Snack Ideas for Nursery

I posted last week about Nursery Helps, and I wanted to follow up with this. Nursery is a hard calling. I honestly think that the Lord puts special people in Nursery, and that's how it should be. The children need so much love, attention, and creativity.

Snack time is important for Nursery aged children, not only does it eat up some time (yeah I said it), but it keeps them from getting hungry, aka cranky. But you have to be careful what you feed them. If you stuff them full of sugar and cookies, prepare yourself for another hour of meltdowns, screaming, and chaos. And since I'm sure you are going to have awesome things planned for that hour that do not include any of those things, it's probably better to avoid that whenever possible. So I wanted to post a few ideas on what to bring for snacks, that kids will eat. Every child is different, but maybe this will help you brainstorm.

PLEASE remember to ask parents/guardians about allergies before feeding their child anything!! Write this down in a "Nusery Binder/Folder" so when your not there, whoever is filling in will know.

1. Pretzels. I have met few children that don't like pretzels. Even my son, who has parents that don't really care for them, likes pretzels.

2. Fruits/veggies. Children love fruit. My son would rather have a tomato or strawberry over a cookie. Yes, it's true. Fruit does have sugar in it, but it's not going to get them wound up like frosting on a cupcake would.

3. Graham Crackers with peanut butter. The peanut butter has protein in it that will help keep them full and kids love graham crackers!

4. Yogurt covered raisins. My son would eat these all day if I let him. Seriously, he doesn't like raisins, but when they're yogurt covered, game on.

5. String cheese. Store in the fridge until snack time and have your assistant go grab it.

6. Applesauce. They make them in the pouches they can just slurp up now, no spoon feeding, perfect for nursery! They also have smoothies and other things in those same pouches, so you can mix it up.

7. Roaring waters Capri Sun. I believe it only have 7g of sugar, so it's a good drink option.


So what do you guys love using in Nursery for snack? Any go-to items?

5 Tips for Teaching Nursery

Before I was in the Primary Presidency I was in Nursery. For years. Before I got married, I was unofficially in Nursery, for years. I would skip Relief Society and help my mom in the Nursery before I met my husband and started attending the Singles Ward in the area.

I have a strong testimony of Nursery leaders. In many cases, a Nursery Leader is a child's first interaction with church as an individual. The only time this is not the case is when a child does not attend Nursery for whatever reason. Before they are 18 months, they hang out with Mom or Dad wherever they are during the second and third hours. Nursery has a special place in my heart, because it's the first opportunity we have as leaders and teachers to touch the lives of children and make church an enjoyable experience.

I realize that for many children, Nursery is not enjoyable at all. It's frustrating and sad because Mom left them and they're with complete strangers and they don't like it. I don't think it has to be like that! I believe there is a period of time where they don't want anything do with anyone other than their parents, but I do believe that period of time can be shortened (depending on the circumstances of course!).

So what works?

1. Strategic planning
2. Being prepared
3. Creativity
4. Flexible structure
5. Talk to the Primary Presidency

Those would be the four major tips I would give anyone who asked me. 

You want to plan the schedule for your Nursery based on what makes sense to you. There are tons of schedule samples out there to give you ideas, but pick something that works for you. Look at the children in your Nursery, their temperaments and needs, and figure out what you think will work best. Try to stick to it, and remember that if it doesn't work you can always mix it up.

Be prepared for snack times, lessons, singing times, etc. I know that it's easy to say, oh they're two, they don't need a lesson. But I strongly believe that a lesson in Nursery is so important. Even from a nonreligious stand point, they need to learn to sit still, and they need to learn that during a lesson that is what you have to do. The lessons don't have to be long and detail oriented, but they should happen. The manual, Behold Your Little Ones, is so great. It has so many helps and activities and ideas in it. I would make sure that before Saturday night (I'm totally guilty of it too!) the lesson gets read for Sunday and the activity is thought about. That way, if there is anything it calls for that you don't have at home, you can grab it while your out and about. I can't tell you how many times I have had to teach on the spur of the moment and I wish I had known so that I could have done one of the activities in there. Some of them only require bringing in brown paper bags, or yarn, but they're all really great and geared towards the age group. There are also plenty of blogs and websites that have created extra helps for you if want to use them. Make sure they go along with our gospel doctrine but use them! I promise you, the weeks you prepare a lesson, activity, handouts etc, the class will go more smoothly. The more prepared and excited you are about your lesson, the more they'll be into it. Again, you don't have to make it long, just make it good. :)

Creativity. This goes along with the point mentioned above, but sometimes you have to think outside the box to drive a lesson home, especially to two year olds. The more props you get them to hold, games you can get them to play, etc, the better off you all will be. They don't have long attention spans, so you have to mix it up. You have to aware of when they're getting bored of one thing so you can switch to the next.

By flexible structure, I mean that it's good for the kids to have expectations coming to class each week. They should know when they get in there they get to play for a little bit, then it's snack time. After snack we have lesson, etc. What I mean by it being flexible is that it's important to remember that the needs of your class are going to vary week by week. It's important to be sensitive to the needs as they change. If you have a new child, whether they've just turned 18 months or are an investigator or visitor, this is a new maybe scary experience. They may be okay for 10 minutes playing and not 20 minutes. You may want to cut play time short and offer snack early in order to keep them happy. Or you may want to allow them to skip snack and color while the other children eat. I believe that being sensitive to the needs of the child that needs it the most will benefit everyone in the long run. If you can prevent that child from having a tantrum, your more likely to not have other children throw fits as well.
Please keep in mind that sometimes it may be best to take the child to their mother, if none of this is working. This may not work all the time, when it gets to that point, getting the child to their parent is probably best for everyone. They can join everyone when they're feeling up to it.

It is so important to talk to your Primary Presidency. Let them know what your doing that works, if you need help, if you are struggling with something, keep the communication open. That is the best way for them to help you. They'll feel more involved in the Nursery, making it a high priority on their list (out of sight, out of mind sort of thing), they'll make sure you have what you need etc.

As I've mentioned before there are tons of websites and blogs that have posted things to help with Nursery and that age group. I have been pinning a lot of things on my pinterest account and want to weed through the good ideas and not so good ideas in the next few days. So look for that also! I've also been doing some research on how to post fullsize attachments to the blog so I can continue making handouts. So hopefully next week I'll be able to make a couple things for Nursery specifically. If you follow me on Bloglovin you can get my posts directly to your email, so you won't miss a thing. :) There should be a direct link on the right hand side.

Sharing Time: Jesus Christ Taught me How to Serve Others

Hey all!


So I have sharing time this week and it's on how Jesus taught us to serve others. I really love the idea of showing them the pictures of Christ serving others and trying to act it out. To make it extra fun, you can bring some robes and scarfs in and they could dress up as the character. **Update** As mentioned by commenters below, please remember that children are not to dress up as Christ. This is why I love when people comment, we help each other out!!

One of the ideas I thought of immediately when I thought of this subject is the "secret service" activity I've seen float around Pinterest some. The whole idea is to give the kids some kind of "sign" and have them preform an act of service secretly and leave the little sign by the act of service they did. For example, you see your mom has a ton of dishes in the sink, secretly (we don't want to get caught!) do the dishes. After they are done, leave the sign by the sink.

Ideas on what they can do...
1. Clean the litter box
2. Take out the trash
3. Make a siblings bed
4. Weed the garden.
5. Clean up a siblings toys.

Now that they're mom, sibling, friend or whoever has the sign, they have to do a random act of service....secretly. It's fun to keep it going. You can give each child a couple of them so that if one person doesn't keep it going, someone else might. They can come back the next week and share their stories on how sneaky they were, and what they were able to do.

I cannot for the life of me figure out how to attach a full size document to this post. If anyone knows how to do this using blogger, I would SOOO appreciate a quick walk through. I've been using Photobucket in the past to create a link, but now they don't save it full size. Again, any help would be awesome! (to be honest, I've been so frustrated with this it's kind of zapped my desire to post :()So I didn't make a hand out, but I posted a link to a picture that is kind of what I'm talking about. If someone helps me out, I will totally make a handout for it!!

I like the idea of using a heart, writing "secret service" and putting underneath that something along the lines of "Now it's your turn to serve someone....secretly! Don't let it stop with you!" I think it's neat for the children to see how one good deed can multiply. 

http://ldsmobileapps.com/activities/secret-service,1/  Here is a picture of what I was envisioning, unfortunately I don't see a link to print out. It looks like they just used a crayon to write secret service on it.


If you're looking for an awesome FHE to do along this same idea, check out THIS blog post. I thought it was a neat idea!

When I repent, I can be forgiven

Repentance. Such a great thing to teach children. It's such a beautiful apect of the gospel.

 

I like the idea of starting with the words cut out individually and piecing them together in to make the sentence "When I repent, I can be forgiven." (This is in the outline provided by the church.) If you didn't want to place them in envelopes you could stick them under random chairs and have them check. This is an immediate attention-getter, and I like it for that reason.

 

I like the story of the Prodigal Son. I think this is a good way to go, but I also really like the story of Alma the Younger. This came to my mind almost immediately when I was thinking this week over. I found an old friend article that tells the story for anyone who doesn't like summarizing themselves, you can find that HERE. I found a page on Sugardoodle (seriously, I love that site!) that is dedicated to this story. It has way too much to list but in short, it has links to clipart, lesson helps and a lot more that involve this story.  You can find all of that good stuff HERE.
 

This is the part I was really excited about. For this week I want to do a object lesson. Show everyone a penny that is clean and new looking. Tell them that this is them when they are born. Throughout their lives they make mistakes, they sin. If we don't repent we can't stay clean. Show them an old penny that is dirty. Pour some lemon juice into a clear glass and put the penny in. According to THIS site (I wanted to try this out before posting but haven't had the chance. It may be a good idea to that beforehand, haha), it will just wipe clean (You may have to soak it). Tell them that sin is like the dirt on the coin, and the repentance process is like the lemon juice. If we repent after we sin, we can be clean and pure like when we're babies (or after baptism). I thought the example of babies would be more universal because there are lots of kids in my primary who aren't 8 yet and therefore haven't been baptized.

Give each child a clean penny to take home to remind them of how they can repent and stay clean.

**Variations** Because I haven't tried this experiment yet, I am not sure how long it takes to soak the penny in the lemon juice to get it clean. If you do this at home first and it takes longer then 30 seconds or so, you may want to drop some dirty pennies in there before you do sharing time so they have time to soak and get clean. You can always drop a dirty one in and just pull a clean one out. I am going to have to test this to see if it works.

February 2013 Week 3 Sharing Time: I have been sent to earth to gain a body

I am so happy to be back posting again. This has been such a great outlet for me these past few months. I have a lot of ideas of different things to start up on the blog in the next few weeks, so stay tuned.
Now for this weeks Sharing Time. This week is about coming to Earth to gain a body and to be tested. This is a great opportunity to build a strong foundation for our youth, to help them understand the purpose of being sent here.
I have a couple different ideas for activities to mix it up a bit.
To begin have an older child look up and read Abraham 3:25. After they finish ask them to explain what it means to everyone. If they need help, see if another child can help, if not, either you or a teacher can pitch in. There shouldn't be too much issue though, its pretty self explanatory. Abraham 3:25 tells us that we came to Earth to be tested. We also came to Earth to get a body. 

Have another child read D&C 29:39. This scripture tells us that the devil tempts us so we can know the bitter from the sweet. We talked about this last week with the joy & pain, happiness and sadness, health & sickness, etc. These week we want to focus on our bodies and how we can make good decisions with them. This leads us to our activity.

One idea I had was to play "Pin the CTR Shield on the Child!" Get a poster board and draw a person on it and make sure to bring a piece of fabric or a bandana to cover eyes with. If a child puts the CTR shield on a body part, (i.e. feet, ears, hands, etc) they have to tell everyone how that body part can help us make good choices. For example, our hands can serve others, hold our scriptures so we can read them, stop a fight, give hugs, etc. If they get an area that is not a body part or a body part listed, (the blank poster area or you could even do the stomach or other areas that would be hard to answer those questions for) they get to pick a body part that hasn't been done. I really love this idea because its different and will keep their attention. 

The second idea I had was to divide the children in four or five different groups. Print out my guy linked below and cut him out. Assign each group a different body part. Get some manila folders and label it a top secret mission. Inside put a different body part to the guy along with the message of what to do. Each groups mission is to identify what choices each body part helps us make.Have them color the body part they were given so that when it's assembled it will create a fun looking guy. They can be as crazy or not crazy with this as they want. Let each group complete their mission in front of everyone else by sharing what they can do with that body part to choose the right. Have them attach the body part to the torso after they've presented. Close with your testimony. This is a fun activity that will hopefully have them thinking outside the box. 

Here is a link  to my person assembly coloring page.


CTR Shields can be found here with a few different options to print. 

Have fun with it everyone and don't forget to follow the blog for (hopefully) weekly primary updates along with recipes, crafts and more!

December 2012 Week 1 Sharing Time: Heavenly Father Sent His Son to Earth

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. :)

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.

Child Scripture Set DIY

Okay, I know these are not authentic scripture sets, but as I mentioned here, I wanted to create a little scripture "set" I could give my son to carry around, knowing fully that they will get destroyed. The purpose of this is to teach him that they are special. This way, he has his own he can learn from until he gets a nice set for his eighth birthday. After giving them to him I had him hug them and tell them he loved them. I told him they were special and we took care of them.

For this you will need:
Index Cards (or card stock)
A ring to put it on (I used one you would put keys on)
Stickers to decorate (optional)
 Hole puncher

Cost wise, it really couldn't be any better. I bought the cards at Wal Mart for .48, the hole puncher for .97, the ring I already had (Wal Mart had 6 of them for 2.00), and 2 packs of stickers at 1.00 each. I probably had stickers I could use but I didn't feel like digging around for them. I would HIGHLY recommend laminating these. Especially if you are giving this to a young child. My son is 20 months old and will probably destroy these in 5 minutes. He's a little crazy though. I don't have a laminater, but after seeing how easy it is for him, I will be using my mom's next time I am over her house. Until then, close supervision! I don't care if he messes them up in general, but 5 minutes is too short for it to last in my opinion. If you don't have someone who has one you can borrow or use, you could go to Kinko's or Staple's. I believe they do it there cheaply.

The first thing I did was pick what I wanted to be on there. I chose the story of Noah's Ark (Because I could animal stickers), Daniel and the Lion's Den (Again, all about the stickers), my favorite scripture, and my husband's favorite scripture. I wrote a sentence or two on each one until the story was told. I punched a whole in it and let him put stickers on. I did have to rearrange some of the stickers so they weren't covering up words. Then I put them on the ring, voila! 

If you laminate them (again, highly recommended), do it before putting them on the ring. Maybe even before stickers depending on the kind of stickers you use too. I used puffy one's that probably won't go through a laminater. So I will have to peel them off or chose different ones. 

These were pretty easy, but in case you have issues shortening the stories, I will write out what I did, to at least get you on the right track. I love the idea of putting their favorite stories, or one's you've talked about recently in there. My son is too little to have this work for us, but maybe it'll work for someone else. The joy of this too, is you can always add on to it. 


Noah's Ark:

The Lord told Noah to build a big boat because a flood was coming. Noah built the boat and everyone told him he was crazy. After he built the boat he put two animals of every species in it. So two turtles, two cats, two puppies, two elephants. The flood came just like the Lord promised.

 Daniel and the Lion's Den:

Daniel was a prophet who refused to stop praying. The King threw him in the lion's den. Angels calmed the lions and Daniel was saved.

 Let me know what you do with yours! This would be great for Sunbeams, Nursery, or FHE.

Nursery Behold Your Little Ones Lesson 23: I Love the Scriptures

My son is in nursery and he has a really great Nursery Leader. He gets to take home his coloring pages every week discussing showing what he learned. Normally I would just stick it up on the fridge or file it away in his "baby book," but I got the idea today, while I was struggling with what to do tonight for FHE, what if we revisit his Sunday lesson tonight? The more I think about it, the more I like it. It reinforces the lessons and gives him a second exposure to it. Plus, there aren't a ton of things to do for FHE that keep a 20 month old's attention. Anyway, the more I started researching different ideas to reinforce these lessons, the more I realized there isn't a ton of helps out there for our Nursery Leaders. It's sad because it really can be a fun calling. You have the opportunity to make so many fun crafts and cute snacks, but sometimes it's hard to get brainstorming. I figured if I was going to be doing it anyways, I would put up any thoughts or ideas I had to help.

The lesson they taught yesterday was Lesson 23, I Love the Scriptures. I'm not sure if there is an official church wide schedule to be on, or what other areas are doing, but this is what they taught.

The lesson can be found here. There should be a link there for a puppet project that they can do. I like that idea, but I would probably print it out on card stock and laminate it before hand. Little ones can be hard on regular paper. ;)

The idea I had that was a little bit different is to make a little scripture thing for them. This would be theirs. They could protect it and keep it safe. It would be a good practice for having their own set of scriptures one day. My original thought was maybe 4 or 5 pages with a few scriptures and pictures to coordinate on it. I still like that idea but I think I found a better finished product here. I think I am going to get some index cards, write a few scriptures on a few different ones, poke a whole in them and put a ring in it. If you have a laminater that is probably a brilliant idea, I don't so I'm not going to worry about. To me, this is going to be the set he can practice on. He can get used to bringing them to church, learn not to put them on the kitchen table, etc. I'm going to teach him that they're special and he needs to take care of them, and that's true. But between you and me, I won't shed any tears if they get too messed up, because they're cheap and easy to replace, unlike the set he'll receive when he's 8.

When I go home and make them, I'll take pictures so you can see how I did them. I'll link it up when it's finished.


UPDATE: I just finished the tutorial on the practice scriptures. You can find it here. I hope you guys like it!

Sharing Time September 2012 Week 5 Ideas

This month we have five Sundays, which gives us a fun opportunity to be creative. I love how the church organizes things for us every week, and makes it so simple to do sharing time, but sometimes it is really fun to be able to be creative and think outside the box. When I was thinking about what would be fun to do this week there were a lot of possibilities.

1. Practice for your Primary Program if you have that coming up. I know many wards and branches have already had theres, but if you haven't, this may be a good time to do it. This is kind of neat because you won't have to skip another lesson to do this. It's kind of a free week.

2. Do a scripture chase. You could do the classic one with the senior primary and a younger version with the junior. One idea I had to make this a little easier for younger kids was to tell them part of a story and they can kind of finish up or say who the story was about. You could get pictures from the library and use those. I liked this because it helps the children get more familiar with their scripture stories before they can read. It's a nice foundation to build upon when they're older. To make this even more fun you could involve snack size candy or a homemade treat.

3. Keep on subject with the 10 Commandments. You could play a game to get the children to understand them better/memorize them. I have a punch out board I made for a sharing time a while ago, you could have scenerios in each one and have the children match it to the commandments. You could have something along the lines of "Your mom told you to clean up your bedroom. You chose to go outside and play soccer." This would be breaking the commandment of Honor thy father and mother. You could have some in there that follow the commandments. My kids really love the punch out box, you could put anything in there and they would think it's the coolest thing ever. I don't have a tutorial of mine, but this is very close to mine. I don't have that nifty circle cutting tool, so I used an exacto blade and cut squares, it was easier then trying circles.

4. Play a General Conference game. A few months ago I did a Sharing Time on the First Presidency and Apostles. We played a little bit of a matching game with them. One thing I liked about this is I found out some fun interesting facts about a few different ones and read them to the kids. I then would read out some of the fun facts and have them match who it was. We had a neat experience because Dieter F. Uchtdorf was a pilot, and we have a child who is interested in doing that for a career. So it was neat to see that child draw a connection to him. I think it helps to view them as real people with families and hobbies, it makes them more relatable to us. To me, this is so important for our children. The more they can connect and relate to a speaker, the more they will listen and trust what they have to say.

5. The next idea I had was to do October 2012 week 1, since we will have general conference that week. You can find some thoughts from me here. And you can find the outline from the church for this week here.

6. Movie and snacks. This is a really simple, really fun thing for the kids to get to do. You could bring in a couple big blankets, push the chairs to the wall, pop some popcorn and enjoy a movie together. My family has The Living Scriptures, The Prodigal Son. We watched this a few weeks ago for FHE, and it was so cute. My son was a little to young to appreciate it, but I think it's perfect for the primary aged kids. The great thing is they have so many different movies that you can find one to fit whatever lesson you want to teach. You do have to pay for these, but chances are if you don't have some, someone else in your branch/ward will. Ask teachers, councelors, or other moms. If you can't find any, the church library always has some fun movies to watch.

I hope you guys were able to find something fun to do this week and think outside the box. Let me know what you guys end up doing!

Prophet Thomas S. Monson Coloring Page

I have been thinking a lot about General Conference and what we as parents can do to prepare for the inevitable struggle with our children during this time. I know my son is too little to understand what is going on, or to get anything out of General Conference, but he won't be for long. I have been researching a lot of different ideas for what to do with the kids during conference, things to keep them occupied or things to help them stay focused. I've found so many great ideas out there that I really liked I wanted to hopefully compile a few different ideas into one place.  That is something I'm going to work on over the next couple of days so please check back by Monday night hopefully I will have everything up, and a few of my own added.

What I wanted to share tonight was a project my husband and I worked on together. As I was looking through all of these ideas, I noticed that there weren't very many options for a coloring page of the prophet, Thomas S. Monson. I thought it was strange because it was something basic I wanted to include in a packet for my primary kids. Anyways, I decided that I can draw a little bit (a VERY little bit) and my husband can draw really well, so between the two of us, we can do this! Anyways, below is a link to print the page out. I thought it turned out well, so I hope you do too. :)

Coloring page here.

Sharing Time September 2012 Week 4: I Should Respect Others

This week I am in charge of doing Sharing Time at my church. It is about a 20-25 minute lesson for the children aged 3-11. Most of the churches around us break it up into two age groups within that, but we're so small that we don't. It's difficult sometimes to target everyone within that age group, but I usually find some way to not lose the younger ones while getting the older ones involved.  Anyways, I wanted to post my thoughts to maybe get some people brainstorming.

The first thing I'll do is share a short story about a friend of mine and how we are really great friends but have different talents. I am doing this to illustrate that everyone is good a something, even if it is just being kind to others, it doesn't have to be the piano, singing, or drawing. I am then going to have the children go around and say one thing that makes them unique. It could be something like the piano, or it could be something along the lines of "I really like bugs." (We don't have very many children so I think we'll be able to go through this quickly, you may have to nix this idea if you have lots of kids.) Again, the point of this is to illustrate that we are all unique and special in our own ways. I have some stickers my mom gave me a while ago that say "I am special" and "I am a child of God," I am going to hand these out while they're doing this.

Then I am going to draw a parellel between the idea that we are all unique and special, and Heavenly Father loves us, to the idea that we need to be kind and respectful to others. This should be pretty simple. I just want them to understand that we need to remember that everyone is special in their own way so we should be kind and loving towards them. I will probably use the word respectful instead, and that way they can brainstorm what it is to be respectful.

I got this idea from someone posting on Sugardoodle. The link for Sugardoodle is at the bottom of this page and her comments are in that section. I'm not sure how to work it in quite yet but I really like it. I'm thinking maybe at this point would be a good place. If not, I will just veto the whole idea and move onto the next part. What you do is start by inviting a child up to talk about something. It can be to read a scripture, talk about their week, share an experience, it doesn't really matter what it is they're sharing. I am going to go and talk to another adult in the room a little noisely. I am probably going to choose for them to read a scripture. Maybe the ten commandments? The whole point of this is for the children to be a little distracted and to illustrate how disrespectful it is to talk while someone else is supposed to have the floor. I am going to ask the child who stood up how it felt when I was being rude.
I try to use scriptures as often as possible in these, so I am going to have an older child read Mosiah 18:21, and then hopefully explain the idea behind it.

Then I want to tie in the idea of the Good Samaritan. I may be short on time, but I really like the idea of using scriptures, to get the children used to pulling them out and being familiar with them. So I am hoping to make it to this part so we can read it outloud and discuss why this demonstrates respect. I also found a good coloring or activity page about the Good Samaritan for them to take home (or if this, by some miracle, is really short, can fill in the remaining time). You can see where I got it here.

I will close by sharing my testimony on loving thy neighbor, the ten commandments, and how respecting others can make us happier and our lives better.


Here is a link to the official guideline from the church for this week. (On Sugardoodle)