If you couldn't make it or just have more ideas to add, please ADD YOUR OWN IDEAS by clicking on the comment button. You can even make them anonymous. :) Enjoy!
Here are ideas mentioned at this week's Relief Society Meeting on FHE:
- Check out the "I'm a Mormon" profiles at www.mormon.org
- after prayer and song, do a quick mini family council to organize/coordinate rides, events for that week
- Choose a conference talk to read together
- have a closing prayer at the end!
- Use the Gospel Art Booklet ($3.50 at the distribution center-- or buy it online if you don't want to drive there!) and incorporate the art print into the week as your family (or you at the breakfast table) read scriptures.
- Sugardoodle.com has neat "Articles of Faith puzzles" -- all ready to go. You just print out then use.
- Laminating on your own can be done by purchasing laminating sheets at office stores (Ex: Scotch brand has boxes of 50 page-sized laminating pockets for around $11-$13.
- www.theredheadedhostess.com has neat tools to use for learning scriptures. The seminary scriptures are on one side of a downloadable card with the 'first-letter-only' version on the back. Or summaries of each page in the scriptures to aide you in scripture study.
- Google "melonhead" for other neat sources for gospel learning goodies.
- Our Latter-day Hymns by Karen Lynn Davidson is a compilation of the background/stories/history surrounding many of the hymns in the LDS hymnbook. Great for a quick FHE lesson when time to plan is gone.
- A collection of FHE ideas being kept in a folder by topic is a great way to start a family collection. May also include family goals for that year. (Great place to collect that awesome Ensign talk that you wanted to rip out of the Ensign and keep for FHE later!)
- Nursery Manual: Behold Your Little Ones is a SUPER resource for parents of little kids. Lessons are short. Super ideas inside. This book is also cheap to purchase!
- FHE Kits: A collection of lessons in file folders which include a song, lesson, ideas for a game, maybe a treat, idea for a visual aide, etc. Can make these in groups with other sisters if you make 10+ copies of your lesson and swap with 9 other sisters! Builds your collection faster!
- Family Home Evening Manual from Church distribution (or D.I.)
- FHE is a great place to address family problems (like behavior problems) and PRACTICE the correct behavior while learning the principle behind it. Role playing is great. Or games where different scenarios are described and the kids make motions or sounds to indicate good/bad choices.
- Family Home Evening for Two and Our Family Tree Album are super ideas for couples. The album collects family stories and details of your daily life for your posterity to read later.
- Let kids give the lessons too. Act them out or watch church videos on lds.org before hand, then let the child describe story in his/her own words while holding a picture.
- In addition to Gospel Art Kit, collecting pictures from the Ensign can be helpful!
- At the end of the lesson, everyone can give a brief one-liner testimony about the principle just taught, to help strengthen families in hearing one another's testimonies outside of formal Sacrament Meeting Testimony Sundays.
- Act out the scripture stories as you're telling them (in simple form for young kids) and drive home the principle of the story.
- Make a statement of the principle for the family to take away from each family night (Ex: When we follow the prophet we are safe and happy!) that you can repeat throughout the week.
- Some families spread out a special blanket for the family to sit on for FHE
- Some families have FHE Cars (made from boxes) or FHE boxes for the kids to sit in during the lesson to keep them in one spot. :)
- Idea to create Family Rules during FHE and put them on a poster or frame them for the kids to see and to refer to when practicing a behavior that needs fine-tuning.
- Make FHE night your date night to reconnect (spiritually too!)
- Go on splits (exchanges) with the missionaries Monday Nights, where you help them teach an interested person about the gospel of Jesus Christ
- Make traditions surrounding FHE!! EXs: Animal charades after every FHE, or ice cream every Monday night, or Hide & Seek in the Dark, or a song you always start with.
- the things that you will remember years later are not always lessons, but the feelings of comradere you have with your family as a result of consistently being together for Family Night.
- Documenting the beginning of our family: After getting married take time to write in journal, reflecting on the whole event for posterity to know. Or reflect on the year at its close. Take pics/videos of apartments where you (first) lived, or places you frequented often.
- Read stories of ancestors
- Utilize the church website (www.lds.org) : Awesome Music: (hymns, youth music, childrens music), Even has narration and pics for kids of the Book of Mormon chapters.
- Read a line from the Proclamation to the World on the Family each week and say why it means something to you.
- Read a section or line from the "For the Strength of Youth" pamphlet each week and say why it is important (to keep ideas fresh in minds, and keep the lines of communication open about these matters for 'getting older' kids.)
- Begin with a welcome, but saying, "Welcome to Family Home Evening!" after which everyone throws their hands up in the air and yells "YAYYYYYY!" We go around so everyone says it, and it's really fun. The welcome is said at the beginning of dinner, after which the person who prays blesses the food and FHE, and the dessert. For us, closing prayer is that night's family prayer, where we reiterate the lesson learned in our gratitude for it.
- Make some cool visual for a story your family recently read during scripture study that you'd like to spend more time on, or pull more principles out of (since sometimes in family scripture night we're trying to get kids into bed, so we keep the "principle" short) Felt material is really forgiving, and you can attach a piece of felt to a board, or just bind a few "sheets" of felt together in a 'book' to use for your scripture stories. I came across this book thingy at a garage sale and made some stories to use for FHE:
- For the song: Lay a bunch of "cards" out of the ground for the kids to pick from. Our kid picks three, then we gather the rest up. Then he chooses which of the three we sing first. (The choosing keeps him all involved, and inevitably we always sing the "wiseman" song. The songs are written on the back with the page number, so we can use songs we might not know very well, and the second number listed is for the German version, since we try to sing that version if it exists. These are just out of cardstock and clip art from the computer. Super basic, and nice if you ever have to sub for primary chorister really fast!
