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.

Gratitude and Thanksgiving

Music: Children All Over the World (CS 16) and I am Glad for Many things (CS 151).

Attention Getting Activity: I set up a bowl of water, a 1/4 measuring cup, and a glass goblet (inside a plastic container) on the table. I read Psalms 23:5 and we discussed what it meant to have so many blessings that our cup would overflow. We each took turns pouring water from the bowl into the cup and naming something we were thankful for. We each went several times until the cup overflowed with our gratitude. The boys loved the water splashing over.



Lesson:Using the Children's Scripture Stories, we read the story of the 10 Lepers. We talked about how only one came back to say thank you. I asked how he thought Jesus felt when only one said thank you. Then we talked about how Jesus felt when someone did say thank you. We showed on our fingers how many did say thank you and how many did not.



Activity: I have a flannel board Thanksgiving set that we used to tell the story of the first Thanksgiving. You could use the internet to print out pictures of your own to tell the story or get a book from the library. (If you choose to do this lesson at a different time of year, skip this part altogether).


Game: We played a turkey hunt game using turkeys I printed on different pieces of colored construction paper. We picked up the turkeys and said something we were thankful for that was the same color as the turkey we picked up. If you do this at a time other than Thanksgiving, you could just hide pieces of colored construction paper and play the same way.



Art: We made Mayflower boats as seen below.



Snacks: Make turkey cupcakes.

The Good Samaritan

Opening Song: Kindness Begins With Me

Attention Getter: Give Each Family Member a Band-aid. Ask them to think of a time they were hurt. How did they feel? Who helped them? Let them put the Band-aid on the place that got hurt. (My kids love Band-aids). Tell them that you are going to tell a story about a man that was hurt and about the kind person who helped him.


Lesson: Read The Good Samaritan Story from the Children's Illustrated scriptures. (I chose to skip the part about them beating him up when telling the story to my little ones. I just said he was hurt). After I read the story we used Flannel Board Pieces to retell the story. (My mom had made some for us previously, but the link is to a set available to print online).




Activity: I had a larger image of the injured man that we laid on the flannel board. (just enlarge from the flannel board pieces or draw your own). We talked about how we can help our friends and family when they are hurt. We wanted to give the boys a chance to practice how to show compassion in different situations. We gave several examples of how to handle the situation if we hurt the person on accident (running into someone when playing chase), on purpose (pushing your brother), and when a friend falls and gets hurt. We walked through the appropriate behavior. After each example we let the boys place a band-aid on the hurt man to help him feel better.

Closing Song: Love One Another

Snack: We actually ate birthday cake in honor of two family members who live far away and share the same birthday. A themed suggestion would be heart shaped cookies.



Reality: This final picture is just to show that our FHEs are normal. By the end of the lesson, Ryan was finished and had laid down in the middle of the flannel board to let us know.