Joseph Smith Gets the Golden Plates Game

This is just a little role-playing game my daughter and I did one morning to help teach her how we got the Book of Mormon. We took turns being Moroni and Joseph Smith. Moroni would pretend to dig a hole, put in the golden plates, and put a big rock (or pillow!) on top to hide them. Then Joseph Smith would be sleeping on the couch. The angel Moroni would come visit with Joseph Smith and tell him about the golden plates under the big rock. When my daughter would be Joseph Smith she would get up, run and kick off the pillow, and shout with excitement that she had found the golden plates. Of course there is a very shortened version of what took place, but it is laying the foundation for lessons to come. :)

Happy Teaching!

Religious Curriculum Ideas and Teaching Tools

Just wanted to type a quick post with some curriculum ideas and tools that we are using during

our My Faith Mondays. There is so much material and great ideas- just find what works best for you and your kiddos and teach away! YOU are your child's first and most important teacher!

1. I found these Everyday Bible Story DVDs at the dollar store for, well, . . . a dollar! This is just one of the eight DVDs we got- and my daughter's favorite so far! There are bible stories and music videos- nothing too fancy, but captivating and educational for a toddler or preschooler.
2. We have also been using (just a little) these classic Scripture Stories and matching DVDs. They are designed for older children so we just kinda pick and choose what my daughter sees on the videos. I actually have memories using the old tapes to read along with these books- and the guys voice on the tape (and movie) is kinda scary.
3. I love getting ideas from other websites- Sugardoodle.net is one of my favorites for religious teaching. Check out this post on a week long Easter experience for your family. There are also lots of other blogs I read to get inspired for activities!
4. Music and books have always been a big part of religion for me. My daughter has been exposed to primary music and we are just recently listening to other types of religious music. We have been reading a variety of books on different prophets and events in the Bible and Book of Mormon. Some of our recent finds have been:

We just bought this for my daughter's Easter- she has the first book and is starting to get into the stories more and more.

I am currently working on organizing my religious ideas into a binder- that's the goal for this week! These are just some of the ideas- I would LOVE to take our weekly scripture stories to the next level by applying one or two main principles (such as prayer with Daniel in the Lion's Den, obedience with Nephi, etc..) I want to also add a little song, coloring page (for her scripture story folder), and a game ('cuz thats how my Boo learns!) So much to do and so little time. . .

Happy Teaching!

Latest Curriculum Ideas

I finally have a sec to whip up a blog post! My life has been so SO busy balancing work and mommyhood! Let me share with you some of the ideas for activities that we have done over the past couple weeks.

My Faith Mondays:

We have learned about the Old Testament prophets Noah, the Tower of Babel, the temple, and the Book of Mormon story of Samuel the Lamanite. We are currently working on the story of Joseph Smith and the origin of the Book of Mormon. I decided to spice things up by alternating weeks between bible and book of Mormon stories.

For Noah I used a file folder game found here and a lapbook found here.

My favorite part of our whole Noah lesson was hearing my daughter read (actually she memorized it) the memory verse: "Noah did everything God commanded him to do."

To learn about the tower of Babel, my Boo and I built a tower up to a picture of Jesus. We then used Little People (valuable resource for learning!) to try and climb the tower to see Jesus. I then had Jesus tell the people that they don't climb a tower to see him (in my daughter's words "that is SOOO silly") but we pray to him instead. I kept the lesson super basic and my little one caught on!
We learned about the temple this past week as well. We built a tower with blocks and used the Little People guy my daughter has named Tony as Angel Moroni on top of one of the spires. We talked about how we all got to go to the temple as a family and I showed my daughter her temple dress, after which she wanted to immediately take of her jammies and put it on (and for her thats a big thing- jammies are her favorite things to wear)! She has grown in the past 2 years however- but she still squeezed into her bonnet! We also had some of the Little People go to visit the temple- I had one of the people be naughty and told Boo that 'cuz that person was naughty, she couldn't go to the temple. She had to make better choices and be nice. NO time was wasted in repenting so all the people could be at the temple!
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Samuel the Lamanite was another little story we talked about this week- using the megablocks and Little People again- we built a wall and had Tony a.k.a. Samuel tell the people (who happened to be Candy Mommy and Santa Claus Little People) that Jesus was coming and they needed to be nice. Kept it short and simple and to my daughter's asking repeated it A LOT!!! She really likes her scripture stories!

Tumbling Tuesdays:
We picked up some hula hoops for Boo and she LOVES them! She calls them her "hula loops" - so cute! What do we do with them? We jump from hoop to hoop, we use the hoops as cars and run around the house, and eventually mommy will be using them for sorting activities. We also have gone on a few walks, been to the park to play, and learned new games such as Red Rover and Tag. Which my daughter CAN NOT get enough of!

Wednesday's Words:
So this has been very low key- we have learned spanish words for eyes, ears, nose, mouth, arms, head, body, cold, and hot. I want to have her make a book of the spanish terms she is learning so we have an easy way to review words. That is still a project in the making, however!

Tea Time and Rhyme Thursday:
We have spent the last two weeks learning the story of the three little pigs. Initially I wanted to do a different nursery rhyme a week, but right now I am WAY too busy to gather materials for that.
For the three little pigs, we put on a puppet show and have played with these sequencing cards. She has had fun learning this story, however when I ask her to tell me the story of the three little pigs. more than likely she will tell me this" three little pigs, lost their mittens, began to cry...." and continue on with the story of the three little kittens :) -she has that kitten nursery rhyme down!

Field Trip Friday-
We went to the train station on a cold morning and had all the display trains to ourselves to explore! and a few days later RODE on a train to a nearby city, in a blizzard, to go to build-a-bear. On our way to build-a-bear we stopped by a planetarium to dry off from the storm and "walked on the moon". It was a lot of fun! I have a list somewhere on my computer of possible field trip locations for your kiddos- if I can find it I will upload it!

Some things I want to ADD to our fun days: piano lesson (I have the workings of a very basic "piano" curriculum running through my head) math exploration time, and more arts and crafts. I am slowly getting a structure and routine in place- I just need about 5 more hours in a day to get everything accomplished! And one day a week where I can do some uninterrupted lesson planning!
If anyone has great spanish teaching ideas (besides watching Dora the Explorer) I would love to hear them!!!!
Happy Teaching!!!