Keep the Commandments

Learning by doing...learning by doing... So, the ideas are coming from the church's 2013 Primary Manual. Sugardoodle posts them and other ideas to help.

Here's what they learned and did in Primary this week: http://www.sugardoodle.net/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8936

So it looks like they talked about a couple of the commandments. I thought for FHE, we would expand and visit all of the 10 Commandments. There are various things you can do for various ages on someones's Pinterest page: http://pinterest.com/momof4girlz/the-ten-commandments/

So here's our family's lesson plan for tomorrow:

Sing: "Keep the Commandments"

Opening Prayer

Talk a little but about why we have rules and introduce that God has given us rules too. They are called commandments. Some of the commandments are found in the 10 Commandments Moses brought down from the Mountain to the children of Israel. 

Then we will play the 10 Commandments Memory Game and each match, we discuss what it means. I found a decent one here.

Then we'll have a closing prayer. If my husband allows and if I have time, it would be fun to have little sugar cooking in the shape of the tablets Moses brought down from the mountain for refreshments after the lesson!

New Temple

So I was looking on Sugardoodle, and it looks like that's where most of our ward Primary Leaders are getting their Sharing Time lesson plans after all!

And that is why last week, they combined 2 lessons: Adam and Eve, and that we Came to Earth to Receive a Body. Because this Sunday was our Stake Conference!

And I want to prepare a FHE in congruence with what our stake leaders suggest we do as a family. We're so excited down here that we are getting a temple! Each family was given a card:

Sing: I Love to See the Temple

The Following is adapted from Sugardoodle
Prepare some drawings or print and cut out pictures of your family members. Say, "Remember Adam and Eve? They were sent to Earth and when they ate of the fruit, it allowed all of us to come to Earth too! We gained our bodies! Our hands, feet, eyes, ears, nose, etc. We also gained our friends and families. Who is in our family?" Show your cut outs of your family. Put them inside of an envelope.

"Someday every member of our family will die. If we are not sealed in the temple, we can't be together as a family in the next life."

Tip the envelope upside down, "Oh no! Our family fell out of the envelope! We aren't together!"

Show a picture of the temple (preferably with you on your wedding day)

"Heavenly Father loves us so much, so He has special buildings call temples that we can go to and be sealed as a family."

"When we are sealed in the temple and obey Heavenly Father's commandments, He has promised us that we can be together forever. The Stake Presidency has told us that to be worthy to go to the temple, we need to pray every morning and every night and to read the scriptures every day. Do we pray and read scriptures every day? Yes!" Put the family cut-outs into the envelope again, but this time lick and seal it shut. Tip it upside down and shake to show no one is falling out!

Activity: Tomorrow, I'm going to run to the store and get sugar cubes and Elmers glue! The kids can build their own temples. To save time, stick a brass tack on top for the angel Moroni. Me and my husband will try to build the new temple model!

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Tonight:
My son's temple didn't turn out so well (he's only 3) but he had fun! Here's a picture of my husband's and my efforts combined.

  

The Fall

Maybe sing "Head Shoulders Knees and Toes" to begin. After the prayer, tell the story of Adam and Eve. We have quite of few Baby Bible book hand-me-downs, so finding pictures to go with it will be easy tomorrow.

I think the lessons suggests that you draw 2 circles and explain one is the Spirit World and the other is Earth. We were in the Spirit World and when the fall happened, it was a good thing so we could come to Earth!

Then explain how by coming to Earth, we gained our physical bodies. The teacher had a little spinning wheel with different parts of your body. When the spinner landed on one of the parts, the child had to say what they could do!

I just traced around my Chutes and Ladders spinner, made the drawings, put a hole through the middle, and cut on the line between the hands and nose to then just slide it on over the game spinner.

Here is a list to prompt your little one if needed:

Hands-greet someone with a handshake, make food, draw and color, type on the computer, play board games, play a musical instrument, hug

Feet-stomp, walk, run, dance, jump

Knees-bend, (pretty much everything for feet, for if you tried any without your knees, you couldn't!), pray, crawl, swing, climb on the playground, sit

Mouth-talk, say nice things, tell when you are hungry

Eyes-see God's beautiful creations, read, look at art and pictures

Ears-hear, "magical sound of things," know what your friends and family are saying, music/songs

Brain (mind)-homework, interpret senses, remember the alphabet

Nose-smell flowers, cookies, stinky diapers!, perfume/cologne

Afterwards, maybe you can practice some of these. Like bring out some fresh cookies and smell them. Use your mouth to eat them. Use your knees to bend down and your feet to jump up. Shake hands, look at family pictures, etc.

I Know, I Know

I know I am not the first mom to think, Wow, my oldest child is a Sunbeam in primary, or I have a toddler, and our family really needs to start having actual FHE lessons! But what kinds of things can we do with their level of intelligence and attention span?

I've done research on Pinterest and Sugerdoodle and found many moms with their own blogs saying the same things. I like some ideas, and others not so much, or at least not for my kids' ages (1 and 3). So I am putting together my own years worth (and possibly more) of FHE lessons. I have decided to reiterate and solidify what my son is learning in Primary Sharing Time (since I am there because I am the music director). There are some really great ideas from our Presidency and I think that for my 3 year old son, it will help him learn to go over what he learned the day before again.

For example, last week they learned about the Creation. The teacher had large numbers colored like what happened on the seven days of creation. For example, the 3 had the bottom half of it colored blue, for water. And then hidden in the room were things to go with the numbers. As she read Genesis, each day of creation the children were to put the matching items by the numbers. (Cotton for clouds-day 2, cow-day 6, fish and birds-day 5, rock-day 1, etc.)

So the next day, I had my son color with me. Each page I told him what we needed to draw, then I put the numbers on top. For FHE, we sang "I Know My Heavenly Father Loves Me." As I put up the pictures one by one, I tried to explain each one, reminding my son who created everything for us.
 

Then, I left them up for the week to help him keep the lesson in mind!