In the last couple of months Jeff and I have been feeling like we need to be consistently having FHE with Landon. We've tried before ... and it just seemed so difficult we always gave up after a week or two. But we both feel like it is really important ... so here goes!
To make it a little easier to focus we came up with a list of monthly "themes" so we at least have a starting point each month. Then he and I have just been brainstorming what we think will work and help Landon learn something about the gospel. Our lesson/activities last about 5-10 minutes tops, but so far Landon seems to be having fun with them. I thought I would share on here the themes we've picked out and a few of the things we have done in the past few weeks. We are SO brand new at this I would love to hear ideas about what has worked with your kids, where to get cute activity ideas/print offs, etc. The more ideas we share the more everyone benefits!!
September: Preparedness
In September we went to the store and bought food storage (separate from an actual grocery shopping so it was more obvious what we were doing) as a family and talked about it, we taught Landon how to turn on a flashlight in case of an emergency and talked about how light makes dark less scary, and then we packed our car with an emergency kit. That was my favorite activity because Landon has a little car that he can ride in and that is the car we had him help us pack. It was a good hands-on experience I think.
October: Temples
Monday night we took a picnic to the Provo temple and ate dinner and talked about the temple. He loves the temple and points them out as soon as he sees one, so I'm feeling good about this month's theme! Next week we are going to color "I love to see the temple" pictures and practice the primary song. Other things I have thought of are: talking about how we get ready to go to the temple someday (with some kind of hands on activity), and then talking about how Heavenly Father gave each of us our bodies, which is its own kind of temple then talk about how we take care of our bodies. That sounds much more complicated than it will actually turn out ... but you get the general direction I'm going.
The rest of the themes we came up with:
November: Thanksgiving/Gratitude
December: Christmas
January: Missionary Work
February: Love One Another
March: Families are Forever
April: Easter
May: Nature/The World
June: Country/Patriotism
July: Pioneers
August: Reverence (although I'll be honest ... he could really use this one now :)!)
Then we'll start back over with Preparedness or adjust our list. I'm sure there are books out there, but I usually feel like they cater to older kids. However if you know of any that are great for the toddler to preschool age, please let me know or if you have any thoughts, ideas or reference material you can pass along it will be appreciated!!
2 comments:
We do our lessons straight from the nursery manual (I think it's called Behold Your Little Ones). It has some awesome topics, with songs, stories, pictures, and poems that kids like, and Eric and I take turns teaching it. Each lesson can be as short or as long as you want - ours are typically about 2-3 minutes to keep toddler attention spans.
I like it because it takes about 2 minutes to read it and prepare each lesson, and it's already in wording that little kids understand.
I love your ideas! Way cute.
I bought our own nursery manual from the book store. But now that Macey is four I mix our lessons from the nursery manual and the CTR 5 book to cater to both girls. Keep it simple and gospel based and you can't go wrong. :-)
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