Considering the responsibility I have as a mother to teach and raise my children, it's no wonder that I sometimes have days when I feel like a failure and at best, severely lacking in my ability to prepare my children for life. Thank goodness I'm not in this alone and there are many wonderful examples and resources at my disposal. There are so many skills and lessons to teach a child. But perhaps the most important is the gospel and I believe it should be very much a part of my children's lives every day.
In addition to the unplanned and spontaneous teaching moments that occur every day I like to have a more scheduled time where we gather together to read and sing and learn. I've gathered ideas from several places and meshed them together into a format that works for me and my family. And since my children are very young (very young=very short attention spans) I use simplified lessons and stories with lots of pictures! I like to use the Primary theme for the year and incorporate it into our daily lessons. The outline can be found here. There is a yearly theme and then each month has a theme as well. Along with the theme there is also a scripture and song to be learned. For example, this month's theme is, "I will follow the prophet", the scripture is Amos 3:7, and the song is "We thank thee, O God, for a prophet". Also included in the outline are principles to be learned each week of the month. I review the principle for the week and then prepare a short lesson to go along with it. Since this is what they are learning in primary every Sunday, I know that I am helping to solidify these principles by going over them at home each week. It's all about repetition with the kiddos right?
To go along with the monthly theme I found these posters to print off and display on our lesson board. I also like these bookmarks.
Another great idea for teaching children the gospel daily can be found here. This is primarily what I use each day for our devotional. There are 47 weeks of lessons that correlate to the Gospel Principles Manual (In fact I think it's called the "Gospel Principles Study Guide".) They are very basic lessons that use several resources including: the scriptures, the Children's Song Book, the Gospel Principles book, the Gospel Art Kit, the scripture stories books, and the Friend. All of which are produced by the church and can be accessed at the website for free.
So now that you know what I use let me tell you how I use it! We start our daily devotionals with a song (either the primary theme song for the month or one from the Gospel Principles Study Guide lesson plan) and a prayer. Then we review the primary theme scripture for the month and the weekly principle. We then move on to the the daily lesson plan and go from there. We sing a few more songs after the lesson and then we are done. Pretty simple! Obviously attention spans are short so we try to keep this easy and flexible.
Like I mentioned before, I also have a lesson board where I hang the pictures and scriptures from lessons and the themes for the month. I also like to keep a picture of Christ and our prophet on the board as well. We keep the board in a central location so it can be seen throughout the day. In addition to our devotional I have started reading from the Book of Mormon Stories each night at bedtime.
All of the sites I've listed have an abundance of resources and ideas to use. This is just one way to do it. As wonderful and easy as this devotional plan is, I'm not perfect (surprising, I know!) and it doesn't happen every day. But I feel much better knowing that I have a plan and an outline and support in teaching my children these important lessons.
In addition to the unplanned and spontaneous teaching moments that occur every day I like to have a more scheduled time where we gather together to read and sing and learn. I've gathered ideas from several places and meshed them together into a format that works for me and my family. And since my children are very young (very young=very short attention spans) I use simplified lessons and stories with lots of pictures! I like to use the Primary theme for the year and incorporate it into our daily lessons. The outline can be found here. There is a yearly theme and then each month has a theme as well. Along with the theme there is also a scripture and song to be learned. For example, this month's theme is, "I will follow the prophet", the scripture is Amos 3:7, and the song is "We thank thee, O God, for a prophet". Also included in the outline are principles to be learned each week of the month. I review the principle for the week and then prepare a short lesson to go along with it. Since this is what they are learning in primary every Sunday, I know that I am helping to solidify these principles by going over them at home each week. It's all about repetition with the kiddos right?
To go along with the monthly theme I found these posters to print off and display on our lesson board. I also like these bookmarks.
Another great idea for teaching children the gospel daily can be found here. This is primarily what I use each day for our devotional. There are 47 weeks of lessons that correlate to the Gospel Principles Manual (In fact I think it's called the "Gospel Principles Study Guide".) They are very basic lessons that use several resources including: the scriptures, the Children's Song Book, the Gospel Principles book, the Gospel Art Kit, the scripture stories books, and the Friend. All of which are produced by the church and can be accessed at the website for free.
So now that you know what I use let me tell you how I use it! We start our daily devotionals with a song (either the primary theme song for the month or one from the Gospel Principles Study Guide lesson plan) and a prayer. Then we review the primary theme scripture for the month and the weekly principle. We then move on to the the daily lesson plan and go from there. We sing a few more songs after the lesson and then we are done. Pretty simple! Obviously attention spans are short so we try to keep this easy and flexible.
Like I mentioned before, I also have a lesson board where I hang the pictures and scriptures from lessons and the themes for the month. I also like to keep a picture of Christ and our prophet on the board as well. We keep the board in a central location so it can be seen throughout the day. In addition to our devotional I have started reading from the Book of Mormon Stories each night at bedtime.
All of the sites I've listed have an abundance of resources and ideas to use. This is just one way to do it. As wonderful and easy as this devotional plan is, I'm not perfect (surprising, I know!) and it doesn't happen every day. But I feel much better knowing that I have a plan and an outline and support in teaching my children these important lessons.
2 comments:
Wow! Good for you! I need to do something like that.
You're so organized, you make me sick...Actually, I approach teaching Olivia a similar, methodical way. Of course, right now we're only working on the habit of prayer and sitting during scripture time, but you have to start somewhere!
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