Growing Up to be Dads and Moms – July 7 Sharing Time or Family Night Idea

The July 2013 theme, “Families are Part of Heavenly Father’s Plan,” lends itself to children thinking ahead to families of their own. Week 1 suggests that you “Ask the boys to stand. Explain that they can each be the father of a righteous family someday. Ask the girls to stand, and explain that they can each be the mother of a righteous family.” (2013 Outline for Sharing Time, 14.) Here’s  something you can do to help the children experience this, and to plan now to be good fathers and mothers. Thanks to today’s guest Brenna, a remarkable Primary leader with a deep well of clever ideas that help children  learn in fun ways AND feel the Spirit.

Bring a woman’s blouse, skirt, shoes, and scarf or necklace.

In a separate bag, bring a man’s shirt, pants, shoes, and a tie (loosely tied to fit over a child’s head).

Starting with the girls, ask a child to come up and pull each item out of the bag. Set aside on a chair or table. Then ask for two volunteers — one girl to dress in the woman’s clothes and one girl to help her. While they do, everyone sings the song of the month “Families Can Be Together Forever” (Children’s Songbook 188). See if they can finish getting dressed before you finish singing the song! Then talk about how she has some growing to do before she’s ready to be a mom, both inside and outside. “Ask a few of the girls to say something they might do to be a good mother.”  (2013 Outline for Sharing Time, 14.)  Repeat with the boys.

If time allows, repeat once more for each gender, this time asking the teachers to think of ways the girls and boys can prepare to be good moms and dads.

The promise of eternal families is one of the sweetest blessings of the restored gospel. I hope the children in your Primary or in your home feel the Spirit testifying to them that families are part of Heavenly Father’s plan of happiness.

Hands-on Singing: “Song Sticks”

Music.  I love it.  It’s our best teaching power tool!

I recently visited a Nursery class in my stake and learned a clever idea.  The Nursery leader, Sarah, had chosen a bunch of songs that she wanted to sing with the children on a regular basis.  She created a “stick” for each song.  The kids knew them as their “song sticks”.

Left to right: Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam; Book of Mormon Stories; Once There was a Snowman; I Am a Child of God; I am Like a Star Shining Brightly; Popcorn Popping.

How to Create Song Sticks:

1. Draw or trace a simple picture on a sheet of Shrinky Dinks plastic. (Do you remember these from your childhood?  They are still available at craft stores).
2. Follow the “shrinking” instructions on the packaging.
3. With a hot glue gun, adhere the very sturdy picture onto the end of a large craft stick (tongue depressor). (These are also available widely at craft stores).
4. Write the name of the song on the back of each stick if you’d like, but the kids will know the songs by the pictures in no time at all.
5. Consider making 1 set for the whole class and handing each child a stick at circle time, or for smaller classes, you could create a set for each child so as you sing a particular song they can each hold the corresponding stick.  You could make a set and put in a jar, and have a child draw out one to see what song to sing next. Whatever works for you!  These sticks can double as a conducting baton, kids love to conduct and you can sneak in some rhythm training without them even knowing it.

Nursery is a foundation for Primary preparation.  By learning Primary songs in Nursery, children are getting themselves ready to transition smoothly into Primary when they become a Sunbeam.  Remember, children can learn a Primary song just as easy as they can learn a secular song like Wheels on the Bus, and invite the Spirit at the same time. A lot of these secular songs are fun because of their traditional actions.  Primary songs can easily have actions too; just learn a few basic, simple American Sign Language signs such as Jesus, Commandment, God, Praise and Love and you are off to a great start!

These “song sticks” could also be used as a helpful transition in January for the new Sunbeams.  Pass a set of “song sticks” on to the Primary Music Chorister so she knows which songs the Sunbeams are really familiar with and so she can hand them to the Sunbeams to help keep those fidgety hands occupied in the first few weeks of the new year.

~Michelle, with guest contributor Sarah

Instant Lesson

It’s the moment you dread — a teacher or member of the presidency is home with a sick child, and you’re on stage — with no time to prepare. You can count on this happening sometime (make that often) in your lifetime, so you may as well have a permanent trick up your sleeve. Here’s one: get the children to teach the lesson. Here’s how it works –

I call it  ”Student’s Choice – Songs & Scriptures.”

Ask a child to choose his favorite song. Look up the song in the Children’s Songbook (CS) or Hymns. Sing the song, then go to the bottom right corner of the page in the songbook for two scriptures that relate to the song topic. For example, a child chooses “Baptism” (CS, 100). The bottom right corner of the songbook page leads you to Matthew 3:13-16, the story of Christ’s baptism, and the 4th Article of Faith. Teach about that principle, bearing testimony as you feel prompted, perhaps asking a child to share an experience. Repeat as time allows.

In short: sing, read the corresponding scriptures, discuss, testify.

Variation – Open the songbook at random, and sing that song, look up the scripture, and discuss. If it’s a song you don’t know, close the book and try again.

By the way, this works with children of any age. The most memorable time that I did this was when I was asked to substitute for early morning seminary. No one foresaw that the absent seminary teacher had the building key. As the students arrived in the parking lot outside the locked building in the dark, we chose the largest car and all piled in. We had an opening prayer and hymn. By streetlight, as we waited for the sun to come up, the students shared, one by one, their favorite scripture story or hymn. The Spirit was strong and sweet.

Good luck — now you’re ready for the unexpected!

-Marci

Women and Service in the Kingdom: a Sharing Time or family night lesson for girls AND boys

(Hint: there’s 5 Sundays in June — this might make a good 5th Sunday lesson!)

“How come boys get to do all the fun stuff?” asked a girl after a sharing time lesson about the priesthood. I replied, “Boys and men get to do the priesthood stuff, but that’s not the same as the fun stuff! Girls get to do lots of fun stuff!”

Rebecca, today’s guest author, received similar questions from children in her ward. Rebecca gave this Sharing Time lesson on a 5th Sunday in her ward to let girls AND boys know about the valuable role of women in the church. Without trying to answer unanswerable questions like “why is the priesthood reserved for men,” Rebecca’s lesson simply points children to some of the strong women leaders current and past, and teaches children the three purposes of Relief Society (can you name them?). It was a powerful lesson, simply presented in an engaging way, giving girls and boys a greater understanding of God’s love for his daughters and sons, and God’s need for all His children to serve in the kingdom.

Dowload the 1) lesson outline, 2) current women leaders, and 3) pictures to illustrate the history and purpose of Relief Society. The photos you see are of the jigsaw puzzle (particularly good for Junior Primary) and matching game (particularly good for Senior Primary).

thank you, Rebecca!

-Marci

Impressions: How My Primary Calling Led to an Unexpected Conversion

Stephanie (left) and Jenn (right) at Stephanie’s baptism

Having served as a ward Primary president for almost three years now, I can attest to the fact that the Lord is involved in the small details of our callings.  It has been humbling to look back and see how many times the Lord has answered my prayers – about names to request for new teachers, how to approach a particular Sharing Time lesson, or how to make a yearly theme penetrate the hearts of our children.  Whether the matter is great or small, it seems that the Lord always cares enough to provide an answer.  The impressions and answers that have come to me as part of my calling have testified to me that our Heavenly Father truly loves each child in my Primary. 

The thing that has surprised me though, is that the answers I have received for my calling have actually been more far-reaching than just the circle of 50 children I influence.  Let me tell you a story about how the “little” answers for “small” details in my Primary calling recently led to the baptism of a new friend.

In planning for our yearly Sacrament Meeting program, each year I have felt impressed to make the program a missionary opportunity for families.  In my opinion, the Primary program is the perfect Sunday for people to invite friends and neighbors to church.  The program is sure to be lively, pure, and beautiful, and visitors are almost guaranteed to feel the Spirit as children sing with all their hearts.  I always like to create a simple invitation for families to pass out to friends and neighbors, letting them know about the program.  And inviting friends to the Primary program is easy — you just let the kids hand over an invitation with an irresistible smile. (See here for a sample invitation and more ideas.)

But this past year, I felt impressed that I should do even more to make our program a missionary opportunity.  I felt like their testimonies about choosing the right would be the perfect venue for teaching others about our beliefs, and especially to show visitors that our children have a strong support network and a specific dialogue for making good choices.  I created invitations and felt the Spirit guide me as I chose the words to put on the invitation.  In addition to this, I felt impressed to have another child I knew — a member of another faith — participate in our Primary program.  I thought it would be nice to have two children narrating our program – one (my neighborhood friend) asking questions about our beliefs, and another (a girl in our Primary) answering the questions.  This set a nice, open tone to our program, and it was also a great opportunity for my neighborhood friend to come and participate in the program and feel a part of our Primary group.  Her family was very impressed with our beliefs, and this sweet girl said she would cherish what she had learned forever.

Going along with this, I was talking with a friend about my desire to make our program a missionary opportunity, and she mentioned a great idea that her ward had thought of.  They realized that when people invite their friends to the Primary program, it can be a little awkward when the program is over.  People have to rush to Sunday School, and often people who might want to linger and visit about the program are ushered into the noisy foyer.  Their idea was to create an open house reception for those families who have brought visitors to the program.  After Sacrament Meeting was over, they invited all visitors (and the families who had invited them) to go to the gymnasium for mingling and refreshments.  They also had some children’s artwork on display.  I thought this was a marvelous idea, and it felt like something that would fit right in with my other impressions about the program.  We got approval from our Bishopric, and with the help of the ward missionaries, we went ahead with planning this open house.

At the same time I was having all of these little impressions about our Primary program, I met Stephanie.  It was a simple meeting.  I was at a local playground with my children, and she was there with her two daughters.  We shared some small talk, and she and I realized we had something in common — we were both young mothers, something that you don’t see very frequently in our area!  We both joked about feeling somewhat alone, living in our community where we don’t exactly fit into the age-group of other parents.  I mentioned that actually, I belong to a church where most of the members are young parents – just like us.  I told her she would fit right in at my church!

At the end of our playground visit, Stephanie and I exchanged phone numbers.  We started getting together a little bit, and I introduced her to a few of my friends from church.  I invited her to a few of our ward’s playgroup activities, and she happily joined in and seemed to enjoy meeting other young moms.  When the time came to invite Stephanie to our Primary program, it was easy.  The invitations were printed, and all I had to do was hand her the slip of paper.  She seemed genuinely interested, and she agreed to come!

The program day was a flurry of excitement on so many levels.  The kids did a fabulous job (of course), and my young neighborhood friend narrated beautifully and was a great addition to the speaking parts.  Many other families in the ward had invited friends and neighbors.  We had over 30 visitors, and the open house reception was an exciting and wonderful way to greet people who had just had their first experience at a Latter-Day Saint sacrament meeting.  Stephanie and her family seemed to enjoy the program, and they mingled with other friends in the gymnasium.  I spoke with them briefly, but I was also caught up with meeting other visitors, congratulating the children, and serving treats we had prepared for our Primary kids.

It wasn’t until that night that I found out that our program had actually made an impact on Stephanie.  She sent me a text message saying that her daughter kept asking, “Mommy, why can’t I be in Primary?” and “Mommy, when can we go back to church?”  Stephanie said her daughter’s comments really caught her off-guard, and then she thought, “Why not?”  This news was exciting to me, since Stephanie and I had only spoken casually about the church, and I didn’t really think she had any interest in it.

Later that week, I talked with Stephanie more about the program, asking what she thought about it.  She immediately started asking questions about the Church — LOTS of questions.  The questions turned into a 3-hour discussion about the Church, basically covering the topics of the first four missionary lessons.  It became apparent that Stephanie was really interested.  She came to Church the next Sunday with her daughter, and they loved it.  One thing led to another; she started meeting with the missionaries; and 4 months after I met her at the playground, Stephanie was baptized.  She is an amazing woman — very full of faith and so grateful to now have the gospel in her life.  She wishes she would have had the gospel in her own youth, so she could have avoided some of the confusion she felt and mistakes she made.  She feels a strong desire to teach it to her girls – to provide them with the gospel and the precious gift of truth she never had.  In essence, she wants her daughters to grow up with Primary – so they might have the same support network and dialogue for making good choices that our Primary children have.

I have been amazed to see how the Lord works.  Yes, he cares about each one of His Primary children.  And yes, he cares about each of His children who didn’t grow up with Primary and who are ready to find out what they’ve been missing all their lives.  I am in awe at how He used the Primary as an opportunity to bring Primary into more people’s lives.  I feel humbled and grateful that He was able to use me as an instrument, and in small and simple ways, with little impressions here and there, make a simple Primary program into a tool that changed someone’s life forever.

~Jenn

The Most Important Passenger, The Most Important Class in Cambridge

I looked up from my in-flight reading. A fussy toddler sat on his mother’s lap diagonally across from my aisle seat. I’d spent much of the flight entertaining him with funny faces when he squawked (and I have some award-winning funny faces). He had just dropped a toy car, which rolled towards me. I made the mistake of zooming it back to him in the air across the aisle, complete with sound effects, which brought a broad grin to his face; he eyed me and dropped the car again. I realized I’d started a not-s0-good game across a busy passenger airplane aisle.

I resumed reading the book in my lap. I turned the page and (I’m not making this up) read this story about a former ward member, now a member of the Seventy:

“Bruce Porter was working on his doctoral dissertation at Harvard University during the summer of 1979. Because many members of the Cambridge Second Ward left for the summer, the Primary president approached Bruce and asked if he would be willing to teach Primary for six weeks until some of the teachers returned. Primary met in the middle of the week, so Bruce was reluctant to accept because he was busy with research. Hemming and hawing until things got uncomfortable, the Primary president finally asked if Bruce would be willing to teach a class for two weeks. Still reluctant, Bruce agreed because two weeks was better than six.

“When the first class rolled around the following Wednesday, Bruce was studying world politics in Widener Library, absorbed in what seemed to be terribly significant issues. The Primary class he’d agreed to teach seemed unimportant in comparison and an inconvenient distraction. Delaying for as long as he could, Bruce finally pulled out the manual and skimmed the lesson twenty minutes before Primary was to begin. Leaving the library, Bruce walked slowly toward the Cambridge chapel on the opposite side of Harvard Square, fixated on the time he was being asked to sacrifice. Walking in the shadows of ivy-covered buildings, Bruce could think only about the great seminars, conferences, and classes taking place around him, while he was left to attend to the ordinary, simple task of teaching a small group of children.

“Arriving late at the meetinghouse, Bruce made his way up to the Primary room on the second floor, where opening exercises had already begun. As he stepped through the door of the room, the children began singing a hymn he had never heard before:

As I have loved you, love one another.

This new commandment, love one another.

By this shall men know ye are my disciples,

If ye have love, one to another.  (Hymns, 308)

“As the music faded, Bruce continued to stand frozen at the door, transfixed by the hymn’s beauty and message. His eyes filled with tears as the lesson he had not been seeking became clear.

“‘It struck me with great force that I was looking at the most important class taking place in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that day,’ said Elder Porter. ‘Back on the campus, all kinds of great issues were being discussed. People were searching for answers to the world’s problems, but I was looking at the answer to the world’s problems. . . . Not political or economic schemes, but teaching little children one by one so that they would grow up in righteousness. . . . If we want to build the Lord’s kingdom on earth, we must look to its natural heirs.” (Kristen Smith Dayley, For All the Saints, Cedar Fort Inc., 2012, 184-5, 183).

I thought back to my morning prayer — that God would lead me to someone I could help today. I didn’t expect it to be a toddler, but I was so pleased that the Lord answered my prayer in that way. I realized that I had just played a simple game of funny faces with one of the most important passengers on the flight that day.

God bless you as you work with His treasured children in Primary and in your home.

-Marci

Prophets Teach Me to Live the Word of Wisdom: Sharing Time or family night ideas

In May, during Sharing Time, we’ll be teaching and learning all about how the “Prophets Teach Us to Live the Restored Gospel”.  Recently, Marci shared some great guidance, straight from our living Prophet’s recent General Conference talks, that is perfect for the first couple weekly sub-themes.

On week 4 we get to teach about the Word of Wisdom!  In the early days of my missionary service in Spain I don’t think I ever felt an ‘exclamation point’ when saying that we were going to teach someone about the Word of Wisdom.  I knew it was a hard challenge to quit smoking or forego drinking that traditional glass of wine with dinner every evening, or giving up the morning coffee routine.  I was always a little nervous to ask my investigators to make that commitment because I was afraid it would scare them away.  And the truth is, it did scare some investigators away.  But what I came to learn was this: when you know that Joseph Smith was a true prophet, and that we receive revelations from God in the latter-days, then the Word of Wisdom should have an exclamation point behind it, all the time!  Teaching someone about how to keep their body healthy and their mind clear and how to call upon God to pour out his blessings for their obedience was a life changing moment!

Seeing people learn about the Word of Wisdom for the first time and embracing it with all its blessings was a real testimony-building experience.  Now years later, I can look back and see how much the Word of Wisdom blessed my life and my mind and body even before I fully appreciated it.  Now I appreciate it even more and try and teach my own children, who are like mini-”investigators” really, that living the Word of Wisdom is a blessing not a sacrifice!

Here’s a wonderful Word of Wisdom sorting game (created by my dear friend Adrienne) that will give you lots of opportunities to teach while the children take turns deciding if a certain food or beverage should get placed under, “Yes, please!” or “No, thank you!”  And you could also sing the classic Primary song that never gets enough attention, For Health and Strength (CS 21).

Enjoy sharing your testimonies about the Word of Wisdom!

~Michelle