Monday, December 30, 2013

Families are Forever 2014 Primary Theme - An Addition to Opening Exercises - Family History Moment

Our primary presidency pondered how we could best incorporate the 2014 Primary Theme, "Families are Forever," into primary. One of the special things that we will do for 2014 is to add an extra assignment to Opening Exercises, which we are calling the "Family History Moment."

This is what the assignment slip that our secretary wrote says: "As part of the ward goal the Primary will be participating in family history by sharing a brief family history moment in opening exercises. Please help your child to prepare a short family history story to share. This story can be a pioneer story, a conversion story, an experience in perseverance or accomplishment, or a fun story that illustrates what life was like when that ancestor was alive."

We will share one Family History Moment a week. Each week, the child who shares the moment gets to put their name and the name of the ancestor on a leaf, which they will then get to add to this tree. We hope to encourage conversations, awareness, and appreciation in the child and their families, about this wonderful topic of family.


I hope that by the end of the year, the tree will look like this:

How I did it:
I drew the tree freehand onto a foam board the size of a standard poster board, then colored the tree in with two brown markers. I had intended to use acrylic paint but it seemed like a lot of clean-up effort for such a small amount of paint. I used a paper punch to punch out all of the leaves on color card stock, then attached one scrapbook square onto each leaf.  I also have found large leaf stickers in the past but I liked turning these leaves into stickers myself - the cheaper method. I had intended to cut out simple leaf shapes but I couldn't resist the leaf punch.


Before I drew on the board, I creased it, (and then taped it for strength).  The crease in the board ensures that it is small enough that it will fold in half and fit into the primary cupboards.





Sunday, December 29, 2013

Meet Your Teacher Night

We have a fun activity planned for the Primary 2014 "Meet Your Teacher" night, which is this coming Friday.

First, we passed out reminders in church today.

We will also put a reminder sign up at the end of our street, since everyone in our primary lives within a few streets, and will all see the sign if they leave the neighborhood at any time that day.

I made this sign (but our office just shut down so I no longer have an LFP for printing posters ... so we may not actually use this version):



The sign was inspired by this image:
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmef50H-WSzOMD19NfxtV1dDbHW5OaCvfNgDtQv59u-78d2sSXLthDp5Kv6Zdrd5i1qXJWAxrQr6muRLtepcU6meHOXhpVtfaQzKcIzW1WN4AaWpi9XAdRJ8hiO0UGA22B4rd5BUVdtdRF/s1600/IMG_0796.jpg

I used this owl.

We are going to introduce next year's theme, and have some fun activities planned around supporting this theme, and around getting to know their new teachers/classes ... followed by treats, of course :)

We made little "passports" for them where they will earn little stickers as they complete an activity. Junior primary will do this for a short time, then Senior primary will participate in the same activities. During the other half of the time, the classes will be meeting with their new teachers for the activities that the teachers planned.

Each page of the passport is focused on the 2014 topic of "Families are Forever." We decided to simply use the words from the 2014 singing time song, "The Family is of God," by Matthew Neely.

Page
Quote
Topic
Lead
Activity
Front
(cover page)



2 – 3
Our Father has a family. It’s Me! It you, all others too: we are his children.

He sent each one of us to earth, through birth, To live and learn here in fam’lies.
Heavenly Father sent us to learn and be with families.

Pin the leaf on the family tree game

(sticker upon activity completion)
4-6
A father’s place is to preside, provide, To love and teach the gospel to his children. A father leads in fam’ly prayer to share Their love for Father in Heaven.
A mother’s purpose is to care, prepare, To nurture and to strengthen all her children. She teaches children to obey, to pray, To love, and serve in the fam’ly.
Father’s role / provide and be an example / Mother’s role / nurture and teach

Build a temple craft

(sticker upon activity completion)
Back
I’ll love and serve my family and be A good example to each family member. And when I am a mom or dad, so glad, I’ll help fam’ly remember: (chorus) God gave us families to help us become what He wants us to be – This is how He shares His love, for the fam’ly is of God.
Child’s role / love and service

Letters to missionaries

(sticker upon activity completion)

Saturday, December 28, 2013

The Last Sharing Time Lesson in 2013 - I Have a Testimony that I am a Child of God

I am so excited to teach this beautiful lesson (page 25) tomorrow because I have a testimony that I am a child of God, and I want our primary children to have that sure foundation through life that our Heavenly Father loves us.

I created a very quick-and-easy sun to supplement the lesson ideas in the sharing manual:


I realize the sun is crooked but I wanted it all to fit on one sheet of paper:


I will put a description for "testimony" behind four of the sun's rays. The rest will remain blank. This will give children the opportunity to come up and read the hint. In Junior primary, I will either read the hint for them, or whisper it for them to read to the class.






Saturday, December 21, 2013

Christmas Gifts for Primary - CDs!

I just posted this over on my Singing Time blog but I'm actually making it as part of a Primary Presidency gift to the primary so if you're interested in what I did and how to do it yourself, c'mon over to my http://singingmagic.blogspot.com/2013/12/primary-song-cds-for-primary-children.html.







Sunday, December 8, 2013

Upcoming Primary Presidency Planning

Working on events in December and January

  • Christmas program
  • Priesthood Preview planning
  • Meet Your Teacher planning
  • New Class Assignments and Manuals
  • Baptism Preview + January baptisms
  • Christmas Sunday in primary
  • Setting goals for 2014
  • New callings
  • and more

I am excited to share some of our ideas for Christmas Sunday in primary and for Meet Your Teacher night. More to come!