FHE Ideas

*For those of you who aren't a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, "FHE" stands for "Family Home Evening" where we set aside Monday night to be a family night!  If you are religious, you can throw in teaching something spiritual.  It's a night where you can focus on each other and have FUN together.  It can be super simple like going on a walk together, getting some ice cream, playing games, or building a fort to read in :)...

We haven't always done Family Home Evening in the past since Brayden seemed really young, but I am so glad that we now have this tradition once a week.  These moments we have together really do help us teach the gospel and have fun as a family. Something fun we have been doing lately is letting Brayden "lead" the song with a dry spaghetti stick!

Try using a certain blanket to lay out and sit on for each FHE!  Steve’s grandma made a pink silky baby blanket for Hailey and a boy silky one for Brayden.  So, Brayden gets all excited for the boys to sit on the blue and the girls to sit on the pink. 

1. keep it super simple/short,
2. make it tons of FUN,
3. and always have a little treat. 

Resources you can use for little children:

Pictures are always great to get little kids' attention. 

Since children learn best through repetition, we often review the lesson they learned in nursery.  

Find out what lesson your primary children are on, and talk about it the sunday prior to the lesson so they get more out of class. 

The Sharing Time manual has lessons for each week of the year which are pretty simple and full of great ideas to relate it to young kids.  Ask your primary president for a copy or look at it online. 

The current friend can also be an easy reference for a lesson topic.

Click here to check out the lds.org webpage on FHE ideas  

Some FHE lessons we have done :

• God answers Nephi's prayer: show picture of Nephi building a boat.  Make boats out of tin foil and float in sink!
• Noah's Ark, Follow the Prophet: show picture of all the animals on Noah's boat.  Put all stuffed animals in a box for the pretend "boat."  You could even play rain noises!  Sing Follow the Prophet and march around the room.
• I will be a Missionary someday: I had my son put on the "Elder" tag I quickly made and his tie while holding his scriptures.  We looked at pictures from Daddy's mission and talked about teaching people about "JeJe" and baptizing them in the "wawa."  Then we had the missionaries over for dinner that weekend.  Brayden wanted to wear his tie and tag again :).  
• Tithing: Have your kids earn 10 pennies somehow, help them fill out a tithing slip and give their penny to the Bishop the following Sunday.
• Brass Plates: I made our own brass plates by spray painting cardboard pieces gold and binding them with two rings.  Hide the "plates" and have them look for them just like Nephi.  Talk about how they too can "Go and Do" like Nephi... like go and do what Mommy says :).  My sister-in-law Brittany even made her boy an aluminum foil shield and sword!
• King Benjamin Tent: We put up our little tent and talked about how people stayed in their tents while listening to the prophet King Benjamin teach about serving others.  We made our own smores in the oven!  Brayden also likes to do this lesson where he stands on something tall for his "tower" then we build blocks to make a huge tower.  
• Good Samaritan: Last night we showed a picture of the Good Samaritan and then scratched each others' backs.  We could have also practiced putting bandages on each other and sharing with each other.
• Lehi's Dream: Have a string winding around leading to a "tree."  Have them follow the "iron rod" and eat some fruit at the tree.  Talk about how everything we do leads us to Jesus Christ.
• Premotal Life: Show a picture of our premortal life living with Heaven Father and Jesus.  Do the glove activity where you talk about how we lived as spirits and then came to earth and got a body.  
• The Creation: put in a bag "creation" items like leaves, branches, bag of dirt, flowers, cotton balls (clouds), flashlight (light), etc and have children pick out items one by one and talk about how Jesus made the world for us because he loves us.
• Prayer: show picture of Enos praying.  Color nursery page about prayers.  You could also make a bow and arrow (with cardboard, branch, string).  

What do you do for FHE?