Come, Follow Me for Families- Dec. 31- Jan. 6

Title: "We are Responsible for Our Own Learning"

Song Ideas: Come, Follow Me (Hymn 116), Search, Ponder, and Pray (CS 109), Seek the Lord Early (CS 108), Books of the New Testament (CS 116), I'm Learning the Ways of Jesus

Videos: The Ten Lepers

             The Parable of the Sower

             Likening the Scriptures

            The Most Important Things to Learn

Pictures: Pictures of Jesus Christ

              Bright Ideas Poster

Activities: A Journey to Learn about Jesus Christ

                 Learn! by Elder Uchtdorf

                 I Have a Question

                Coloring Page: Adam and Eve Teach Their Children

               After discussing the Parable of the Sower, grow sprouts or grow beans in a bag.

              A Lesson From Seeds

Who, What, and How Singing Time

Today we played the "Who, What, and How" game. I have these cubes for this game.

In the what cube I put the program songs that we have worked on this year and the last one was a free choice.

The who cube gave options for who sang- kids, teachers, if you have a pet, etc.

The how cube had things like eyes wide open, lights out, etc.

This was a great way to change things up and give everyone a turn.

I found most the options for our cubes at http://ocdprimarychorister.blogspot.com.

Mother's Day Singing Time

I stumbled across this idea and this idea and decided to merge them for Mother's Day. (We'll spend a few minutes working on our May song first.)

Items Needed:

Apron, shoes, band-aid, cleaning wipes, heart, glasses, bag to put everything in

Plan of Action:

Hand out numbers 1- 6 to reverent children in primary.

Find the oldest girl in Primary that day

and ask him to come be the

"Mom in Training."

Set her on a chair in front of the room

Read the Official Mom School Entrance Letter

Welcome to Mom School,

You will be attending Mom School today to help

prepare you for all the things you are going to

 need to know when you grow up and become a Mom. 

Please put on your pearl necklace as your first assignment.

Sincerely

Sis. E

Head Master

  

Call the child who has # 1 to find the apron and put

 on the Mom in Training.

1.   Apron: Cooking helps to provide for your family and gives time to be with your family.

Song: Popcorn Popping (p. 242)

Call the child who has #2 to find the shoes and

put them on the Mom in Training.

 

2. Shoes: Walk in righteousness so your future children will follow you.

Song: Do As I’m Doing (p. 276)

Call the child who has #3 to find the band-aid and

 put it on the Mom in Training

3. Band-aid: You will need to know how to fix things that are broken and help your children smile when they are having a bad day.

Smiles (p. 267)

Call the child who has #4 to find the Cleaning Wipes 

and hand it to the Mom in Training

 

4. Cleaning Wipes: You can show your future children how to be helpful.

When We’re Helping, We’re Happy (p. 198)

Call the child who has #5 to find the heart and put

it on the Mom in Training

5. Heart: You can love your future family and teach them that Heavenly Father loves them too.

My Heavenly Father Loves Me (p. 228)

Call the child who has #6 to find the glasses and

put it on the Mom in Training

 

6.Glasses: You can read and teach your future

children about the scriptures.

Book of Mormon Stories (p. 118)

Congratulations! You have completed your training in Mom School, and have many of the tools you will need to be a successful Mom.

General Conference Helps

For packets and helps for kids for General Conference, hop on over to my pinterest board, found here.

Some of my favorite ideas include:



- a song to learn the names of the First Presidency and apostles,



- this General Conference folder,



and these fun Conference dot pages.

I can gain a testimony of Jesus Christ.

Ideas:

- Talk about the five parts of a testimony. Have each child trace their hands and then cut and paste the pictures from this page on each finger.

- Have a few guest speakers come in and share an experience that helped them gain a testimony.

- Talk about what you need to do to gain a testimony. Pres. Eyring has a great example in The Friend here. Bring in different types of seeds and talk about what needs to happen to make them into plants. 

- Show this video of apostles bearing their testimonies. Encourage the children to both listen and feel. Talk about what they saw and felt after the video. Did they use similar words or phrases? Did you feel good inside? etc. 

Agency is the gift to choose for myself.

Jr. Primary- 

Materials needed- Gospel Art Kit pictures (ex. David and Goliath, Daniel in the lion's den, the 10 lepers, the good Samaritan, etc.)

A smiley face and a frowny face

Plan-

I will start off with some choices for the children and will make it a little wiggle activity. 

Ex. Show an apple and an orange. Say, "If you would choose the apple, touch your nose. If you would choose the orange, wiggle your fingers."

After a few of these and then talk about choices. Then we'll read 2 Nephi 2:27 like in the outline and discuss how Heavenly Father wants us to be able to make choices.

Then the children break up into groups. I will have several pictures from the gospel art kit hung up around the Primary room. Each group will pick a picture, review the story and talk about the choices that we're made. Each group will tell the primary what they learned. 

After they tell their story, they will have then pick the one (or both) that go along with their scripture story to emphasize that our choices have consequences.

Sr. Primary-

Materials needed- Gospel Art Kit pictures (as shown above)

Plan-

Start off with the agency cards as found here. 

Read 2 Nephi 2:27 and discuss agency.

Split children off into pairs and have them work on the gospel art kit pictures as shown in Jr. Primary.

The Polar Express- Texas style

Last week we had our Christmas Ward social. 

Deep in the heart of Texas!

Reading The Polar Express with a Texas twist

We served bbq sandwiches, potato salad, beans, chips, and water.

Our Texas Polar Express.

After the ride, Santa came and the children each got a bag. In the present was a cd with next year's program music, an ornament, and some candy.

Then we served cookies and hot chocolate and sang a few Christmas carols.

Christ-Centered Christmas

Every year I feel the pull to make Christ the center of our focus this time of year. There is so many good ideas out there and the focus is finding balance in it all.

Here is what we are doing-

Acts of service- We are trying to do one a day. (More on this after Christmas.)

Christmas Music- I found a wonderful playlist of Christ-centered Christmas songs here.

Christmas with the Prophets- This unit study looks great!

Scripture advents- There are so many cute one on the internet.

Some family focused traditions include-

The Monday night before Christmas we pile in the car to drive around looking at the lights.

Receiving new pj's on Christmas Eve

Getting together with extended family on Christmas Eve and acting out Luke 2

Reading a Christmas picture book each night

New Calling

Today I was called to serve in the Primary Presidency.



Here is my new pinterest board.

2013 Young Women in Excellence- Daughter of a King

 We had our Young Women in Excellence last night.

For the program we decided to adapt a few Jenny Phillips programs. We shortened and combined her Daughter of a King and Happily Ever After. For one of the videos, we made our own slide show from pictures of the last year.

 Then we had our coronation of the princesses. We asked the parents to write a few sentences about what makes their daughter unique and a princess. We read this and then each girl was given a wand with Daughter of a King written on it. (We invited the ward to come and the primary girls were invited to wear princess dresses. I had the girls give the wands when we were finished reading.)

The two mutual nights before, the young women were divided up into decorating and refreshment committees. This was a wonderful way to get them involved and to remind them to come! It worked out well and I was impressed with the finished product.

2013 Young Women in Excellence- Daughter of a King

We're gearing up for our Young Women in Excellence in October.


I have a pinterest board full of fun ideas.

I printed off this image as a 4x6 at Walmart and used it as the front of our invitation.

On the back I wrote out all of the details and taped it with gold washi tape to dress it up.

We are combining two Jenny Phillips programs to adapt to what the Laurels wanted.

We also split up the Mia Maids and Beehives into a decorating committee and a refreshment committee. We will use the next two mutuals to plan and prepare for our Young Women in Excellence.

2014 Theme.... Come Unto Christ

The 2014 mutual theme has been announced. It will be

“Come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness” (Moroni 10:32).

Here is my pinterest board for the theme. 

Etiquette Dinner

Last night we had an etiquette dinner. We decided to keep it simple for this time and if they liked it, do a formal one later. 

Menu-

Appetizer- salad

Main course- Manicotti, breadsticks, and green beans

Dessert- cheesecake with topping options

The week before the young women made the manicotti and the dough for the breadsticks and then froze them. The youth were given invitations and asked to r.s.v.p. with one of the young women leaders. We decorated with black and white. I had a classical station through Pandora to play while they ate. The dress was Sunday best.

We started off in the young women's room with basic etiquette. Then we moved into the gym. I was going to have the young men escort the young women and pull out their chairs but we were missing several of our young men. After serving the salads, the youth listened to some dining etiquette. During the main course, the youth were allowed to ask questions. 

Car Care

The end of july we held a Car Care Night. We had three brothers help out so that we could have 3-4 girls per vehicle. They checked fluids, changed a tire, discussed emergency procedures, and had some dirty hands to show for it.

How many young women does it take to change a tire?

I gave them a handout about car care after we were done.

Standards Night Live

 We watched a few segments off Standards Night Live tonight for mutual. It was entertaining but educational and the young women enjoyed watching. He puts it in a non-confrontational way and does a wonderful job of relating to the youth. I'm looking forward to watching the rest of it!

Book of Mormon Read-a-thon

Our youth conference this year will be Moroni's Quest, Book of Mormon themed. They challenged the stake to read or re-read the Book of Mormon before youth conference. We had talked the last several months about doing a read-a-thon and the challenge confirmed the need to do it. A few weeks before the event, we mailed letters out the parents with details. We held it over a three day period, Friday- 1pm-10pm, Saturday- 8am-4pm, and Monday- 1:30pm-7pm. We completed the Book of Mormon and had some great discussions about it. 

For food, we brought snack things- water bottles, candy, trail mix, gum, etc. We kept the food simple for meals- baked potatoes, pulled pork sandwiches on rolls, pancakes, and a deli tray.

For the reading part, we spent 90% of the time listing to the podcasts at 1.5x speed. We did stop every once in a while and take turns reading but the podcasts were able to move faster. 

We held it in the gym for Friday and Monday and stayed at a counselor's house for Saturday. It was nice to spread out in the gym and have everyone take a good amount of space for wiggle room.

We brought the soft cover Book of Mormons and highlighters for the young women to use if they did not bring their own. I also brought a reading chart for the young women to color in as they read along.

Things that helped keep us awake- finger nail polish, snacks, coloring pages, walking around the gym. I also downloaded some songs to my iPad for brain breaks- Cha Cha Slide, Hokey Pokey, Sid Shuffle 

Assessment- I think it was a great project and I think the young women enjoyed it. The reading chart was a great way for everyone to keep up. I don't think I would recommend trying to do it in less than three days, so much information packed in so little time. In fact, I think if we do this again, I would stretch it out to four or five days. The brain breaks were a great way to move and then quickly re-group.