How do you choose what lessons to teach?
I am struggling to have some kind of order to my lessons - to be sure I'm teaching my children a large spectrum of principles, but also helping them to become familiar with the scriptures. Instead I find I'm repeating lessons, skipping things, sticking to first Nephi... you name it! I've tried many programs and systems out there, but haven't found a good fit for us, yet. I NEED ORDER! I'm just like that....yes, I'm one of 'those' OCD people :) One thought I've had is to kind of follow the Gospel Doctrine schedule each year - just simplified, obviously. For example - this year we would learn about the Old Testament. I don't know. I'M SO CONFUSED!!
So, I'm throwing it out there to my brilliant friends in the blogosphere. How do you organize your lessons?
14 comments:
What we've been doing lately is recognizing some things our children need to work on, and then making a lesson for that. We've done being reverent in sacrament and made it a fun game. Our kids are all younger than most of yours, but you can tailor it to the ages. Like if I find they need to learn about charity, then we can go through examples in the scriptures of charity and what people have done to get it, etc. I hope this helps somewhat!
My husband just went to a stake meeting yesterday, and the Stake Pres was talking about what HE does on his FHEs. It was such a good idea.
1st monday of the month - Family council and testitmony meeting
2nd monday - family history fun
3rd monday - lesson (hey only 12 a year, I'm down with prepping for only 12!)
4th - we weren't sure what he said what his 4th monday was, but I'll assume he meant emergency preparedness.
and for those rare 5th mondays - he did a family service project!
Way fun! I'm so implementing this one!
We have done a few things in our FHE history. A lot of time we do what Pam does just kind of decide what is needed now. We also did a few months of a "schedule" with the first Monday being Article of Faith, 2nd Monday Emergency prep, 3rd Monday some sort of "how to" lesson (ie manners, being a good example, etc, 4th Monday was a conference talk (often the same as the RS/PH lesson because we would both miss it the day before) and if there was a 5th Monday we would just do something fun unless something needed to be addressed.
We have a FHE chart that we rotate on, except Scott and I stay on lesson the whole rotation so I do 5 lessons in a row while Scott rotates and then we switch. The kids do a mini-lesson but we still get to teach them something! We usually discuss the topics but then it's not the same person teaching all the time! Good luck!
Our ward is doing a FHE RS class on Thursday!
Oh and the Gospel Art kit is great for covering the scripture stories! Or see if you can get your hands on a Sr. primary manual they aren't using this year(or look them up at lds.org. You may have to adapt the lessons for a younger FHE but if they are studying Old Testament at church then do Book of Mormon for FHE. In two years when they take it again in Primary it will be long enough since they heard it in FHE!
Our kids are all old enough to take their turn at teaching the lesson, so Mike and I only have to teach once every five weeks! We've been going through the conference talks unless there's something that needs addressing or we feel inspired otherwise. The older two usually use the Faith in God or Duty to God requirements for lessons and Tate either uses pictures from the gospel art kit or tells stories from the kid's scripture readers. I'm sure your kids will get everything they need, because you try so hard!
We implemented a schedule similar to the Stake President's quite a few years ago. With just a few differences. Sunday (we hold ours on Sundays for the lessons) and Mondays for any activities. So on the one Sunday we are scheduled for an activity (movie night, games night, concert night, etc. etc) we skip and hold the activity part on the Monday. So one week could be a family activity of someone's choice.
I also make up a schedule from all the kid's youth goal program books. Their Primary Activity Day goals, or Faith in God book. I also work from their Scouts, and Duty to God books. I know you don't have any boys, but you get the idea. Pretty soon you will be working with all levels of the YW goals. : D You get the idea. It's great to "kill several birds" with one stone.
Anyway. That's my two cents worth.
you could do the gospel principles book which is easy to understand as a lesson or read an ensign talk and make it into a lesson ( especially one from the conference issues). I struggle with the same thing but then I use my FHE binder and pick a topic I think the kids need to learn ;}
i've been saved this year by a wonderful sister who has put together a whole year's worth of lessons. that's right!! oh my goodness it's been so good to have everything organised with you. and all my children school aged children teach too. they're 8, 6 & 5.
what i love is that it's based on this years primary theme and because we have fhe in the morning before we start church in the afternoon the children get to go to primary with a little bit of a headstart.
if you're interested go here:
http://www.sugardoodle.info/joomla/
index.php?option=com_content&task=
view&id=5512
I was JUST thinking about that before I checked your blog.. I need order too :S
I was thinking 1st Monday (I 'think' I got this from Joanne) doing a "superhero" scripture character ie: daniel, samuel etc etc. So 12 main people would be covered every month. Then like someone else said do something that the family needs to work on, 5th Mondays can always be just a fun family night of games and snacks.. and in between can also be categorized into what the primary is covering that month and other scriptures stories. Let me know how your schedule works out!! I want to see it :D
I have the same problem and I just got this really great book...only I can't remember what it's called and I don't have it in front of me at the moment. It's kind of like daily devotionals...example...for the month of May the topic is building your testimony. So there are 4 main ideas (or flower centers) and then their petals are made up of 6 petals with scriptures that talk about that 'main' idea for the week. So you basically grow a flower as a visual to grow your testimony. Does that make sense? I'll find out the name of the book and e-mail it to you. There's also another one I got called "Before they're 12". It focuses 18 lessons on the "For the Strength of Youth" book. So every lesson is based on a topic out of the phamplet (spelling...sorry : ( ). It also looks like a really good one. I just got them last week so we're just starting them. Good luck and I'll e-mail you later this week.
I totally cheat and use the lesson manual from nursery. I figure since my kids are still so little it's alright if they hear the same lesson twice in a row each and evert week. You get well rounded lessons with everything laid out for you!
i'm glad i read these comments! great suggestions.
we are doing the old testament stories right now. we use the gospel art kit, a verse from follow the prophets, and various games or activities from the clip art books that are out there. we go in chronological order.
we are also starting a new portion called "family discussion" where we briefly address things that are bugging mom, and how they can be resolved. or something like that. there's brainstorming involved, so it's not all about my needs. :O)
We've been using the scripture stickers for "Women in the Scriptures" We have 2 boys and 1 girl. The boys are the oldest and often we find that lessons, activities etc. get tailored to them (kind of a majority rules thing I guess) We thought it would be good to focus on women for her for obvious reasons but it's been great for the boys as well.
I like having a focus and a plan as well though I must admit... I think I'm a little more "Fly by the seat of my pants" than you! I mean that in the kindest way! Your desire for order has inspired me, love your blog
♥ My mom did a FHE group quite some time ago and game them to me. They had about 10 women get together and they'd do a packet a month one for each of the 10 ladies and one for themselves of course so in just one month they have 10 new FHE lessons... I don't remember how long they did it but I have probably 20 folders or so... I think that would be a fun way to get some extra ideas. Even if it's one person doing 10 once a month and then another person the next? There are a lot of possibilities! :)
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