Tag: Elementary

A Day in the Life, FHE, Spiritual

Conference Activities

Keira

Dear Reader,

An unspoken thing that I personally think is amazing about conference is that there are so many family traditions involved in how each household watches conference. If you feel like you need a new tradition in your family, here are are some resources I have found from the Church (while planning our FHE lesson for this week) that are totally free to you!

  • Watch videos sharing the personal testimonies of the Apostles.
  • Print off and fill out conference notebooks (for older or for younger kids; or one of these pages one, two for in between)
  • color by topic pages (I personally think this one is worth it! love it). There is this one, as well, but a) it’s outdated, and b) it’s not as pretty. But it is still a good resource!
  • Conference Bingo! This is what our family does! we have pages my aunt made when we were kids, but the topics have shifted slightly and it’s getting harder to get bingos! So I think I’m gonna print these off, instead, this year. Before conference, I go to the dollar store and pick out little toys and party favors. I buy things that are less than a dollar (so multiple things in a pack) for bingos and then 1 dollar prize per session per kid for blackouts (I might have to make the “sustaining leaders” a free space in order to do that on this print-out). I try to pick prizes that are projects or crafts, so that my kids have some form of entertainment during conference, as opposed to a figurine, but even little figurines have value while entertaining kids for so long. Here is another page, but it has President Monson represented for “prophet,” so it’s a little outdated.
  • Here are some awesome coloring pages of the General Authorities! See if your family can recognize them and know their names.
  • There are a lot of picture searches within the church’s website, but these two (one, two) deal particularly with General Conference.
  • Same thing goes for coloring pages. I found 5 in particular that are about conference (but I bet there are more hidden in the “internet cracks.” Some of these have President Monson, but he was still a prophet (one, two, three, four, five). And here is one about King Benjamin teaching his people, in case you’re following along with our FHE lessons.
  • Here’s a poster with kids coloring for conference.
  • This page has a blank bingo sheet, but I like the idea of drawing the ties given on the bottom.
  • Challenge your family to listen for key words and keep a tally of what is said.
  • If you told your family about King Benjamin teaching his people, this activity about his people pitching his tents toward the temple will have deeper meaning.
  • Here is a connect four game based off of listening to key words.
  • This one seems fun, too. Color in a square for each clue you see or hear.
  • assign a small treat to key words and each time that word is heard, the hearer can get a treat.
  • Here is a dot-to-dot of the prophet (and a picture story).
  • There is nothing to print here, but this story talks about watching conference via a tent, like King Benjamin. You could build a fort like they do in the story or a real tent. If it’s stable enough, you could even allow your family to sleep in it one night!
  • This activity involves 1 word for each letter of the alphabet and suggests writing notes about each word.
  • Here is a rope code game that has a hidden answer at the bottom of the page.
  • For kids that can read, they could cover these words as they hear them.
  • The second page of this story from the friend gives a nice way to take notes on a talk. If your note-taker can read but isn’t ready to take that thorough of notes, they might be able to follow this outline.
  • Here is a 2-week countdown of activities to prepare for conference.
  • And this is a crossword search with conference words.
  • If you want to update the pictures, this is a fun mini-conference setup with chairs and a pulpit that you can have the speakers walk to. But it’s from 2012.
  • This coloring page is similar to some others already listed, but a little bit simpler. It would still require reading, though. Or there is this one, tied to the talk before it.
  • Here’s a wiggle break rhyme to get kids up and moving, if needed.
Kids Need Play

Coffee Filter Trees

Summer

Dear Readers,

We had some coffee filters lying around and I decided to use them for this really cute craft.

The skills this craft works on is coloring in the lines, pencil grip, and scissor skills.

To do this craft you need coffee filters, markers, something to decorate the tree with, a piece of paper for trunk and one for what you glue the project to as well as glue.

Using the marker color the coffee filters with marker. An option you can do is to dip the filter in water. This will change the look slightly. If you do this though it will add time to your craft. Ours took forever to dry, all night and the rest of the next day.

Whether you dip in water or not the next step will be to glue both the filters (folded into tree shapes) onto the stem and paper you are using for the background.

The final step is to add your decorations to the tree. We used some jewel stickers we had lying around but you can use pom poms, other stickers or whatever else you decide to use.

My girls liked this activity, but grew impatient waiting for it to dry. I think dipping it into water added an extra step that wasn’t necessary, but you live and learn.

Have fun and experiment!

Kids Need Play

Christmas Tree Handprint

Summer

Dear Readers,

This was a lot harder for me to do than I originally intended. Not because this is a hard activity, but my time management has been in question for a few weeks.

This activity is mostly self explanatory. First trace your child’s hand on a piece of paper the color you want your Christmas tree to be. Then cut it out. Get a second paper to glue your tree to and something for a trunk. Glue the trunk to the paper, then glue the handprint (or prints if you want, I wanted to have a family tree of all the kids). The final step is to let your little artist decorate the tree. This could be done any way you like. You could finger paint, use stickers, use crayons or anything you want. The sky’s the limit.

I decided I wanted to have my youngest finger paint the baubles on, but he doesn’t like having his fingers dirty apparently so it ended up being my second oldest doing it.

One caution I have is that if you decide to finger paint you will want to use washable paint or cover everything. My second oldest got both her shirt and the table painted, but I have washable paint for that reason.

In all this wasn’t a very engaging activity for my children. It was more a project for me. It is great if you want to make a keepsake or a gift.

  • only involved because of the story. could be free play
Kids Need Play

Gingerbread House

Summer

Dear Readers,

This last weekend we built gingerbread houses. The girls really enjoyed it, mostly because they got to eat a lot of candy.

This is a tradition that my mother-in-law does every year. It was great to see how the kids did. The younger kids didn’t do so well, but the older ones did a lot better.

This was an exercise in having patience. Putting the sides together you need to wait until the icing dries. Then you need to wait until the roof dries. If you don’t then you will end up with a pile of gingerbread.

Decorating the house is the most fun though. Once they are put together you can let their imagination run wild. My oldest decided to put nests on the roof, and a candy cane was stuck to the side.

It was fun, but took a lot of time. It may take less time next year, though. With the kids getting older they will need less help.

Kids Need Play

I Spy Letter Sounds

Summer

Dear Readers,

As the school year began this year many parents were learning that their child had fallen behind on their reading skills. This pandemic has not been kind to those just learning the beginning sounds to reading. My child was one of those that suffered.

She really struggled finding out the way to pick out letters in the words. I thought and thought about how I could help her with her reading. Then an idea came to me.

My older kids love to play I spy. I had a brain spark about using this to help with the sounds of letters.

Stock Photo by Ekaterina Belinskaya from Pexels

Basically played the same way as the original, “I spy with my little eye, something that…” Instead of saying a color here I decided to change it to “something that starts with the sound sss.” You could do start with, ends with, or if they get really good you can do middle sounds. Also when they get really good at the sounds you could change it to the letters.

My oldest did well at this game but my next oldest didn’t want to play it that way. It was the difference between first and kindergarten age and knowledge I think. My second oldest is just starting out on her journey to learning letter sounds and names, whereas my oldest (who is behind) has a little bit firmer foundation.

All in all I think it is one we will play every once in a while, and keep revisiting when my second oldest gets a firmer foundation with sounds.

Edit: my kids are spontaneously starting this game as we wait for the bus, so they seem to like it.

Summer at searchforseven.com
Kids Need Play

**Freebie** Pumpkin Poke

Summer

Dear Readers,

Today I wanted to practice the pincer grasp with my preschoolers. We started with a pushpin and a printout that my sister made us. I did have a little difficulty because nothing I was using was allowing the give that the pin needed to get through. The cardboard I had was too thin and the table was too hard.

Then I had a brainstorm, why not use a folded blanket? We had a lot of muslin blankets still lying around from the baby stage of the kids, so why not use them?

This activity was definitely too hard for my oldest toddler (she didn’t even really poke any of the dots), but it was a good stretch for my youngest preschooler. If you are looking for a good craft for your preschoolers to do during the Halloween season these are a great option. Just don’t expect them to finish them the first time you try doing something like this.

The first one we did might have been way over the kids heads but my oldest did about a third of the pumpkin before she decided she was done. I will link that one for older kids if you would like to do this with elementary aged kids it will be there for them too.

The second one we did is more preschool friendly, so definitely try that with your preschoolers.

Here is the preschool version:

Click here to download

Here is the elementary aged version:

Click here to download

Have fun, whichever one you choose to do.

Summer at searchforseven.com
  • probably more 4+