May Sharing Time {Week 1}

I've been on vacation for nearly two weeks now and it just occured to me that I won't have time Saturday night when I get home to prepare my lesson for Sunday morning. Trying to do it away from home has proved tricky, mostly because I'm too easily distracted on vacation. So here is what I came up with to make the lesson a little more my own.

May Sharing Time {Week 1}
The Church of Jesus Chris Has Been Restored

For junior primary:

I plan on starting out as the outline wants, explaining about the apostasy and how the gospel was restored. To help the children memorize A.O.F. #6 I will cover up words as suggested and probably sing the song a time or two.

I don't have time to make finger puppets so for the activity (to help them remember the titles) I will bring pictures. Where the "duties" colum is I will not leave it blank. I will write most of it but leave out a specific important word and in their groups ask them to figure out what that word is. For Apostle I will leave out the word "witness", Prophet will be "Heavenly Father" ("speak" would also work good), Bishop will be "lead", Teacher will be "gospel", and Patriarch will be "blessings". I think this will make it a little easier for the sunbeams and 4 and 5 year olds to participate.

As always I will close with my testimony.

For Senior Primary:

Start the same as junior. For the activity I will use the sciptures as follows. Leave the "duties" colum blank as suggested and divide the children into 5 groups. Give each group one of the follow scriptures to help them determine what the duty of each title is.

Apostle: D&C 107:23
Prophet: Bible Dictionary under "prohet" first sentence and/or D&C 1:38
Bishop: D&C 107:72&74
Teacher: Mosiah 23:17-18
Patriarch: D&C 124: 91-93, 124

Close with your testimony.

Easter F.H.E./ Sharing Time

Since Easter is this Sunday I wanted to have a meaningful Family Home Evening with my kids this week. Normally around 5:00 I'm scrambling to come up with anything I can pass off as some sort of lesson and scrounging around the cupboards to figure out what I'm going to give the kids when they ask what the treat is. So, Like I said, I really wanted this week to be different. Early in the afternoon I went to a binder I have full of F.H.E. lesson ideas (don't ask why I don't use it more often. I don't know the answer) and found what they had outlined for Easter. I loved the idea because it was simple, but was still a fun way to teach the kids about why we really celebrate Easter.

I know that Monday night has already passed, but I thought this would still be a great thing for any family to do on Sunday. My kids really enjoyed this lesson and I felt like they learned a lot. Also, Jenn is the Primary guru around here, but I thought this might make a great sharing time idea.

Depending on how old your kids are and their attention span, you can spend time looking up and reading the scriptures that are outlined, or you can just do what I did and tell in my own words the summary.

You will need 12 plastic Easter eggs labeled 1-12 and have these items inside. And just so you know, I totally had to improvise on some of these.

#1-Sacrament cup
#2-3 Dimes
#3 Soap
#4 Rope
#5-Thorns
#6 Cross
#7-Dice
#8-Small Rocks
#9-Linen or Cloth
#10 Spices
#11-Large Rock
#12-Empty

Here is the summary of what you will be reading:

Jesus and his disciples celebrated the feast of the Passover together. The passover is a very special Jewish holiday which celebrates the passing over of the destroying angel when they were delivered from the Egyptians and the promise that a Messiah would come and save them. Jesus taught his disciples about service by washing their feet and saying, "The greatest among you is the servant of all." He also taught them about the sacrament.

Open Egg #1 Luke 22:42 and 44
Jesus then went to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray. Here he took upon Himself the sins of the world. His suffering was so great that he bled from every pore.

Open Egg #2 Mark 14:10-11 and 44-45
One of Jesus' disciples, Judas Iscariot, led men who were angry with Jesus to Him while He was praying, He did this because the wicked men told him that they would give him 30 pieces of silver for doing so. They wanted to take Jesus away and kill Him. Judas showed them who Jesus was by giving Him a kiss on the cheek. As the men took Jesus, one of Jesus' disciples cut off one of the ears of one of the soldiers. Jesus then healed the guard's ear and was led away. Judas later felt so bad about betraying the Savior that he took his own life.

Open Egg #3 Soap Mathew 27:24
Jesus was brought to stand trial in front of Pontius Pilate. Pilate was a powerful man and because it was the time of passover, he allowed the people to release one prisoner. The people chose a murderer and thief named Barabbas rather than Jesus, who was an innocent man. Pilate, to show that he held no responsibility for Jesus' coming execution, symbolically washed his hands. Though he found no fault with Jesus, he still mocked and scourged Jesus and delivered Him to be crucified.

Open Egg #4 Mathew 27:29
Jesus was bound by ropes, spit upon, severely beaten, whipped and mocked. One of Jesus' disciples, Peter, was so frightened by how the treated Jesus that he denied even knowing Him three times.

Open Egg #5 Mathew 27:28
Jesus was mocked and dressed in a scarlet robe. The wicked men made a crown of thorns and placed it upon Jesus' head. He was beaten and whipped again.

Open Egg #6 Luke 23:33
The wicked men decided to crucify Jesus. They made Him carry a heavy cross to a hill called Calvary where He was to be put to death. He fell while carrying the cross due to the severe beatings and bad treatment He had received. A man named Simon stepped in and helped Him carry the cross the rest of the way. While he was on the cross. Jesus asked John. one of His disciples to take care of His mother. Before he died. Jesus cried out "My God, my God, why hast Though forsaken me?" When the soldiers head this, they mocked Him once again by offering Him a cup of vinegar. Jesus did not drink it but instead spoke the words, "Father, forgive the, for they know not what they do" thus giving us the ultimate example of forgiveness.

Open Egg #7 Mark 15:24
While Jesus was dying on the cross, the soldiers gambled for his clothing.

Open Egg #8 Mathew 27:51 and 54
Jesus, after six hours of being on the cross finally said, "Father into Thy hands I commend my spirit," and the He died. As soon as this happened, darkness and storms arose showing the tremendous grief Heavenly Father felt when He witnessed these things being done to His son. The wicked people then realized that this must indeed be the son of God.

Open Eggs #9 and #10 John 19:40
Joseph of Arimathaea. a disciple of Jesus. asked Pilate if he could care for the body of Jesus after He had died. Pilate agreed to let him do this. The body of Jesus was wrapped in linen with appropriate spices. Spices were used to preserve bodies. Mary and Mary Magdalene wrapped Christ's body in the linen with spices the day Jesus died (Friday) and then waited until the first day of the week (Sunday) before they returned to do this again- because Saturday was the sabbath.

Open Egg #11 Mathew 28:2
A large stone was rolled across the door to the tomb in which Christ's body lay because the Pharisees went to Pilate and told him that Jesus had said that He would rise on the third day. They were afraid that the disciples might come and take the body to make it look like He had risen. They even set a watch to make sure nobody took the body. An angel of the Lord descended from heaven and rolled back the stone and the men on the watch started to shake and became "as dead men." When these men told the Pharisees what had happened, the pharisees paid them to tell others that the stone had been rolled away while they were asleep.

Open Egg #12 Mathew 28:6; John 20:15-16
When Mary and Mary Magdalene went to the sepulchre, there was an angel sitting there who told them to go and tell the disciples that Christ had risen. Jesus first appeared to Mary Magdalene while she was in the garden mourning His death. She actually looked at Him and did not know who He was. He said to her, "Woman. why weepest though?" She thought He was a gardener and asked Him what He had done with the body of Jesus. Then He said to her. "Mary." She turned and recognized Him, saying "Rabboni" or "Master."


I hope this lesson will be helpful to some of you in teaching your children the importance of Easter. I really was surprised at how well this kept my children's attention and so pleased that they actually learned something. And I wish I knew who to give credit to for putting this all together, but there is no name on it.

March Sharing Time {Week 4}

Okay, I'm back with another sharing time idea. I missed last week because I could not come up with anything! I did however come up with something simple for this week. As always I stick close to the outline and where possible use the scriptures.

March Sharing Time {Week 4}

There is Safety in Following The Prophet

For Junior Primary:

Preparation:

1. Print out THIS picture of a traffic light.

2. Cut out 3 circles, one in each of the following colors: red, green, yellow.

3. Write on the corresponding colored circle "stop", "slow", and "go".

4. Print out THIS article and prepare to read one of the two stories told or prepare your own story about how there is safety in following the prophet.

Start by displaying your traffic light and asking the children "what does it mean when a traffic light is green?" (tape green circle to light after they have answered). Repeat with each color.

Explain how traffic lights keep us safe. Relate this to how following the prophet keeps us safe.

Read the story. Ask the children how following the prophet helped keep the people safe.

Tell the children that following the prophet can keep us safe from harm and danger but can also keep us safe from sin.

On the chalkboard/whiteboard make two columns. Label one "Go" and the other "Stop". Ask the children to help you fill in the columns with things that we can do that follow the prophet and keep us safe ("go") and things that don't follow the prophet and lead to sin ("stop").

For example:

"Go" "Stop"

Read Scriptures Watch rated "R" movies

Bear your testimony that following the prophet will keep us safe.

*as a handout idea you could make small versions of the traffic light and glue them to a popsicle stick. Write on the popsicle stick "there is safety in following the prophet" and hand them out and the end of sharing time.

For Senior Primary:

Start by displaying your traffic light (already with the colored circles on it) and ask "what is this for?" Explain how the traffic light keeps the cars and drivers on the road safe just like following the prophet keeps us safe. He can tell us when it's okay to "go" and when we should "stop".

Divide the children into three or four groups and have each group look up on of the following sets of scriptures:

1. Noah (Genesis 6:12-22, 17:15-23) - People who followed Noah were saved on the ark. Those on dry land died.

2. Abinadi (Mosiah 12:1-8, 17:13-19, 19:20) - The people would not repent and eventually were destroyed.

3. Daniel (Daniel 6:1-23) - refused to stop praying but the lions were tamed and did not harm him.

4. Moses (Exodus 14:13-31) - Those who followed Moses were saved from Pharaoh and safely crossed the Red Sea.

5. Nephi (1 Nephi 1:12-13, 2:1-4) - Nephi and his family followed his father out of Jerusalem before it was destroyed.

Tell them to read the scriptures and look for how following the prophet kept the people safe. Give them time to discuss as groups and then have each group share with the primary what they learned.

If you have extra time do the columns activity mentioned above for junior primary.

Close with your testimony.

March Sharing Time {Weeks 1 & 2}

We do sharing time's in our presidency by month. February was mine. I had planned on waiting until May (my next month) to post anything new but then the craziest thing happened. I decided to take a sneak peak at the outline for March Week 1 and out of nowhere an idea popped into my head! BAM! There it was. This does not usually happen to me. If and when the ideas do come they have usually taken a lot of thought and effort. This one just came. So even though I don't get to use it hopefully someone out there in the blog world will.

March: Heavenly Father Speaks to Us Through His Prophets

D&C 1:38 "What I the Lord have spoken, I have spoken,...whether by mine own voice or by the voice of my servants, it is the same."

Weeks 1 & 2: Prophets speak for Heavenly Father.

Preparation:

1. Make a paper cup phone. For easy instructions go HERE. {Make sure your string is long enough to reach from inside the primary room to out in the hallway.}

2. Print word strips HERE and HERE.
3. Bring pictures of the following prophets: Noah, Moses, Samuel the Lamanite, and Joseph Smith.

Lesson Plan {Week 1}:

Ask a child to come to the front of the room and give them one end of your cup phone. Tell the primary that they are to follow the child's instructions and the child is to follow your instructions. Take the other end of the cup phone and go to the hallway. Keeping your string taut give the child simple directions to relay to the rest of the primary, such as, "tell them to touch their toes.

After giving several instructions come back in the room and discuss with the children how they knew what you wanted them to do. Explain that Heavenly Father speaks to his prophets and then they speak us and tell us what Heavenly Father wants us to do.

*Do the role playing activity as suggested in the outline or do the following:

Divide the children into 4 groups. Give each group a scripture reference to read and discuss. Tell them to look for what prophet the scripture is telling them about and what that prophet did or said. Give them several minutes to discuss within their group. Meanwhile scramble the pictures and 8 strips of paper and put them on the chalk board or white board. Draw 3 columns on the board labeled "Prophet", "Scripture", and "Action". Have the groups pick out the scripture, picture, and "action" that their group discussed and put them in the correct place on the board. Have each group briefly tell about their prophet and what he did or said.

When all of the groups have had their turn discuss how people received the prophet's messages and what the results were.

Bare your testimony that the prophets words are the word of God.

Lesson Plan {Week 2}:

I like the "Wheel of Prophets" idea suggested in the outline but I really try hard to encourage the use of scriptures in every lesson possible so here is my twist on the game.

Create a wheel as suggested in the outline. Instead of writing the prophets name in each section write a scripture reference (you could use the ones listed on CS, 111 to make it easy on you) that relates to a prophet from the song "Follow The Prophet". Have a child spin the wheel and then invite everyone to use their scriptures to look up the reference and find out which prophet you will be singing about. Take a minute to tell a story about that prophet. Sing the verse about that prophet in "Follow The Prophet". Repeat as time allows.

Febuary Week 4 Sharing Time

Last week we had our visiting teaching conference in R.S. so the priesthood took over Primary and YW so that all of the ladies in the ward could go to Relief Society. So I didn't even get to be there to see how "Family Jeopardy" went. I was really excited about that lesson too. So to make up for it I had to try and come up with something really fun to do for this week.

I wasn't a huge fan of what the outline had planned out but I hate to stray too far away from it so you'll see how I've modified it. Also, because this year's theme is "I know the scriptures are true" I always try to incorporate the scriptures in every lesson. Here is what I came up with.

"I will Follow God's Plan"

Preparation:

1. prepare a batch of cookies and make one of them extra salty!

2. make a large banner (room enough to make a list on) that says "I will follow God's plan by:" (see a picture of mine below)

3. decorate a jar or can with a happy face. (see mine below)

4. you will also need to bring 4 other types of food to church with you (this will work best if they are less desirable than a cookie, i.e. carrot, banana, piece of bread)

5. Mark 2 Nephi 2:27 in your scriptures with a paper or note that says "choose the cookie"

NOTE: This is for one sharing time only. If you do Jr. and Sr. Seperately then you will need 2 salty cookies and 2 banners!

Lesson Outline:

Display a cookie (the salty one) on a table with two other food items such as an orange and a carrot. Ask for a volunteer to come up and choose one of these items to eat. At this point you hope the volunteer picks the cookie. If not, see my "back-up plan" below! The cookie will be really horrible and they will likely want to spit it out. You will explain that the scriptures teach us that Heavenly Father's plan gives us freedom to choose right or wrong. Choosing the right will lead to happiness and freedom while choosing wrong leads to captivity and unhappiness. Sometimes, like with the cookie, Satan makes choosing the wrong look enticing in an effort to lead us into sin. But Heavenly Father gave us the scriptures, and modern day prophets, so that we could learn of His plan for us and be able to make the right decisions. Decisions that will lead us to happiness.

Display another cookie (this one will be good) and two other items on the table and again ask for a volunteer. This time supply the child with your scriptures and ask them to look up 2 Nephi 2:27 and read it out loud. (They should also see your note that says : "choose the cookie"). Ask the child to choose an item to eat. They should choose the cookie if they've seen your note. Use this as an example of how the scriptures help us to choose the right and be happy.

Display your banner and ask the children "What commandments do you keep as you follow God's plan?" Write their answers on the banner. (I bought a roll of white craft paper and folded the bottome edges to make mine. It was super easy.)

Ask the children how each of their answers will lead to happiness and put a mini-marshmallow in a jar for each answer to show how keeping the commandments makes us happy (the outline says to do beans but that just doesn't sound happy to me. I'm all about sweets!).

I couldn't find a good happy face so I used my cricut to write "happy" instead.

Sign your banner** as a primary and display it somewhere in the room. (i.e. our banner will be signed "Rifle 2nd Ward (Jr/Sr) Primary")

Close with your testimony of following God's plan.

*Back Up Plan (if needed): If your first volunteer doesn't choose the cookie, ask for two more volunteers so that all three items on display are picked and have them all take a bite together. The effect will still be the same for the person who choose the cookie. I made an extra salty cookie and tested it out so I could be sure it would taste bad and let me tell you....it was horrible!!

**I thought it would be really fun to have each child come up and sign the banner individually (and possibly even get a mini-mallow in return) but it would take up so much time it just isn't possibly for us. But I think it would work if your primary is small enough.

Family Jeopardy - Week 3 Sharing Time

I'm not sure where to begin except to say that I am flattered that I received so great a response to my idea of "Family Jeopardy" which I posted on sugardoodle.net. The idea came to my while I was trying to figure out how in the world I would ever fill a BINGO card (another idea shared on sugardoodle.net) with families from the scriptures. I needed 24 and could only come up with about 10!

I still love the BINGO idea so I will try to incorporate it into a lesson some other time!

While I was sitting at my table I started thinking of other things I could put in a BINGO card to fill the spaces, like songs, and somehow my mind came up with the idea of putting them into categories and playing Jeopardy instead. I don't have any fancy documents to share with you otherwise I would, but I just don't know how to do that kind of thing (I'm lacking in the computer knowledge department! Probably from being a stay-at-home-mom these days!). UPDATE: My super-computer-genius-older-brother helped me figure out how to link documents to my post. Hurray for big brothers!!

I know the main part everyone wants to know is what my categories will be and what the clues will be. But I'm going to type up everything I have planned for my lesson so you can see how it all goes together. I hope this helps some of you.

Preparation:

1. Print out documents that say "Book Of Mormon Families", "Bible Families", "Songs", and "Ward Families". CLICK HERE for my pdf.

2. Print out 4 documents of each of the following: "100", "200", "300", "400". CLICK HERE for my pdf.

3. Print out a document that says "Families Are Central To Heavenly Father's Plan". CLICK HERE for my pdf.

4. Print out a document with all the clues and answers to family jeopardy. CLICK HERE for my pdf.

*I think it's important to try and follow the lesson according to the Primary Outline as much as you can while still making things fun an interesting for the children. You will see that the Jeopardy is the only part I've changed.

Lesson Plan

Hold up your sign "Families Are Central To Heavenly Father's Plan" and have the children repeat it with you several times. Hide the sign and help them say it from memorization. Ask for volunteers to try saying it from memory on their own.

Remind the children that our theme for this month is "The scriptures teach of Heavenly Father's plan". Families are an important part of His plan for us. In the Scriptures we learn about many families and how they followed the plan Heavenly Father had for them.

Play Family Jeopardy.

Close by asking the children to volunteer and share a good quality about their family, a tradition in their family, or a favorite memory. Repeat "Families are central to Heavenly Father's plan" and bare your testimony about families.

To Play Family Jeopardy:

Arrange categories and point values on a chalk board or white board in the Jeopardy manner (i.e. point values below the category).

Divide children into two groups (I do this down the center instead of by class so that there are older and younger children in each group).

Start by letting group A pick a category and point value. Read the clue associated with that point value and category and have that group discuss and try to give the correct answer. Give more clues or a scripture to look up to help them find the correct answer. (Or give the other group a chance to answer.) Also feel free to play or hum the jeopardy theme song while they try to answer!

When the correct answer has been given take down that point value so it doesn't get picked again.**

Repeat with group B and then go back and forth until all the clues have been given.

**At this point you have the option of giving each group the point value paper and keeping score or just playing the game for fun. I will not be playing with points because I don't want to have a "winner" but that is all up to you.

***For the "songs" category the clue is a sentence or phrase from a song related to families. They need to guess the title of the song. If they can't answer with just the words try having your pianist play the music that goes to the word phrase. Add more music and words until they can answer.

****for the "ward families" category make up clues about families in your own ward (i.e. name the two families with twins). This will be a fun way to see how much the kids know about families in the ward!

To see all of the category clues and answers CLICK HERE.

I hope this is helpful to some of you. Thanks again for all of the interest! (I felt like a celebrity while I was reading all of my emails!) Please come back and let me know how it went!!

P.S. The wheels are turning as I start thinking about next week's sharing time. If I come up with something that I feel is worthy of sharing I'll be sure to put a link on sugardoodle.