The Parable of the Lost Sheep

Attention Activity: PREPARATION: Print off 9 lamb pictures and write one word on each of the sheep from the memory verse Psalms 23 "The Lord is My Shepherd, I shall not want." Number the sheep 1-9 in order so that they will be easy for your little ones to arrange. Hide the sheep with word #5 with "SHEPHERD" printed on it.



Ask the family to help put your little sheep in a row in order. When they realize that one is missing, ask them what we should do? (Hopefully they will answer look for it).

Seek for the sheep together and then finish the verse. Read it together several times until everyone has it memorized.

Scripture Story: Tell the children that you are going to read a story together about a lost sheep that Jesus told. Read Luke 15:4-6 together and explain that the Lord says that we are all His sheep and that if we are lost He will find us. That we are all important to Him, even though there are many of us on Earth. We counted together to 100 and talked about how one little sheep might not seem like a lot, but that all are important to Heavenly Father. We talked together about how Heavenly Father has asked us to help Him look after each other here on Earth. We discussed ways we can be shepherds and explained a little about why Mommy and Daddy go Home and Visiting Teaching.


Game: We played hide and go seek together. When Daddy found the Lost sheep, he picked them up and carried them on his shoulders like a shepherd carrying the sheep. There was lots of giggling.



Service: After our lesson, we carried a treat to share with a family Daddy home teaches.

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."

Wiseman and Foolish Man

Opening Song: "The Wise man Built His House Upon the Rock"

Flannel Board Story: Tell the story from Matthew 7:24-27 of the Wise man and the Foolish man. Act out with Flannel Board Pieces.


Discussion/Activity: We want to build our house upon a rock not sand. Jesus taught us that his gospel is the rock. D&C 11:24 Jesus has given us some tools to help build our house on the rock. Satan wants us to build our house on the sand. He has given us tools to make our house shaky and sink.

Pull Out Tool Box (I labeled tools (Tools to Build Our House I modified this idea for preschoolers and toddlers) from the boys' play tool kit with good tools and bad tools. We sorted them and decided which ones Jesus would help us build a house on rock and which ones would help us build a house on sand).



(Rock tools were: Sharing, Scriptures, Prayer, Helping, FHE, Nice Words, and love. Sand tools were things we are working on extinguishing from our home: Mean words, hitting, lying, not sharing)




We played with the tools and built two houses out of lego blocks.


Then we placed one on sand in a casserole dish and one on a large rock in a casserole dish. We used duct tape as one of our rock tools and labeled it love. We made sure that we used a lot of this "love" to firmly attach our house to the rock.


Next we poured water on each house. The sandy one washed away and the rock house stood firm. (Thank goodness).



Art: We colored Wiseman Foolish Man "Filmstrip"of the song and played with them together. (This are really long, and neither boy finished coloring, much better for older children).

Scripture Memorization: We pounded our fist on our open hand as we repeated D&C 11:24 together over and over.

Snack: We made houses out of Rice Krispie Treats and ate them! We actually had a kit, but I found this cool site with directions for making your own.



Grown-up Lesson: After the boys went to bed, Chad and I used this time to make our own goals for the New Year together to help us Build our house Upon the Rock.

Jesus Calms the Storm

Jesus Calms the Storm

This is both of our boys very favorite family home evening. We have done it many times. We change it up a little bit each time, but Andrew asks for it whenever it is his turn to "teach." It is really easy to put together on a really busy day. It takes virtually no preparation! (Those of my friends who are immersed in Edward and Bella's world right now might need that this week). This past FHE we really focused on the obedience part of the story and how we need to listen to the things Jesus has taught us to do.

Listening: At the dinner table we read the story from the Children's Illustrated Scriptures, Jesus Commands the Wind and Waves. Andrew actually knows this one by heart, so he tells the story to us.

Pretending: We create a storm in our living room. We use our rain stick, musical instruments, and shake a blue blanket to create a storm on the water. Andrew turns the lights on and off to make lightening. I hold up the picture of Jesus that is shown above. When I hold up the picture, all noise and lightening stops, and the winds and the waves obey Jesus. Both boys enjoy this game and we can make it last a long time. We talk about how we need to obey Jesus, too.

Scripture Memorization: To memorize our scripture we all take corners of the blue blanket and shake it up and down while we say the memory verse over and over again. Luke 8:25 "for he commandeth even the ^awinds and water, and they obey him."

Singing: We sing the chorus to "Master the Tempest is Raging" and then a song of the boys' choice.

Fun Activity: We have included water play at our water table outside with this lesson during the summer.

Snacking: For snack we make Banana Boats . These are fun camping treats we make in the oven. The boys are able to stuff the boats themselves with their favorite treats.