that go along with Primary songs - Follow the Prophet (check my blog a few posts back), suns on a stick for Jesus wants me for a sunbeam, then we do a lot of action songs - BofM Stories, Once there was a Snowman, Popcorn Popping, etc. Then I like to do a little activity like games - Hungry Hippo or other games geared for toddlers. Good luck!!
I have started using the nursery manual for our lessons - they are great little lessons and Brandon is responding to them very well!!!!! Also the FHE manual that the church has published has LOTS of fun ideas for activities with toddlers as well as some great lessons that you can adapt for smaller children. :)
I do like the nursery manual, too. Jeremy and I have been nursery leaders for over a year, so we're definitely familiar with it. I haven't seen the FHE Manual. I'll have to look into that--thanks, Michelle. Camille, I saw your post on the Follow the Prophet song. That's a great way to help them recognize President Monson. Thanks for the great ideas--keep them coming!
These are all great ideas! Here is my two cents: We like to use that blue box of gospel pictures. We pull one out and tell the scripture story. Lately we have been acting them out with a few simple dress-ups and Sam loves that. We also let Sam hold the scripture story book (we have those picture ones the church makes) and tell the story to Lucy. It's fun to see what he is absorbing that way too. We usually do a game or activity after too like duck duck goose, ring around the rosy, or blowing bubbles. I liked Elder Bednar's talk this conference when he said just the consistency is probably the most important thing.
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