I don't get to it very often, but I have finally pulled myself together and have created a General Conference Activity Packet for all of you --young and old-- who like to keep their hands / brains awake during Conference.
This blogpost features some resources and ideas to complement the Come
Follow Me (CFM) reading for July 31-August 6, 2023, which include Paul beginning his ministry. Click here for an index and links to my CFM blogposts for other weeks.
(Can I ask a favor please? If you use these activity sheets or teaching ideas, PLEASE leave a comment and let me know. I spend a lot of time pulling these together and I'm trying to determine if they're worth my time. )
PRINTABLE ACTIVITY SHEET: I create these activity pages to be a discussion starter or review for the CFM reading each week. They can be used in classrooms, as a supplement to be handed out with the sacrament programs, or in your families. They print two to a page (double-sided) and are meant to make learning the gospel together a little more fun. Word searches (like in this week's activity sheet) are always a favorite in my ward, and adults and teens will often seek them out.
FUN TEACHING IDEA: Villains to Heroes / Repentance Activity:
NEED: post-it notes with different villains from pop-culture listed on each one, tape Some examples of possible villains to use {make sure to use villains your age group should be familiar with}: Ursula (from Little Mermaid), Darth Vader (from Star Wars), Scar (from Lion King), Wicked Stepmother (from Cinderella), Thanos (from Marvel), Voldemort (from Harry Potter), Hans (from Frozen), Gaston (from Beauty and the Beast)
HOW TO TEACH: tape a post-it note with a villain on everyone's back. Give them 3ish minutes to go around and ask questions of the other students and see if they can guess the villain.
After all the villains have been guessed, pick a couple of the people and ask them to tell a very quick alternate ending to the story of their villain if they had learned of Christ,repented, and experienced the same kind of change of heart that Paul had. For example, Ursula would have felt compassion on all the mermaids she'd hurt, restored them to their families, and gone around helping mermaids the rest of her life. Have fun with it.
After a couple minutes of this, make sure to bring the focus back to Paul and the remarkable changes he'd made. He really had been a villain to the Christians, but because of his repentance and relationship with Christ, he was able to become a hero instead. Make sure to emphasize that it's through Christ that we can repent and have second and third and fourth and so on chances when we make mistakes. Repentance is a beautiful gift.
QUOTE:
"The truth is, those who diligently seek to learn of Christ eventually will come to know Him. They will personally receive a divine portrait of the Master, although it most often comes in the form of a puzzle—one piece at a time. Each individual piece may not be easily recognizable by itself; it may not be clear how it relates to the whole. Each piece helps us to see the big picture a little more clearly. Eventually, after enough pieces have been put together, we recognize the grand beauty of it all. Then, looking back on our experience, we see that the Savior had indeed come to be with us—not all at once but quietly, gently, almost unnoticed. This can be our experience if we move forward with faith and do not wait too long on the road to Damascus."Dieter F. Uchtdorf, "Waiting on the Road to Damascus," April 2011
Hello, friends! Are you enjoying studying the New Testament as much as I am this year?
I'm back with the Come, Follow Me Activity sheets for February. See the individual posts for the activity page, a teaching idea, and a quote that goes along with that week's CFM reading.
I hope these sheets/ideas enhance your study of the New Testament each
week and create a launching point for gospel discussions in your
families and classrooms.
Alright, I guess I'm making these activity sheets again this year. I don't know that anyone else out there is appreciating them, but they're good for helping me to stay a little more focused, so off I go.
Hope your classes/families love these activity sheets!
Here's the activity sheet to go along with this week's Come, Follow Me lesson. Besides the coloring page, you'll find a simple activity about the degrees of glory and a little word game.
Feel free to send requests or comments about the things you like/don't like about these sheets, so I can improve them. Based on the very low page views and lack of comments, I'm really feeling like there isn't really anyone out there enjoying or using these, so feedback at all would be hugely appreciated. 😊
"For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith."
Romans 1:16-17
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I love these verses and the reminder they are to stand up and to not be afraid to "live by faith". It's disheartening to see how loud the voices of the doubters have become in the world and I hope we can teach our children to embrace the peace and perspective that the gospel can bring us.
Hope your families/classes enjoy this little review sheet! 😘
"And now I exhort you to be of good cheer..." Acts 27:22
This week's "Come, Follow Me" reading is full of good meat to discuss. For many years of my life I totally believed that if you only did what was right, your life would be blessed. That is true, but not in the naive way I thought it was for so long. Here was Paul who'd completely changed his life and dedicated it to sharing the gospel, and yet he still faced some really hard things. Did God make the hard things disappear or not happen? No, but he did lighten those burdens and give Paul the wisdom and the strength to face them. It really is the story of my life. The hard things happen, but in them we've found a beauty and depth to life that have helped us to become who we are. Not that we'd ever want to repeat them or to wish them on anyone else, but now that they're woven into the fabric of who we are, I can look back on them with a sense gratitude.
Hope your families/classes are enjoying these "Come, Follow Me" activity sheets! I keep hearing that the word searches are a favorite, so I added one again this week. :)
Longtime readers of this blog might remember when I blogged about the summer craft clubs we do each year (read about them here or here). They've been a very fun part of our summers the last few years and I love the friendships and artistic skills my kids have developed through their participation. This year we decided that the summer just wasn't long enough for such fun things, so we opted to continue the group through the school year, meeting together one Friday night a month. When I hosted this past week, I thought it would be fun to capitalize on the proximity to Christmas as well as my 7-year-old's fascination with the Little House books, so we made it a fun night of old-fashioned Christmas activities. It was a blast and perfect for the age range of girls (7-9 years old). They loved the quotes from the book that I read to accompany each activity. I think that this activity would also be great for similarly aged boys (maybe without the Little House emphasis). :)
Activity: Making heart shaped cookies with sugar sprinkled on top
Prep: Have the gingerbread dough made and refrigerated beforehand, so all that the children need to do is cut out their shapes and sprinkle them with sugar. We made little tinfoil labels and tucked them underneath each cookie, so they could keep track of whose was whose.
Quote: (page 34) "And the stockings weren't
empty yet! Mary and Laura reached in and pulled out two small
packages. Inside each package was a little heart-shaped cake. The tops
of the little cakes were sprinkled with white sugar. The sparkling
grains looked like tiny drifts of snow."
Activity:Stitching together stockings
Materials: Embroidery floss, chenille needles (thick but still pointy enough to get through the felt), felt.
Prep:
Have the stockings cut out in advance, thread the needles and knot the
threads (and maybe even make the first couple of stitches for them), so they can each get started sewing right away.
Quote: (Page 48)--this quote doesn't really talk about making their own stockings, but it
does talk about hanging them up. I figured that it was safe to assume
that their stockings were most likely homemade.
"Aren't you girls going to hang your stockings?" Pa asked.
"But I thought Santa Claus was going to bring us horses," Laura said.
"Maybe he will," said Pa. "But little girls always hang up their stockings on Christmas Eve, don't they?"
Activity: Apples studded with whole cloves
Materials: plenty of whole cloves (found in the spice section) and apples (or oranges)--we actually used clementines when we did the activity, since they were on sale for a great price that week.
Prep: None
Quote: (page 15) "Aunt Eliza had brought Ma a large red apple stuck full of cloves. How good it smelled!"
Treat: Peppermint sticks (I found them at Walmart and at the drugstore)
Quote: (page 34) "They plunged their hands into the stockings again. Out came two long sticks of candy. It was peppermint candy, striped red and white. They looked and looked at the beautiful candy. Laura licked her stick, just one lick. But Mary was not so greedy. She didn't even take one lick."
Mondays always used to be my weekend recovery days. I'd clean up, get caught up on laundry, menu plan, etc. and wait for my kids to come home, all the while putting these lessons together. This year, however, I've found that Mondays are one of my craziest days of the week. I'm feeling lucky to get this lesson done today and wondering whether I should choose another day to be my lesson typing/scanning day! Finally after driving the carpool to Activity Days, I just ran to the library (with girls still in tow) where I'm uploading the lesson in only 20 seconds instead of 20 minutes at home! :)
This lesson ties the concepts of gratitude with service. The lesson is loosely based on Matthew 25:31-45, where you'll read, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren ye have done it unto me." I love teaching my family that gratitude is more than just saying thanks or making lists, but also is selflessly looking for ways to reach out to others. While big, time-consuming service projects are wonderful, I want my family to understand that it's the small, daily acts of service that can be the most meaningful.
I hope you'll enjoy "Erin, the Good Samaritan" with its cute visuals and the pictures to accompany Matthew 25:31-45. My kids loved the service matching game to get their creative juices flowing in thinking of ways they can show service.
Click here to view the index of my other ready-to-print FHE lessons (with a new one published most Mondays).
PS For optimal printing performance, it is best to create a free account with Scribd.com and download the PDF file before printing. As always, feel free to email me at wawadehut@gmail.com if you are having troubles viewing or printing these lessons. I also love to hear your feedback and ideas for future lesson topics.
It has been brought to my attention that some of my older lessons have been moved into the Scribd archives, which means that you have to pay a fee to download them. The fee is nominal ($5 to download as many lessons as you want in 24-hours), but if you'd like me to send one or two of them to you as an email file let me know. Unfortunately, due to my slow internet connection (30+ minutes to upload each lesson), I would not be able to email more than one or two lessons to you, but I'd be happy to do it if you let me know.
This lesson is one of our most favorite and well-used lessons. Why it's taken me so long to post, I have no idea. We use this one probably twice a year, because I feel like it's such a good reminder of all of things we can be doing as individuals to help strengthen our homes and families.
Click here to view the index of my other ready-to-print FHE lessons.
The topic I pick each week for these lessons is often the topic that our family is needing the most right about that time. This lesson, in particular, is for that very reason. I love the object lessons and activities included in here and I love that there are many different levels on which this lesson can be taught.
Click here to view the index of my other ready-to-print FHE lessons (with a new one published most Mondays).
PS For optimal printing performance, it is best to create a free account with Scribd.com and download the PDF file before printing. As always, feel free to email me at wawadehut@gmail.com if you are having troubles viewing or printing these lessons. I also love to hear your feedback and ideas for future lesson topics.
It has been brought to my attention that some of my older lessons have been moved into the Scribd archives, which means that you have to pay a fee to download them. The fee is nominal ($5 to download as many lessons as you want in 24-hours), but if you'd like me to send one or two of them to you as an email file let me know. Unfortunately, due to my slow internet connection (30+ minutes to upload each lesson), I would not be able to email more than one or two lessons to you, but I'd be happy to do it if you let me know.
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