Easter

****I am several weeks behind in my posts. We have had FHE each week, but I just haven't had the time to share what we have done recently, as I prepare for our new baby. However I came up with our Easter FHE for Monday night and thought I'd share it with anyone still looking for ideas. There won't be any pics until tomorrow night, but here are the plans.

Opening Song: "Did Jesus Really Live Again?"

Attention Activity: Hide the 12 Resurrection Eggs (see below) and allow the children to find them and place them in a basket.

Lesson: Resurrection Eggs. The idea is to place objects representing the last week of the Savior's life inside eggs to teach about Easter. There are tons of ways to do these and I have found lots of ideas on the internet. I have combined my favorite ideas for toddlers and preschoolers here below. WE ARE NOT DOING THESE ALL IN ONE NIGHT. OUR FAMILY HAS DECIDED TO DOspread the 12 eggs over the entire week at bedtime for our family scripture study between FHE and Easter Sunday. But they could be used as a lesson if your kids' attention span is a little longer. We are just introducing the eggs and Opening the first one at FHE.

A-Gather 12 Easter Eggs and number them on the outside. Fill them with the following objects and collect the pictures from your Gospel Art Kit or find them online here.

B-Allow the children to open each egg in order and ask the children to look at the picture or listen for the scripture story to talk about the object in the egg. I am reading the scripture on the back of each picture. In some cases there was no picture so I am using the Children's New Testament. (CNT)

1- Palm Sunday: a leaf : GAK 223 (Monday Night)
2- The Sacrament/ Last Supper: a sacrament cup GAK 225 (Tuesday Night)
3- Jesus Washes the Disciples Feet: a cloth GAK 226 (Tuesday Night)
4- The Garden of Gethsemane: rock GAK 227 (Wednesday Night)
5- Judas's Betrayal: three dimes GAK 228 (Wednesday Night)
6: The King of The Jews: thorns CNT pg. 117 Chapter 41((Thursday Night)
7: The Cruxifiction: a cross made of toothpicks GAK 230 (Friday Night)
8: The Cruxifiction: a nail GAK 230 (Friday Night)
9: Mocking the Savior's Thirst: a sponge GAK 230 (Friday Night)
10: Preparing the Savior's Body for Burial: a bundle of cloves GAK 231(Saturday Night)

11: The Stone in Front of the Tomb is Moved: a stone–rounded would be best GAK 232/245 (Saturday Night)
12: The Savior is Resurrected: leave empty GAK 239 (Sunday morning before our Easter Baskets)

Activities:

1-We played the Savior Matching Game together. I printed and colored the pieces and placed them in a basket. The boys took turns taking out a piece and matching it to the game board while I read the sentence about Jesus.

2-I made these moveable Easter Story Pieces from the Friend for the boys and we said the fingerplay below while we moved the pieces .

Jesus is Risen (Fingerplay)

by Dana Eaton

Here is the place where Jesus lay; (point)

See, the stone has been rolled away!

Stoop down; look in (stoop sown and shade eyes with hand)

He is not here! (stand up)

Jesus is risen! Be of good cheer! (clap hands)

3-Then we painted Easter Eggs together. We have found painting boiled eggs with washable paint to be an enjoyable and less messy experience for everyone.

Closing Song: "He Sent His Son."

Day 5-The Birds and the Fish

Opening Song: Birds in a Tree (CS 241)

Lesson: We read Genesis 1:20-23 in the Old Testament. We asked the boys to name animals that live in the water and animals that fly. We showed pictures of birds and fish from books we have.

Music: We sang songs together about birds and fish. We sang In the Leafy Treetops,(CS 240),
I'm a Little Fishy. and "The Goldfish Song" by the Laurie Berkner Band.

Activity: We played a a Go Fishing Game with a magnetic pole and magnetic fish. You can make your own by following the directions here.




Art: We made birdseed feeders to hang outside from pine cones, birdseed and peanut butter. This can be really messy, so I highly recommend paper plates, plastic table cloth, and parental assistance. Then we took them outside and let each boy choose where to hang his.



Snack: Make bird's nest snacks to eat.

Day 4-Sun, Moon, and Stars

Opening Song: I Am Like A Star Shining Brightly (CS 163)

Lesson: We headed outside with a flashlight, blanket, and binoculars. Together we read the scriptural account of the creation of the sun, moon, and stars in Genesis 1:14-19. We looked at the stars and the moon with our binoculars.



Activity: With our flashlight as our light, we sat outside in the dark and sang songs and read stories about the sun, moon, and stars. We sang "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star," "I See the Moon," and "You Are My Sunshine." We read Goodnight Moon, Happy Birthday Moon, What the Sun Sees/What the Moon Sees, Wake Up Sun, and The Sun and Moon.



Snack: We came inside and ate Astronaut Ice Cream in honor of our outer space creations.


Craft: We made pretend telescopes together out of paper towel rolls. Paint the telescope, add star stickers, and have fun looking through it outside at the stars.


Art: For the 4th page in our book we glued down die cuts of a star, moon and sun.

Closing Song: Jesus Wants Me For A Sunbeam (CS 60)

Water, Water!

Opening Song: Give Said the Little Stream

Lesson: Give each family member a glass of water. Ask them who made the water. We read in Genesis 1:7-8 that on the Second day the water was divided and some was on the earth and some was in the clouds. We discussed why water is important and listed all the ways we use water. (bathe, play, drink, swim, cook, help our garden and animals, wash cars, clean, baptize, etc...)



Activity: We played outside in water! It happened to be warm enough to do so here. However if it had been too cold, I would have brought the water table in the kitchen or garage or used small dishpans to play in. Andrew decided to wash the car, since cleaning was something we talked about doing with water. The evening ended with a huge water fight between Daddy and Andrew.



Learning Activity Outside:
Simple Water Cycle Experiment
1. Give each child a cotton ball to hold. Tell them to pretend that they are holding a cloud.
2. Ask them how does the cloud feel: heavy or light, soft or hard.
3. Instruct the children to place the "cloud" (cotton ball) gently over the cold water. Explain that water that has evaporated has traveled up to the cloud and it is a lot colder up in the sky, so the vapor turns into water, and it is filling up the cloud. Ask: Can you see the "cloud" (cotton ball) filling up with the water.
4. Ask the children to gently pick up the "cloud" (cotton ball) from the pan. Ask: How does the "cloud" feel now? Light or heavy. Warm or cold? What is happening with the water? Yes, the water is dripping from the "cloud". Why? The cloud cannot hold all that water, is too, too, heavy. What do we call when water falls from the clouds because they are too heavy with water? Yes, you are right, rain! It is raining! And what happens to the water? Yes, it is coming right back into the pan, and the pan could be a stream, river, ocean or the ground.



Art Activity: (after we dried off and put on our jammies we did art). We made the second page in our book. We glued clouds (cotton balls) to the top of the paper and water (blue freezer wrap) to the bottom. Ryan went a little crazy with his clouds, and we finally had to cut him off. He loves to glue!



Dessert: We enjoyed blue jello (water) and whipped cream (clouds).
Closing Song: "Rain is Falling"

Let There Be Light

We are teaching the boys about the creation of the Earth. We are focusing on one day at a time, so the next seven weeks will be centered around those themes. Feel free to join us!

Lesson: I turned off all of the lights in our home for the lesson. I pulled out a flashlight and we read about Day One: The Creation of Night and Day in the Children's scriptures. We also read the story from the Bible together in Genesis 1: 1-5. After we had read it through one time from the bible, I gave everyone a flashlight. Each time I said the word "light," they got to turn on and off their flashlights. We read through it several times.



Song: We sang "This Little Light of Mine" together while we made our flashlights dance.

"This little light of mine,I'm gonna let it shine,
This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine,
This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine,
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine!"

(Ryan is using the flashlight as a microphone).

Scripture Memorization: Genesis 1:3 "And God ^asaid, Let there be ^blight: and there was light." For some reason the novelty of flashlights allowed us to accomplish a lot this evening and so we twirled our flashlights while we repeated this scripture over and over until we knew it by heart.

Art Activity: We are making a Creation book over the next 7 weeks. So tonight we did the first page. We gave each boy a piece of yellow and a piece of black paper. We glued them to our first page. It was Ryan's first experience with a glue stick and he loved it!



Activity: We played Flashlight Hide-N-Seek. Each parent took a boy and we took turns hiding in the dark house with our flashlights. Only the call to dessert to get them to stop. (Mommy and Daddy had fun, too).




Snack: Not very creative, but we ate chocolate pudding (night) and topped it with whipped cream (day).



Closing Song: We sang the chorus to "The Lord is My Light" .

Sharing

Preparing: We made 9 dozen cookies to share with other families. We made these yummy cookies from my cousin's blog.






Learning: We read the story of Jesus Feeding the 5000 from the Children's New Testament. Then Andrew helped read a Sharing Pictostory from the Friend. We talked about how we feel when we share.


Storytelling: I shared the story of The Doorbell Rang by Pat Hutchens using flannel board characters and cookies that Ryan and I had made together. I used paper plates and we acted out the story by dividing the cookies up between the plates for each character.








Sharing: While we each ate a cookie, our family chose four other families to bring cookies to together that evening.


Singing: We sang Give Said the Little Stream as we drove around delivering the cookies.

Scripture Memorization: Acts 30:35 "It is more blessed to give than to receive." We memorized the scripture a we drove to deliver the cookies, too.

Jonah and the Whale

Learning: We began FHE in the living room and told the story of Jonah and the Whale using the scriptures and the Flannel Board Story. The Sunbeam Manual has a great outline for questions for young ones that you can use to help them listen for answers in the scriptures.

Hold up the Bible and explain that we can read about fish in the scriptures. Tell the story of Jonah, as found in Jonah 1–3. Explain that Jesus prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah so Jonah would not drown. Jesus had work for Jonah to do. You may want to read aloud a verse or two, such as Jonah 1:17 or Jonah 2:1, as you tell the story. (If you read a verse aloud, explain that Jesus is sometimes called “the Lord.”)

• • Who sent the big fish to swallow Jonah? (See Jonah 1:17.)

• • What did Jonah do when the fish swallowed him? (See Jonah 2:1.)

• • What did Jonah do when he got out of the fish? (See Jonah 3:1–3.)

• • Did the people believe Jonah and repent? (See Jonah 3:5, 10.)

Pretending: Daddy had a great idea to use the Ryan's laundry hamper as the giant fish and the boys pretended to be Jonah as he was swallowed. The result was lots of giggles and pleas of "Again, Again."

Playing: We played "Mother May I?" and practiced listening and obeying.

Painting: We made a whale together as a family project. We sat it on top of our refrigerator this week to remind us to listen and obey. This was a fun activity. Both the boys were able to help and really enjoyed it.

Whale Paper Bag Craft

Singing: We sang the verse about Jonah in the primary song "Follow the Prophet." We also sang "Called to Serve."

"Jonah was a prophet, tried to runaway. But he later learned to listen and obey. When you really try the Lord won't let you fail. That's what Jonah learned deep down inside the whale."

Snacking: Whale Cupcakes: Try these cute cupcakes or go simple and buy the Whales crackers (generic goldfish) from Wal-mart.