Saturday Is a Special Day......Sunday Activities

Sabbath Day Activity Ideas

Ø   indicates ideas with additional idea details listed below)

• Prepare future talks and lessons (church and FHE)
• Visit someone in the hospital or nursing home
• Check out Church media available online
• Do some Family History research
• Catalogue family pictures
• Write in a journal

Ø  Go for a walk

Ø  Write a letter

Ø  Sing songs together as a family

Ø  Play family games together

• Read scriptures or church magazines or other good books aloud together
• Have family interviews or family counsels
• Memorize scriptures
• Work on Duty to God/Faith in God
• Make treats together to share with a neighbor or friend
• Draw/paint or color together
• Create a Sabbath Day idea book with lists and depictions of appropriate activities that children can browse and choose from

Additional details for Sabbath Day Activity Ideas

Family Walks - This is a great time to inspire gratitude in your children.  Go for a walk and have each child find 2 or 3 things they are especially grateful that Heavenly Father created/provided for them.  Record these items in a family journal.  Include them in your family prayer at the end to the day.

Write a Letter - You and your children are more likely to do this if everything you need is in one place.  Create a "letter Mailbox" that includes items like stationary, pencils/pens, address books or filled in address labels of family and missionaries, envelopes and stamps.  Include fun paper or stamps to encourage younger children to participate. Make the box a "special" activity reserved for Sundays and other special times.

Sing Songs Together as a Family - prepare a song as a family that you can sing at a nursing home, hospital or for an extended family gathering.

Play Family Games Together - Don't get bogged down with Chutes and Ladders over and over every Sunday.  Branch out - prepare a "re-enactment box" with costumes that could be used to depict scripture stories or church history events.  This does not need to be elaborate.  Most Book of Mormon stories can be pulled off with a dishtowel and a rope to create a headdress - add rocks and a flashlight and you could do the Brother of Jared in a flash!

LDS Living Magazine
{LDS How-to} Keep Your Kids Reverent in Church

Mandy Slack - March 15, 2012 http://ldsliving.com/story/68059-lds-how-to-keep-your-kids-reverent-in-church

We know hoping for reverent children in church is like dreaming the impossible dream. But there are a few surprisingly simple ways to achieve it.

If I were to walk into a sacrament meeting and see children sitting quietly, engaged by the sacrament speakers instead of their Cheerios or coloring books, I would probably die of shock. Children just aren’t equipped with the ability to sit still and listen to religious vernacular (or anything) for extended periods of time. (For that matter, most adults even struggle.)

Just because kids have a hard time sitting still doesn’t mean they lack faith, but it does mean your task of keeping peace in the chapel is harder. Here are some ideas that might prevent icy stares from fellow ward members:

Prepare

Life gets busy with kids in the picture, but even minimal preparation will lead to a saner sacrament meeting. Set out clothes on Saturday night (including your own), and make other church preparations—if you’re not running around on Sunday morning, it’s likely both you and your kids will be calmer.

Three hours is a long time for some kids to go without any snacks, so pack something to give them in between. But for the love of every primary teacher, avoid sugar. “That is just not nice,” says Merilee Slack, mother of four boys between the ages of 1 and 7. “Kids get way out of control.” Melissa Morgan, mother of three children between the ages of 2 and 5, suggests feeding the kids before sacrament meeting. “We have sacrament meeting last, so they’re usually pretty hungry by the time it comes around. I try to feed them right before; otherwise all they’re thinking about is the food.”

Make the Time in the Hallway or Foyer Unpleasant

If you have to take your child out of sacrament meeting, make sure wherever you’re taking them is not a fun alternative. Lots of people suggest making the child sit on a parent’s lap and practice being reverent. You can do this anywhere—in the foyer, in an empty classroom, or even the mother’s lounge. Kerri McLennan, mother of three little boys, says, “After they have practiced for a while, we’ll give them the choice to either keep practicing or go back in with everyone else. This works really well.”

Surround Them with Good Examples

Of course you should be a good example if you want your kids to learn reverence, but it also helps to sit near someone else who also displays good Sunday behavior. Jessie Walker and her family started sitting near two young women who her four-year-old daughter, Brett, admires. “I have Brett watch them while the sacrament is being passed and I tell her that what they are doing is thinking about Jesus,” explains Jessie. “She is starting to catch on. I’ll catch her looking at them and mimicking what they are doing.”

Provide Reverent Entertainment

Keeping kids reverent must be a universal problem, because there are options everywhere for quiet and spiritual entertainment. Deseret Book even has a Heroes of the Book of Mormon app you can download onto your smartphone, which offers puzzles, a coloring book, and a matching game. It also includes scripture references for study. Here are some other things that you can use to keep your little ones entertained:

            •           Activity Books—Whether you have babies, toddlers, or little kids, there are activity books to keep your little ones entertained and reverent. Who is This Jesus?, the brand new hidden picture book, showcases touching pictures of Christ but also has subtle pictures hidden in the pages for your kids to find.

            •           Quiet Books—You can make these books on your own with help from websites like How to Make a Quiet Book or MormonChic. If you’re not so crafty or don’t have the time to take this kind of project on, you can buy quiet books online and in Deseret Book stores.

            •           Popsicle Puzzles—This easy craft is the answer if you’re a busy mom, but want to make something to help your kids make it through sacrament meeting. You and your child or children could make these puzzles together and have plenty of options for quiet entertainment when Sunday rolls around. Learn how to make popsicle puzzles here.

            •           Picture Books—Laminate pictures from The Friend or other church books and magazines, then punch a hole in the corner and slide a metal ring in the hole to make a flipbook. You can also laminate pictures of temples or prophets.

            •           Pipe Cleaners—Jennifer Hsu, writer for mormonchic.com, suggests bringing pipe cleaners in a Ziploc bag. This may seem simple, but I bet it could hold a toddler or baby’s attention for more than an hour.

Make Sure Your Kids Know What You Expect

Kids are bad at reading minds. Let them know why they are in sacrament meeting and what you expect from them while they are there. Make sure they know who is boss. You don’t have to act like a prison guard, but if you give your kids the choice of being reverent or rowdy, they will likely choose to be rowdy. If you let them know that’s not an option, they’ll learn to be reverent.

Enjoying Sacrament Meeting with Children

By Chris Crowe

With help, young children can learn to be reverent.

https://www.lds.org/ensign/1989/07/enjoying-sacrament-meeting-with-children?lang=eng

03241_000_011

When I was a boy, I was convinced that my dad had the longest arms in the world. Anytime one of us boys whispered, whined, winked, or did anything else Dad considered irreverent during mass, we were jolted back into reverence with a rap on the back of the head. No matter where we sat in our family group at church, Dad could reach us.
Knowing there was no escaping Dad’s long arm, we usually sat like reluctant angels through the service, but being quiet didn’t make us like church.
Years later, I attended my first Latter-day Saint sacrament meeting and was shocked by the unruly behavior of most of the children. Had my dad been there, he would have worn out his arm trying to teach reverence to those kids.
About ten years after my first visit to sacrament meeting, I was again sitting in an LDS chapel, but this time I was a member of the Church and a father wrestling with unruly toddlers of my own.
“There’s got to be some positive way to teach our children reverence,” I said to my wife. “I don’t want them to dread church as I did.”
Since then, my wife and I have found ways to help our four children, all under the age of eight, be reverent during church. They aren’t always paragons of reverence, but most of the time they are reverent enough, and what is more important, they are learning to enjoy sacrament meeting.
Here is some of what we learned as we “trialed and errored” our way into sacrament-meeting reverence. These ideas have worked for us; other families may have different but equally effective ways of encouraging reverence.

Be reverent yourself

It is important that parents teach their children by example that reverence in sacrament meeting is important. We can’t expect our children to behave in church when we don’t behave ourselves.
When I was in the bishopric, I had many opportunities to watch the example parents set for their children in sacrament meeting. Many were reverent, and their children responded likewise. But I would see a few parents standing in the back of the chapel with young babies in their arms, using the meeting as a time to chat with friends. Others were reading, writing, or catching up on their sleep. Their children were usually equally irreverent.
As parents, we owe it to ourselves and to our children to be active participants in sacrament meeting, not indifferent spectators. We need to pay attention to what the speakers are saying. Once we get home, we should discuss the sacrament meeting talks and what we learned from them.

Teach your children

After we improved our own sacrament meeting behavior, we taught our children exactly how we expected them to behave in church.
Our first attempts consisted of taking them to the foyer when they misbehaved, which is necessary so others can enjoy the meeting. This method had mixed results. Our noisy children weren’t disrupting the spirit of the meeting, but my wife and I missed out on much of what was going on. On top of that, our children soon decided that the freedom and fun of the chapel foyer were much more desirable than sacrament meeting.
After reviewing why we had failed, we changed our tactics and fought the battle of sacrament meeting reverence at home instead of at church. In family home evening and at other times during the week, we had our children practice sitting quietly. As we focused our lessons on the purpose of sacrament meeting, we explained to our children why we took bread and water. We talked to them about Christ’s sacrifice and explained that sacrament meeting was a time for them to think about Jesus.
After only a week, the effects were noticeable, and after three or four weeks, our older children were actually beginning to sit quietly for most of the meeting.

Take action when they’re irreverent

Of course, the children occasionally slipped into irreverence, but when they did, we knew we had to do more than just take them out to join the foyer carnival. My father had made it clear to us that he wanted us in church, not just in the vicinity of it. After considering Dad’s methods and listening to a speech on discipline, my wife and I realized that taking irreverent children out of sacrament meeting solved the immediate problem, but it did nothing to encourage them to avoid future irreverence. We made up our minds to teach our children that life in sacrament meeting was much more pleasant than life on the fringe of sacrament meeting.
The next Sunday, my two-year-old son had a terrible tantrum. I immediately carried him out of the chapel, but this time I didn’t stop in the foyer. I found an empty classroom down the hallway, sat down on a folding chair, and held him firmly on my lap.
In a minute he calmed down and squirmed to be free. My initial reaction was to let him down, but I decided instead to keep him on my lap. He complained, and I explained to him that he would remain on my lap, as immobile as I could hold him, until he decided it was time to return to sacrament meeting reverently.
To my wiggly two-year-old, such restriction was the worst fate possible. After ten minutes of pleading, squirming, and crying, he realized I meant business, and he asked if he could go back to sacrament meeting.
“Will you be reverent, Son?” I asked.
He nodded.
“And if you’re not reverent, what will happen?” He pointed to the chair.
We returned to the meeting, where he remained reasonably quiet. He and our daughters still had their moments on other Sundays when they had to be taken from sacrament meeting, but it didn’t take them long to learn that they preferred their freedom in sacrament meeting to the restriction of Dad’s lap in a quiet classroom down the hall.
Naturally, it’s better, and easier, to prevent irreverence than to deal with it at church. Knowing that our children wouldn’t be able to listen to or understand all of the sacrament meeting talks, we planned alternative quiet activities for them when they began to lose interest.
All of our children, even the youngest, enjoy reading and looking at the illustrated children’s scripture stories published by the Church. We also bring a few crayons and blank sheets of paper for the younger ones to draw on when they become too wiggly. The older children are allowed to draw, too, but we encourage them to draw pictures that relate to the talks being given.
We also found that games, food, treats, and toys usually create more chaos and mess in the meeting than they prevent.

Remember that kids are kids

We don’t expect our children to be perfect in church because we know at their ages it’s sometimes beyond their abilities. But my wife and I have a goal to enjoy sacrament meeting. When one of our children misbehaves, we deal with him or her as quickly and as unemotionally as possible.
It also helps to keep a sense of humor. If a member of our family does a flip off the back of the bench or toddles, unnoticed, to the stand, we try to remain calm, extinguish their behavior, take them out if necessary, and tell ourselves that, someday—maybe—we’ll chuckle over the incident.
If you are alone and outnumbered by your children, you can still maintain reverence—with a little help. When I was called into the bishopric, my wife was left to handle our children by herself. After a few Sundays, she found the task overwhelming and exhausting, so we asked a retired couple in our ward if they would sit by our family every Sunday to even the odds. They willingly agreed, and now our children love to sit by their “grandparents.”
In our family, we try to make sure church is a positive experience for us and our children. With a little practice and planning, and with lots of patience, we are helping our children learn to appreciate sacrament meeting and to do it reverently.

Sacrament Meeting Reverence

Enjoying Sacrament Meeting with Children  1989 Ensign: by Chris Crowe 

·         Be Reverent Yourself

·         Teach Your Children

·         Take Action when They are Irreverent

·         Remember Kids will be Kids

www.lds.org/ensign/1989/07/enjoying-sacrament-meeting-with-children?lang=eng

{LDS How-to } Keep Your Kids Reverent in Church   LDS Living Magazine Mandy Slack - March 15, 2012

·         Prepare

·         Don't Make Hallway/Foyer Time a Reward

·         Surround Them with Good Examples

·         Provide Reverent Entertainment for Small Children

o   Quiet Books

o   Activity Books/Folders

o   Picture Books

·         Make Sure They Know What You Expect

http://ldsliving.com/story/68059-lds-how-to-keep-your-kids-reverent-in-church

Quiet Book Ideas/ Folder Ideas (the tip of an iceburg)

http://sewingbelle.blogspot.com/2010/02/quiet-book_22.html - Beautiful Bible theme Quiet Book

http://laurathoughts81.blogspot.com/2011/06/quiet-book-week-summary-template.html - LDS Quiet Book (including a page about Ammon with Removable ARMS!! ;-) )

http://dorasdigitals.blogspot.com/2012/01/my-sacrament-book.html?showComment=1345045752985 - Sacrament Reverence Book

http://ldslessonideas.wordpress.com/category/primary/coloring-pages/ - Book of Mormon Coloring pages

http://yourcreativejuices.blogspot.com/2010/04/more-quiet-book-pages.html - Activity Quiet Book

http://joeandanna.blogspot.com/search/label/quiet%20book  - Quiet Book with counting activities

http://jocelynandjason.blogspot.com/2011/11/mr-potato-head-quiet-book-pages-10-11.html - Mr. Potato Head Quiet Book page

http://atsecondstreet.blogspot.com/2010/02/on-go-book-tutorial.html - Simple Quiet Book

http://thecraftingchicks.com/2009/09/tiffanys-quiet-book.html - Quiet Book Clock

http://emptybobbinsewing.com/2010/06/04/birthday-week-the-quiet-book/ - Buttons and counting Quiet Book

http://www.skiptomylou.org/2007/04/25/on-a-roll/  - Fabric Crayon Holder

http://www.littlefamilyfun.com/2012/04/file-folder-games-sundays.html - Bible Themed Folder Games

**These can all also be found/linked to from Nancy Sorenson's "for the kids" Pinterest Board

Quotes on Reverence

"As leaders, we see some patterns related to reverence that, if not corrected, may open up chinks in your spiritual armor. For example, we have noticed a growing trend in the Church to arrive late at sacrament meeting, priesthood, and other meetings. Bishops and stake presidents report some members coming in as late as half an hour after the meeting has started. Occasionally there may be a legitimate excuse for not arriving on time (such as having an emergency appendectomy), but in most cases it is because you simply plan poorly or do not care enough. The ideal would be to arrive five or ten minutes early so you can sit in the chapel quietly listening to the prelude music and preparing yourselves to worship. Our sacrament meetings belong to the Savior. When you arrive late, it not only interrupts the reverence of others, but it is a sign of your own disrespect and apathy." -Elder Ballard in the July 2004 Ensign

"The world grows increasingly noisy. Clothing and grooming and conduct are looser and sloppier and more disheveled. Raucous music, with obscene lyrics blasted through amplifiers while lights flash psychedelic colors, characterized the drug culture. Variations of these things are gaining wide acceptance and influence over our youth...This trend to more noise, more excitement, more contention, less restraint, less dignity, less formality is not coincidental nor innocent nor harmless. The first order issued by a commander mounting a military invasion is the jamming of the channels of communication of those he intends to conquer. Irreverence suits the purposes of the adversary by obstructing the delicate channels of revelation in both mind and spirit". -Boyd K. Packer, in Conference Report, Oct. 1991, 28; or Ensign, Nov. 1991, 22

"Reverence may be defined as a profound respect mingled with love and awe. Other words that add to our understanding of reverence include gratitude, honor, veneration, and admiration. The root word revere also implies an element of fear. Thus, reverence might be understood to mean an attitude of profound respect and love with a desire to honor and show gratitude, with a fear of breaking faith or offending." -M. Russell Ballard, "God's Love for His Children", Ensign May 1988, 57