Who doesn't love Christmas time? Sure, the stores are insane and we may spend a little too much money, but it really is the best time of the year. It's an excuse to see our extended families, wear ugly sweaters, indulge in delicious yet maybe not-so-good-for-you foods, and experience a little magic with Santa, his elves, and his reindeer. But most importantly, it is a time to focus on Christ. This season celebrates the birth of Christ, the beginning of his life that would touch billions and billions of people. A life that made it possible for all of us to be with our crazy families throughout eternity.
This week in primary we get to talk about the birth of Christ. I get to do sharing time this week, and I'm really thankful. To me, this is a great way to spiritually prepare for the Christmas season that is now upon us.
To start, I will ask everyone who is excited for Christmas. Of course I get a lot of response from this. I will then ask everyone why do we celebrate Christmas? I am sure I will have at least a few shout out the right answer. I will then tell them that today we're going to talk about the story of Jesus Christ's birth. I have two thoughts on this. I have a toy nativity, much like this Fisher-Price Little People Nativity , that I want to bring in to help as a visual. If you don't have one, and would like to get one, that is a really cute one I've been eying up. I already have one, so I feel a little silly buying another one. But they're so cute! Plus, they'd be great for the Nursery ;). Anyways, my thought is, I will ask for a child to tell just one part of the story. Whoever tells that part can come up and act it out with the little nativity. I'm hoping this will keep their interest, encourage involvement, and make it memorable for them.
Another thought I had was similar to the last. If you don't have a nonbreakable nativity you feel comfortable with them using, and you don't want to buy one, you could get a few volunteers and act it out. You could even break them into groups and have them put on the skit after reading some scriptures. You would need 7 children in each group, if I'm remembering all the major parts correctly. ;) That would give you three wise men, Mary, Joseph, a shepard, and an angel. I would bring in a doll to be baby Jesus.
If you have time left over I love the idea of singing Christmas songs. We only get four or five weeks out of the year to sing them, so why not make the most of it? I would definitely do Away in a Manger.
For coloring pages I have a few ideas.
1. I found this one that has the manger, Mary, Joseph, an angel, shepard, and a wise man in.
2. I also found a color by number nativity page here.
3. The last one I found is a coloring activity that you make a nativity out of. It has a Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus you can color and cut out and put into the nativity. I like this one, I just wish it had the wise men and shepherds too.
I hope you found some good ideas here. What are you planning on doing? Have you found a fun printable or hand out? Leave your ideas or tips in the comment section below. They could help someone out! Thanks for stopping by and please remember to "follow" so you can get sharing time helps weekly. :)
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Women in the Scriptures Challenge
I came accross this on Pinterest and I am so excited about it. I am about to start this challenge with the New Testament, just in time for Christmas no less. My sister and I are doing this together and I just wanted to invite anyone else along with us. :) I am hoping it'll give me a little extra perspective into the scriptures.
November 2012 Week 3 Sharing Time: I can teach my friends about Jesus Christ and His church.
I haven't posted on here in so long it feels like. About a week and a half ago my son got sick with an upper respiratory infection. He got an antibiotic, but of course my husband and I still got it, and worse then he did. So I have been in a coughing fit with a fever for about a week. Just when I thought, "I'm feeling better," my son threw up all over me. It looks like it's just a stomach bug, but somehow that doesn't help me feel any less helpless. I feel terrible for him. He doesn't like the bland diet he's on and he doesn't understand why he doesn't have the energy to get up and play. It hasn't been fun, but I'm hoping it won't last more then another day or two. So long story short, I appreciate your patience as I write this next sharing time, as it will probably be written over a several day span. I'm hoping my thoughts are coherent.
Like I mentioned in my previous post, missionary work is something really close to my families heart. We are fortunate to have great missionaries. We have both a senior couple and a pair of full time Elders and we are lucky to get to work closely with them.
If your Primary didn't make missionary badges on any of the previous weeks, I still think it's an awesome idea. I will be doing it for this week. Even if you did it on a previous week, you could pass them out to anyone who was not there, or maybe if kids didn't bring them in. Here you can find links and ideas on how to do this.
I want to open it up to the Primary to share stories of how they've shared the gospel. See if anyone has a story about how they've taught a friend about Jesus or the gospel. This can be as simple as a time they've invited a friend to church, answered a question about our Church, Christ or even just religion in general. It can also be a time they shared their favorite scripture story in church. If you don't have anyone raise their hand, share a story from your youth. You could also dive right into the story I talk about in the next paragraph. This will give them a chance to think of something.
In the outline it says to share the story about the boy sharing the articles of faith, and the older man being so impressed by this. I LOVE this story. I heard it when I was a young girl, and it has always stayed with me. In fact, I'm grateful the outline gave a reference for it, because I never could remember where I heard it from. Here is a link to the November 1975 Ensign article that has the story in it. I think this story illustrates the concept of being a missionary now so well. I also love that it's something that anyone can do, even the sunbeams. Also, memorizing the Articles of Faith is something they can do now to prepare for a mission later in life. With the age lowered for young men and women to serve missions, they have less time to prepare. That makes preparing while in Primary that much more significant.
In the outline it wants us to work on The Articles of Faith. I really like their idea for an activity. If you wanted to do something different, I had a few ideas for that too.
1. It thought it would be fun to prepare a punch board. In each area you could have an article of faith with a couple words missing. Whoever's turn it is has to fill in the words to complete it. For the Junior Primary you could focus on the first 5 or 6 Articles of Faith. This way, they have a better chance of actually memorizing one, or knowing which words to fill in.
2. Another option with the punch board is to not only put Articles of Faith in the holes, but also stories from Christ's life. For example, one hole could say "Tell the story of when Christ walked on water." To me, this would be neat because in order to teach our friends of Christ's church and about him, we need to be familiar with his life.
3. Another idea is to have them divide into groups and make a little skit about an opportunity to share the gospel. Assign each group a location (for example: school, a friends house, soccer practice, cub scouts, etc) and have the group come up with a scenario that they would have the opportunity to share the gospel. To incorporate the Articles of Faith, you could have them choose which one would be good to know for that scenario. Then they can share their skit with the rest of the Primary.
Like I mentioned in my previous post, missionary work is something really close to my families heart. We are fortunate to have great missionaries. We have both a senior couple and a pair of full time Elders and we are lucky to get to work closely with them.
If your Primary didn't make missionary badges on any of the previous weeks, I still think it's an awesome idea. I will be doing it for this week. Even if you did it on a previous week, you could pass them out to anyone who was not there, or maybe if kids didn't bring them in. Here you can find links and ideas on how to do this.
I want to open it up to the Primary to share stories of how they've shared the gospel. See if anyone has a story about how they've taught a friend about Jesus or the gospel. This can be as simple as a time they've invited a friend to church, answered a question about our Church, Christ or even just religion in general. It can also be a time they shared their favorite scripture story in church. If you don't have anyone raise their hand, share a story from your youth. You could also dive right into the story I talk about in the next paragraph. This will give them a chance to think of something.
In the outline it says to share the story about the boy sharing the articles of faith, and the older man being so impressed by this. I LOVE this story. I heard it when I was a young girl, and it has always stayed with me. In fact, I'm grateful the outline gave a reference for it, because I never could remember where I heard it from. Here is a link to the November 1975 Ensign article that has the story in it. I think this story illustrates the concept of being a missionary now so well. I also love that it's something that anyone can do, even the sunbeams. Also, memorizing the Articles of Faith is something they can do now to prepare for a mission later in life. With the age lowered for young men and women to serve missions, they have less time to prepare. That makes preparing while in Primary that much more significant.
In the outline it wants us to work on The Articles of Faith. I really like their idea for an activity. If you wanted to do something different, I had a few ideas for that too.
1. It thought it would be fun to prepare a punch board. In each area you could have an article of faith with a couple words missing. Whoever's turn it is has to fill in the words to complete it. For the Junior Primary you could focus on the first 5 or 6 Articles of Faith. This way, they have a better chance of actually memorizing one, or knowing which words to fill in.
2. Another option with the punch board is to not only put Articles of Faith in the holes, but also stories from Christ's life. For example, one hole could say "Tell the story of when Christ walked on water." To me, this would be neat because in order to teach our friends of Christ's church and about him, we need to be familiar with his life.
3. Another idea is to have them divide into groups and make a little skit about an opportunity to share the gospel. Assign each group a location (for example: school, a friends house, soccer practice, cub scouts, etc) and have the group come up with a scenario that they would have the opportunity to share the gospel. To incorporate the Articles of Faith, you could have them choose which one would be good to know for that scenario. Then they can share their skit with the rest of the Primary.
Thursday, November 1, 2012
November 2012 Week 1 Sharing Time: I Can be a Missionary by Serving Others.
Hurricane Sandy. My family and I were right in her path this past Sunday evening and Monday. Luckily we didn't have any real damage. We didn't even lose power. I know there weren't very many people as lucky as we were. I'm grateful we were able to get through it without any lasting damage. Prayers for those in New Jersey and New York specifically who got the worst of the storm it seems. I know Maryland and Delaware beaches were also pretty bad. The pictures I've seen of those areas are tragic.
So on that note, it's taken me a little bit longer then I wanted to get working on this weeks sharing time. This WHOLE month is about missionary work, and being a missionary now. This topic, in particular is very dear to me. My husband is our branch mission leader and I am a branch missionary. I have been able to teach with the missionaries a couple of times and have had the opportunity to go to a crazy amount of baptisms the last few months. Our little branch is growing and it's such a blessing to see. Our whole branch is super excited about missionary work. It's great to see so many people get involved that weren't so involved a few months back and to see them have these experiences. One of the really great thing about doing sharing times on missionary work is it will get the children to be excited to invite friends and talk about the gospel. This whole topic can be so fun! I've had so many fun ideas I'm having a hard time choosing which one would be good to do. I may just post up lots of different ideas. ;)
I think it would be good to start off by having a missionary come in a share a story about how serving others has furthered the work of the gospel. I have heard a lot of stories about someone who had no interest in the church and service was able to help them through that. The missionaries, or someone else did acts of service for them (whether it be yard work, moving furniture, repairs, etc), they saw the gospel at it's finest and had a change of heart.
While the missionary is telling his story, you can take the opportunity to hand out missionary badges to each of the children. For badges you have a few options.
1. I found some printable ones here on Sugardoodle. These have an option to fill in a last name. I don't know if you can leave it at just "Elder" or "Sister" or put "Future Missionary," or if you have to put in a last name. If you have to, it would just take more time and you may run into issues with any possible visitors that you have.
2. Another thought I had was to have each child make their own missionary badge at the end and you can tape it on them.
3. I found this on Pinterest of a YM/YW activity on going on a mission. They made badges for the youth there and I thought it was a neat idea. You can get black card stock, silver sharpie, and pin on plastic sleeve. You write on it and stick it in the sleeve.
When the missionary is done you can ask them if they think that you have to be a full time missionary to have an experience like that, or would a primary child be able to spread the gospel through service? Of course the answer is that anyone can be a missionary, especially when it comes to service. Then you can explain this further for one or two minutes. Haven an older child read Matthew 25:34-40. Another scripture the outline uses is Mosiah 2:17. You could share your own story of how you've seen this work in your own life, or you can share a story you find, if you have a difficult time finding one, you can use this one here. I think the page it opens up to has two stories on it, the one I really liked was about the father who had cancer and how everyone in the ward pitched in to help drive him to and from work. I know that primary children can't drive, but there are things they could do to help. You could ask them what these things could be? They could help their mom or dad bring dinner or cookies over, write a card, befriend the children, or invite the children over to play (to give their parents a break). Explain that even though this family was already members of the church, they still needed service. Tell them full time missionaries serve both members and nonmembers. This will lead you into your activity.
For an activity I though it'd be neat to do a punch board activity. You could put in each hole a scenerio to act out. It could be "You walk a neighbors dog." The child who got this has to act it out with a friend, and then whoever guesses what it is has to say how this would help missionary work. That person then gets to take a turn, or choose someone else to take a turn, if they've already gone. We do scenerio games so often, I think it would be fun to do something a little different.
If you don't want to make a punch out board, you could always do the classic pick a piece of paper out of a hat/bag/bowl.
If you have time and want to do another activity, you could have them write a card to an inactive member, someone who is sick, someone from your ward/branch who is serving a mission, or even people who have been effected by Hurricane Sandy.
So on that note, it's taken me a little bit longer then I wanted to get working on this weeks sharing time. This WHOLE month is about missionary work, and being a missionary now. This topic, in particular is very dear to me. My husband is our branch mission leader and I am a branch missionary. I have been able to teach with the missionaries a couple of times and have had the opportunity to go to a crazy amount of baptisms the last few months. Our little branch is growing and it's such a blessing to see. Our whole branch is super excited about missionary work. It's great to see so many people get involved that weren't so involved a few months back and to see them have these experiences. One of the really great thing about doing sharing times on missionary work is it will get the children to be excited to invite friends and talk about the gospel. This whole topic can be so fun! I've had so many fun ideas I'm having a hard time choosing which one would be good to do. I may just post up lots of different ideas. ;)
I think it would be good to start off by having a missionary come in a share a story about how serving others has furthered the work of the gospel. I have heard a lot of stories about someone who had no interest in the church and service was able to help them through that. The missionaries, or someone else did acts of service for them (whether it be yard work, moving furniture, repairs, etc), they saw the gospel at it's finest and had a change of heart.
While the missionary is telling his story, you can take the opportunity to hand out missionary badges to each of the children. For badges you have a few options.
1. I found some printable ones here on Sugardoodle. These have an option to fill in a last name. I don't know if you can leave it at just "Elder" or "Sister" or put "Future Missionary," or if you have to put in a last name. If you have to, it would just take more time and you may run into issues with any possible visitors that you have.
2. Another thought I had was to have each child make their own missionary badge at the end and you can tape it on them.
3. I found this on Pinterest of a YM/YW activity on going on a mission. They made badges for the youth there and I thought it was a neat idea. You can get black card stock, silver sharpie, and pin on plastic sleeve. You write on it and stick it in the sleeve.
When the missionary is done you can ask them if they think that you have to be a full time missionary to have an experience like that, or would a primary child be able to spread the gospel through service? Of course the answer is that anyone can be a missionary, especially when it comes to service. Then you can explain this further for one or two minutes. Haven an older child read Matthew 25:34-40. Another scripture the outline uses is Mosiah 2:17. You could share your own story of how you've seen this work in your own life, or you can share a story you find, if you have a difficult time finding one, you can use this one here. I think the page it opens up to has two stories on it, the one I really liked was about the father who had cancer and how everyone in the ward pitched in to help drive him to and from work. I know that primary children can't drive, but there are things they could do to help. You could ask them what these things could be? They could help their mom or dad bring dinner or cookies over, write a card, befriend the children, or invite the children over to play (to give their parents a break). Explain that even though this family was already members of the church, they still needed service. Tell them full time missionaries serve both members and nonmembers. This will lead you into your activity.
For an activity I though it'd be neat to do a punch board activity. You could put in each hole a scenerio to act out. It could be "You walk a neighbors dog." The child who got this has to act it out with a friend, and then whoever guesses what it is has to say how this would help missionary work. That person then gets to take a turn, or choose someone else to take a turn, if they've already gone. We do scenerio games so often, I think it would be fun to do something a little different.
If you don't want to make a punch out board, you could always do the classic pick a piece of paper out of a hat/bag/bowl.
If you have time and want to do another activity, you could have them write a card to an inactive member, someone who is sick, someone from your ward/branch who is serving a mission, or even people who have been effected by Hurricane Sandy.
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