2009 LDS Primary Sharing Time February
Week 2: Heavenly Father blesses righteous families in the scriptures.
Singing Time: Review verse 1 of How Firm a Foundation. Sing: Nephi’s Courage.
Sharing Time: Remind children that we’re learning about families this month.
Hand out the Family Home Evening Kits you prepared using the materials the children created and any you want to add to it. Tell them this is only a starting place. They should ask their parents for help if they aren’t sure how to do the sharing time. Review the kit with them and make suggestions for using it.
Tell the children the scriptures are filled with stories about how Heavenly Father helps families that try to live the gospel. Ask them which family they learned about last week. (Adam and Eve.) Today, they are going to learn about some more scripture families and find out how Heavenly Father helped them.
Tell the story of Lehi’s family. Use the flannel board story found in this sharing time from the Friend:
Ann Jamison, “Sharing Time: Keeping Promises,” Friend, May 2000, 13. It’s the story of the Liahona, and how it helped Nephi and his family know what to do. Cut out the pictures and color them. If you have a flannel board to use, put flannel on the back of each piece. You’ll probably want to use cardstock to make them. If you want to make a flannel board. I have instructions for making a flannel board and using it to tell stories on this website. If you don’t want to do a flannel board story, tell it using the pictures. I put the pictures into a word processing or graphics program and enlarge them to the size of a sheet of paper. I print on cardstock or glue to cardboard. Then I put the words on the back so I have them to refer to. I try to put the story into my own words and tell it instead of reading it, but the words help if I forget what comes next. You may also want a small version of the picture on the back so you can remember what it is. Another way to do this is to invite children to come up, hold the pictures, (standing in line in the correct order) and read the story.
Ask the children what made the liahona work. It only worked when the family was choosing the right. If they made bad choices, or if some of the people in the family made bad choices, it stopped working. They don’t have a liahona, but can they think of something else their family has that will help them if they’re trying to choose the right? The Holy Ghost is like a Liahona each family can have. When you try hard to do what’s right, the Holy Ghost guides you. When you don’t want to do the right thing, the Holy Ghost can’t help you.
Retell the story, but put each picture up one at a time and ask the children to tell you what the picture is about.
Use the pictures of Lehi’s family found in the friend for the next activity. You’ll need to enlarge them first. Also enlarge, connect the dots, and print the liahona on the same page. Place the liahona on the board, at the top of the space you’re using. Draw two simple traffic lights, one with a green light and one with a red light. Place these under the liahona. Give the pictures of the family to various children and have them place them under the red light if they usually didn’t keep the commandments and under the green if they did.
If you have more time: Play a game with the children. Tell them you are going to tell them some things Lehi and his family did. If it would let the Liahona work, stand up. If it would stop the Liahona, sit down.
- When God asked Lehi to be a prophet, he agreed, even though he knew it would be hard and scary.
- Laman and Lemuel whined because they didn’t want to leave behind their nice house and their money.
- God asked Nephi and his brothers to go and get the plates. Laman and Lemuel said it would be too hard and they didn’t think it would work.
- Nephi said he would do whatever God wanted and he knew God would help.
- Laman and Lemuel got mad at Nephi and tied him up.
- Nephi tried to teach the gospel to his brothers.
- When Nephi’s bow broke, the family complained.
- When Nephi’s bow broke, Nephi just made a new one instead of complaining.
- Before Nephi went to hunt for more food, he asked his father where to go because he wanted to honor his father.
- When Lehi’s family got to their new home, they thanked Heavenly Father.
Singing Time: Teach the second verse of How Firm a Foundation. In most wards, the Primary will sing the first, and perhaps the second verse of the “grown-up” song as the closing song during the Primary Program. The congregation then joins in for the rest, so you only need to teach one or two verses.
This verse has a number of hard words in it. To help the children understand the verse play the following game:
- Make cards with the following terms on them:
- in sickness
- in health,
- In poverty’s vale
- or abounding in wealth
- At home
- or abroad
- on the land,
- or the sea—
Make another set with pictures representing those phrases.
- Go through each phrase and ask the children what it means. Then play memory. Put the word cards on the board in two groups—pictures in one, words in the other. Put the picture group down low. The littlest children choose from that group and the older children from the word group. Ask a small child to choose a picture. Then ask the older children who thinks they might know where the match is. That child can come up and try to find it. Of course, with the first words, no one will know, so they should be told to guess.
- Don’t have teams. Competition isn’t allowed in Primary, so the children are all playing together.
- Each time a child chooses a word card, remind them of the meaning.
- When all the cards are matched, continue teaching the song.
There are a few more hard words in the song. Teach those quickly. Then sing the song, asking the children to start patting their heads when they hear what God will do in all the places and situations they saw on the cards. (He will provide succor, which means comfort and help.)
Sing it again, asking them to count (in their minds) how many places and situations God will help them in.
Now that they’ve heard it twice, begin teaching it line by line, reminding them of the meaning of each line. Review entire song.
Sharing Time: Tell the story of the Stripling Warriors. Use pictures from the Friend. These flannel-board pictures of the Stripling Warriors might be placed on craft sticks and held by children if you want an alternative to the flannel board method.
This page has a simple retelling of the anti-Nephi-Lehies with a coloring page you might want to use. This is the Illustrated scriptures version of Helaman’s Army, which will give you the basic facts in learning to tell the story.
As you tell the story, emphasis that they were kept safe because their mothers had taught them to choose the right, and because they listened to their mothers.
Singing Time: Sing Book of Mormon stories, being sure to choose the verse with the stripling warriors as one choice. (Verse 6) Sing Holding Hands Around the World Review songs from last month.
Sharing Time: Give the children copies of the flannel board stories you told. Let them cut them out, color them, and, if time, practice telling the story. You may want to include the story for the children to take home. Junior Primary can color them now and cut them at home. Give each child an envelope to keep his pieces and stories in if he cut them out, and ask him to tell these stories to his family. Or, give the children the dot-to-dot, if they’re old enough and have them do it and color it.
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