Friday, February 18, 2011

FHE for 2-year-olds

Hmmm. I think the most important thing to having a successful FHE with a two-year-old is to make sure it is very interactive and very quick. Just think nursery. With one child it's a little bit easier because you can really gear it towards him. If you have older kids, it's a good idea to just have something there to keep the little one busy during the lesson like paper, crayons, paper punches, etc. With our family if I'm doing the lesson J is entertaining D and vice versa. Anyway, here are a few sample lessons that might help:

Topic: Love
Sing "we are a happy family"
Show pictures of various family members that your child knows and loves.
"Look! It's grandma. We love her so much don't we? And there's [cousin]. He's so fun to play with. We sure love him don't we?" And so on. Show pictures of Heavenly Father and Jesus and tell who they are. "They love us SO much and we sure love them." Ask child for a hug and tell them how much you love their hugs and kisses and how much you love them (they might say no in which case say, "oh that makes me so sad because I love you so much and your hugs show me that you love me too"). Close with a song and prayer and have a treat you all really love!

Topic: Creation
sing "Two little eyes" (p268 CSB)
Get out some play dough (you can make edible versions, recipes found on line, if you're worried about your little one eating it), or some paper and fingerpaints
Roll the dough into balls or help him paint a picture
"wow! Look at the creation you made! That is so special, just like you. Let's put it in a special place. Did you know Heavenly Father created us? Heavenly Father created us and we are so special!"
You could also just talk about the earth's creation. Have several balls out. Play with them a little bit, talk about how they are round. Then show a globe. "This is earth. It's round like these balls. We live on earth. Let's make our own balls." While making the balls continue talking about earth's creation. "Heavenly Father created the earth so we could live here." Make the play dough ball(s). "Look we created a ball just like the earth."

Topic: Word of Wisdom
song, "head, shoulders, knees, and toes"
"Wow aren't our bodies neat?" Run around, play catch, try to lift some heavy things.
"Wow our bodies are strong. Our bodies are strong because we take good care of them."
Have some bite-size fruit and veggies to sample from or a fruit smoothie, yogurt or some other healthy snacks.
"these food make our bodies strong. We need to eat good things to take care of our bodies."

Topic: Saying Prayers
Make a chart with pictures by the words
Dear Heavenly Father. . . picture of Heavenly Father and Jesus
Thank you. . . things he would be grateful for
Please bless. . . you get the idea
In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen . . . picture of the savior
Show the chart, explain, and practice. Whisper as you describe kneeling down, folding your arms, bowing your head. If your child is anything like my boys, they might get a little silly, but just quietly tell them you are going to say the prayer and hope that he will join you. Try to get him to kneel with you on your lap. If he just won't then don't give him any more attention and just say the prayer.

Hopefully that helps!

2 comments:

  1. Heather YOU ARE AWESOME! I love those ideas! I am going to use them this month for our FHE! Thank you SO much for sharing your wisdom. I love you!

    PS I deleted my first post because I read it after it posted and I had a messed up sentence.

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  2. These are such good ideas!!! Thanks Heather!!

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