As I said before, the biggest trick to Family Home Evening and Family Scripture Study for me at this time is trying to keep it on a two year old level. With The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' website at my side, I am happy to say, at last I have a plan!
The first thing that I decided as I looked for ideas for FHE & FSS was that we would follow the Church's Seminary schedule. In following their schedule, our children would go through each of the books and their stories at least four times before entering Seminary in High School. This will also help them to prepare for missions after High School. That being said, the Church's Seminary students are currently learning about the Book of Mormon and next school year will begin Doctrine and Covenants. My plan is to work on the Book of Mormon until June and then switch to Doctrine and Covenants in July to continue on until the following June. We won't have enough time to finish studying the Book of Mormon as we only have 11 weeks including today until the end of June, but we will be back to it soon enough.
A basic Family Home Evening is structured a lot like a lesson at church is.
Opening Song
Opening Prayer
Lesson & Activities
Closing Song
Closing Prayer
Treats
Opening Prayer
Lesson & Activities
Closing Song
Closing Prayer
Treats
Opening Song and Closing Song were a pretty easy one to figure out. As we are teaching little ones, it is only fitting that we stick mostly to the Children's Songbook. The Church's website offers the entire songbook both lyrics and actual music for free.
The lesson on the other hand was going to take more thought. This is when I stumbled upon the Scripture Stories. What better way to teach a toddler than with something they can watch and that only lasts for a couple minutes? My plan is to go through each of the sets of movies during their corresponding year. These next 11 weeks we will go through the last half of the Book of Mormon Stories.
As we make our way though the Scripture Stories, we will add pictures from the Gospel Art Book as they apply. These pictures are absolutely beautiful and are another great visual to hold the attention of a toddler.
Finally, as the video ends and we are done going through the appropriate pictures, we will read scriptures from the story we are currently learning about. Reading from the scriptures is so important and even though it will be the one part that is most difficult to hold the attention of a toddler, as they grow they will be able to participate in the reading too.
As we read from the scriptures, to help our toddler boy keep still we will add in coloring. The Church website is filled with coloring pages on just about every topic we will be covering. This will help him to listen but also have fun too.
I can't honestly promise that we will have treats each and every week, but Matt might take over that department. I am so grateful to have been led to such a simple and age appropriate way to teach my boys during their toddler years. I'm looking forward to trying it out and sharing our journey with you!
Do you do Family Home Evening in your home? How do you teach your toddlers?
Do you do Family Home Evening in your home? How do you teach your toddlers?