I'm always on the lookout for new family home evening ideas, so I thought I'd share what we've been doing and what has really worked for us the past couple months. For about 2 years I used the nursery manual and each Monday night we just did a quick 5 min. lesson from the manual. It was perfect for our family with Tyler still being in nursery and Kylee being just a baby because the lessons were geared towards exactly what they needed. About 6 weeks ago we finished the manual for the third time so we thought it'd be a good time to change things up! Now that Tyler is well out of nursery and Kylee will be in primary in January, the nursery lessons are a little too young for them. Tyler needs way more interactive lessons and activities and Kylee needs to start practicing sitting and listening for longer periods of time.
I am a planner. I like to know what's going on, when and what I need to be prepared for. Using the nursery manual was easy in this way...lesson #1 then lesson #2, etc. Simple. I always knew what I was doing and only needed to spend a few minuets preparing. So in switching things up, I still wanted our FHE's to be easy to plan, in that I would know what I was going to be doing every week without spending hours on the internet Monday afternoon looking for ideas for that night. After talking to Bobby, we decided that the best thing for our family (considering their ages and likes and interests) would be to work through the Book of Mormon Stories starting with 1 Nephi and ending with the stories in Moroni. Using the Book of Mormon stories Beginning Reader, I went through and made up a 3 month (Sept.-Nov.) outline of lessons for each Mon. night.
I then made a list of different activities we could do that could work with any lesson (role playing, treasure hunt, balloon popping game, bubble activities, etc.). This way when Mon. rolls around I look at the lesson we're doing, pick an activity off the list and print off any pictures I need, gather supplies, make a quick crafty thing, etc. to prepare for that night. It usually takes about 30 min. to get everything together and our family home evenings have been a HIT! I often catch the kids playing "family home evening time." and tyler actually had a meltdown because it was thursday last week and he wanted to have FHE!
Another problem we had was always singing the SAME songs every week. I really want them to learn lots of primary songs (especially the ones for the primary program), so I made a Bricker Family Song bag that has 8 different songs printed on individual slips of paper (2 per fhe for the 4 weeks in the month), so we're singing a different song every time. Then I try to sing those songs with them during the week so they get to know them better.
The last thing we changed up was adding a scripture to our family home evenings. I picked one scripture for each month, from the lessons or chapters in the BOM that we were going to be covering, and we say it together before the lesson. I printed it off and it sits on our fridge so we can practice it during the week as well. The scripture from Sept. was 1 Nephi 3:7, which is a bit longer of a scripture, and they both almost have it memorized so we're actually just going to keep it for Oct. as well so that they really know it.
During our lessons/activities we will briefly talk about the doctrinal points, but mostly I'm just wanting them to learn the stories and HAVE FUN! I'm hoping that as they learn these stories and grow to love them now when they're little, they'll be able to look back on them when they're older and better understand the principle behind the story and be able to apply it to their own lives because the foundation has been built.
So for example, we started out our re-vamped FHE's with the story of Nephi, Lamen, Lemuel, and Sam obtaining the brass plates from Laban. I planned 3 monday's to go over the story. Week 1 we did the first 2 attempts at the brothers trying to get the plates and ended with the Angel coming to stop L&L from beating N&S with sticks. For this lesson we acted it out using sock puppets and a few simple props.
The 2nd week we finished the story by acting it out. Kylee loved being Nephi and getting to cut off Laban's (daddy's) head and then getting to tackle Zoram (tyler) to the ground and convince him to go back into the wilderness with them. Just grabbing a few "dress-up" things to act out the story with made SUCH a difference to them and made it a really memorable night!
The 3rd week we did a review of the story by going on a Q&A treausre hunt. I would ask them questions from the story and when they got it right they could get their clue to go to the next place. They found these bags of "treasure" waiting for them at the end of the hunt and we talked about how obtaining the brass plates was a treasure for their family and they are now a treasure for us.
The next story we did was Lehi's dream of the Tree of Life. Which was broken up over 3 weeks as well. The first week we quickly reviewed the story from the scriptures and then put together these pieces (that I had already prepared...don't laugh. Okay you can laugh, I'm not the best artist mmmkay!) onto a posterboard. The kids were VERY intrigued by which people were happy and sad and had fun putting them in different spots on the board. I was really impressed by the questions-especially Tyler-was asking and we had a great impromptu conversation about making good choices and consequences!
The second week I busted out a bunch of craft supplies and a large sheet of paper and we got to work recreating the tree of life with our own skillz! Ha ha, the kids LOOOOVED doing this, so far this was their favorite.
We had to let all the glitter paint dry overnight since they don't really have a great understanding of 'a little goes a long way' before they could hold it up for a picture, but here it is! Didn't they do so good?! :)
For the 3rd week, we did a review of the story but this time I made a simple board game on posterboard and cards that had questions. If they answered the question right, they got to roll the dice and move that many spaces forward till they reached the tree! Easy Shmeesy!
This next week we'll be doing the story of the Liahona and we'll just keep on keepin' on from there! I'm so thankful for the spirit that has been added to our home during family home evening and the excitement that they feel when we talk about the stories and prophets. Hopefully we'll be able to keep this momentum up for awhile! :)
What kinds of things do you do for family home evening? Do you have any good websites to recommend?!
