Can you guess who came to our Family Home Evening last week?
Noah, of course!
We invited our animal friends (of all shapes, sizes, and species, including the Glo-Worms) to help tell the story of Noah and the Ark! It seems that our Noah liked certain animals enough to bring three of each.
We've really just begun having Family Home Evenings centered around Benjamin. We'd love to hear any suggestions for good lessons and activities for 2-year olds. Particularly, we are having a struggle with Benjamin when it comes to saying prayers! We know that he knows how to do it, but he won't. Can anyone suggest a good way to encourage him to want to say prayers with us? Any other fun ideas would be great, too!
6 comments:
that is adorable! Benjamin is getting so big, I can hardly believe it. I don't have any suggestions, but I think it is great on how you are teaching him what is right. You two rock! The two of you have always been an example to me, and you are even more so of one now! Thanks a bunch!
So glad you found us! We have been blog stalking you for quite a bit of time now. With Caitlin we are lucky to get 5 minutes so most of it is looking at Jesus pictures singing a primary song and giving hugs and kisses. Sometimes if we serve the treat during a lesson it helps.
When it comes to Malia saying prayers, we are very laid back about it. Sometimes she totally wants to do it, sometimes she doesn't. We never try to coax her at all. If she says she's not interested, then we move on and one of us says it. She goes through phases where she is just so adamant she doesn't want to say it. So we shrug and say, "Ok." And after a week or so she gets the idea and realizes it doesn't get her any attention and she goes back to wanting to say it again.
Dunno. You could try it. I'm not making any promises, though. LOL :P
Vicky here.
I should clarify the prayer thing. We're not expecting him to say a prayer himself. We just want him to learn to fold his arms and close his eyes when we say prayers as a family. He used to do it, but now he throws a fit. That's all.
Oh, Vicky! 2 year olds are a ton of fun! I think you just keep trying to at least get him to fold his arms at the beginning of the prayer and go from there. Bradley still won't regularly close his eyes. So I wouldn't worry too much about that aspect. We've even found if we just help them fold their arms at least at the beginning that at least they're getting the message that it is important or at least part of the prayer routine. But trust me, you're in for a bunch of fun. Being 2 is all about being independent and you really have to pick your battles. Hang in there!
Oh, and what has worked well for us is to use the nursery/sunbeam lessons. You obviously can't do the entire thing (sadly they normally need a TON of revision to make them even close to developmentally correct), but we try to figure out what they learned the day before in class and then using that topic come up with some activity or story (like 5 minutes). Really that's about all you can expect at that age. Again, this is something that you're trying to teach him the pattern of and I promise he's learning more than you think he is.
Good luck! You guys are great parents.
What a cute FHE lesson! As far as lesson ideas go, we discovered a website that has many toddler-centered lesson ideas. The blog is: http://fheplanner.blogspot.com/
You guys are such amazing parents...I'm sure Ben will catch on the to the praying thing in no time!
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