A Letter to Primary Parents

I just emailed this letter to my ward's wonderful Primary parents. I love General Conference and am so excited to have a discussion with the Primary children about what they learned, and what spoke to them! I am hoping to finish a project for the children in time for Sunday but it was a bit of a grand project to only have a week to complete so we'll see if I get it done in time. I might have to adapt for Sunday and then finish it over the following week. Or have the children help assemble their own gift :) 

Dear Primary Parents,

We will be reviewing some of the conference talks with the children during Sharing Time this Sunday. 

As I have been preparing this lesson, I have enjoyed many delightful conversations about General Conference, the things we learned, and the comments that specifically spoke to my friends, family, and me.

I did not want to make any assignments to any families regarding this lesson for Sunday because it is Spring Break week for most of you. However, if you are back in town, and your child was particularly impressed by a General Conference talk and would like to share their thoughts during Sharing Time (not opening exercises but the actual lesson time) please let me know by Saturday night. I will call on children who raise their hands regardless, but if a child wants to prepare in advance a thought from Conference, I welcome that opportunity and will set aside some time for them to come to the front of the room. They can bring a picture or object to share along with whatever General Conference talk was impressed upon their minds.

In the meantime, for you wonderful parents and grandparents, I also want to place special emphasis on the talk by Devin G. Durrant, called, "Teaching in the Home - a Joyful and Sacred Responsibility." This is a wonderful talk. I could see that Elder Durrant is the man he has become in large part because of teaching in the home. 

He says, "Years ago, my mother shared that her two best gospel conversations with my older brother, Matt, were once while she was folding laundry and another time while driving him to the dentist. One of the many things I admired about my mother was her readiness to teach her children."

Handbook 2: Administering the Church, says, "Parents have the first responsibility for the spiritual and physical welfare of their children (see DC 68:25-28). The bishopric, Primary leaders, and Primary teachers support but do not replace parents in this responsibility."

I know most of you already listened to Elder Durrant's talk but I want to invite you to review it again online. At the end of the talk, the written version shares references that were used. This includes some specific quotes that were not in actual talk but are a great supplement.

Lastly, I want to share the quote from President Dallin H. Oaks talk, "Small and Simple Things." He quotes President Howard W. Hunter, who taught “frequently it is the commonplace tasks … that have the greatest positive effect on the lives of others, as compared with the things that the world so often relates to greatness.”

Thank you so much for all that you do. 

I hope that you have had an amazing Spring break!

Combining Singing Time and Sharing Time in a General Conference and Pre-Program Song Review

I just posted a combined singing time/sharing time to prep for the Primary Program but with the dual purpose of reviewing General Conference here.

General Conference Activity Packs

I have a two-part, free General Conference activity packet for Primary kids here.

It's a combination of Singing Time and Sharing Time topics that are appropriate for General Conference. For example:

General Conference Cards

I have been working on making General Conference cards for all of the children in our Primary. Each card is laminated, and has the title, speaker, a quote that represents a key learning from their talk, and an illustration.

I had such a hard time leaving out the beautiful words of the talks that this is more geared to Senior Primary and those who have learned to read. So, I'm debating on how and who to share them with because they were a fairly incredible amount of work - but well worth it. I have learned so much from these sessions of General Conference by studying each talk intensely. I'm so grateful for the leaders in our church that dedicate their time to serving others, drawing closer to God, and helping us learn how to do the same.

Sharing Time: Lessons from General Conference

For Sharing Time today our presidency each picked some of our favorite conference talks. We made sure to have a picture that represented the talk for each general authority. We then had the children match symbols with pictures, then tell us what they remembered/learned from the talk. Where necessary, we filled in a little bit of extra detail. For instance, with President Monson's talk, Sister Bowden reminded the Primary that he did not speak for very long, so it's important to think about what he felt was worth talking about in the short amount of time in which he spoke.

Here's a picture of the completed board, after the children matched all of the pictures to a general authority.

I also passed out a hand-out I made for Senior Primary that shares something we learned from each of the general authorities that were featured in today's lesson. 

General Conference Packets!

I have been hunting through General Conference packets online. I love the simplicity and focus of these printables from LDS.org

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/activities-for-children?lang=eng