I figured the best way to teach about FHE was to have FHE with the kids. After Singing Time, I had the kids stand up and follow me to the side of the room. The Senior Primary got to sit on chairs in a semi-circle around me because there were only 6 there today. Junior Primary had to sit on the ground around me. I borrowed a FHE board from one of my counselors, made little name tags to hang from her board and intended to write the kids' names on the name tags and hang them on their assignments. But I forgot where I put the tags, so we just used our imagination.
I assigned a child to do one of the parts of FHE:
Opening song: Families Can Be Together Forever (someone led the music)
Opening prayer
Scripture: I taught them how to use the topical guide to look up a scripture on the topic being taught
Lesson: I had that
Activity
Treat: they got to pass out the treats, but when doing this at home for a regular FHE, the child would get to help make it
Closing Prayer
The opening song and opening prayer are fairly self explanatory. For the scripture, we looked up Family in the Index of the Book of Mormon. We found a scripture (3 Ne 18:21 Pray in your families unto the Father, always in my name, that your wives and your children may be blessed.) I asked them how they did on their challenge to help their families have family prayer every day went, and then we segued into other things that protect us besides family prayer. I told them about The Family: A Proclamation to the World. We talked about what a proclamation is. It is something that you announce, boldly and with conviction, for all to hear. How important the Prophet and the General Authorities must have felt this information was for us. Nearly 100 years ago, in 1915, the prophet of that day Joseph F. Smith began FHE. He said, "If the Saints obey this counsel, we promise that great blessings will result. Love at home and obedience to parents will increase. Faith will be developed in the hearts of the youth of Israel, and they will gain power to combat the evil influence and temptations which beset them." We discussed how just like family prayer, FHE can give us the added protection we need in our lives. I don't know how to make a pdf (I will learn this week, though, so I don't run into this problem anymore) so I will just copy and paste, but I made a letter to the parents regarding FHE. It had an outline on how to have a successful FHE which I learned as a missionary, and it also had a lot of links to sites that could help them plan and prepare for FHE:
Dear Parents,
Today in Primary we learned about the
importance of holding a weekly Family Home Evening. We have been
promised by the prophets that if we do, we will have more love at
home, the children will be more obedient, faith will increase and
children will gain the power to combat the evil influences and
temptations in their lives. (Joseph F. Smith in Messages
of the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints, 6 vols. [1965–75], 4:339).
In an effort to help you in your
endeavor to hold a weekly Family Home Evening, we are providing a few
resources to make it as easy as possible. As we know, it is
sometimes difficult to engage children in a weekly FHE, an example of
a good schedule which will help retain their attention is:
Opening song:
Opening prayer:
5 minute gospel lesson
15 minute activity
Closing song:
Closing prayer:
Treat
There are many resources to help you
with this wonderful program. Some are:
- The Family Home Evening Resource book which can be purchased at the Distribution Center, or accessed online at https://www.lds.org/manual/family-home-evening-resource-book.
- Family Home Evening Charts and Ideas found at https://www.lds.org/children/resources/type/fhe-ideas.
- The Family Home Evening web page at https://www.lds.org/topics/family-home-evening which has links to lots of resources including videos, music, the Gospel Art Kit, teaching tips and much more.
- To make a rotating wheel to keep track of who has done what, one can be found at https://www.lds.org/friend/2013/07/family-home-evening-wheel.
- Some more cheap or free sites to make FHE charts are: http://confessionsofaslackermom.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Chart.pdf and http://confessionsofaslackermom.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Chart.pdf
We
hope this list and the attached lesson plan help you and your family!
Happy
Family Home Evening!
The
Primary Presidency
And then it was time for the activity. The boy who had the activity came up and helped me. I had him stand next to me and then explained that I would represent the temptations and evil influences, and I would try to beset him. (I then explained that beset meant to try to trip him up, make him fall). It was very easy to put my arm around him and pull him a few steps away from where he was standing. I then had him chose 3 helpers who linked arms with him, and together they tried to withstand the "Evil influences and Temptations." They did a little better, but I was still able to move them. And then he had all of the kids come up and link arms in a circle around the small group that already had their arms linked. I showed them that there is strength in numbers and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get to the original boy who I had tried to move. I explained that FHE is kind of like that group of linked arms. We have extra protection and strength when we spend time together as a family and learn the gospel together. I challenged them all to have FHE weekly with their families, to set aside a night that worked for them (Monday nights possibly) and spend time getting to know their families so that they could have that protection around them.
Next I had the treat helper come up and pass around a box of cookies. I think that was the kids' favorite part, though they did have a lot of fun with the activity.
Finally, a child said the closing prayer, and they all went back to their seats to be reverently dismissed for classes, or to wait for the other classes coming in for Closing Exercises.
I think it went really well for both Junior and Senior! I love being able to share my testimony with so many children every week. I hope this helps someone at some point in time! I know it is late for this month's, but lessons do tend to recycle.
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