Our Plan of Study For The Year

This year we are doing a study of the Book of Mormon throughout the church for Sunday School. I always love studying the Book of Mormon. The first Sunday of the year I was sitting in Sunday School, flipping through the Study guide. I ran across this quote which I absolutely love on the promises given for reading the Book of Mormon regularly with our families.

“I feel certain that if, in our homes, parents will read from the Book of Mormon prayerfully and regularly, both by themselves and with their children, the spirit of that great book will come to permeate our homes and all who dwell therein. The spirit of reverence will increase; mutual respect and consideration for each other will grow. The spirit of contention will depart. Parents will counsel their children in greater love and wisdom. Children will be more responsive and submissive to the counsel of their parents. Righteousness will increase. Faith, hope, and charity—the pure love of Christ—will abound in our homes and lives, bringing in their wake peace, joy, and happiness” (in Conference Report, Apr. 1980, 90; or Ensign, May 1980, 67).

I don't know a home or family that DOES NOT need these types of blessings on a regular basis. This quote always gives me a renewed purpose in making sure we are reading it in our family. 


As I continued glancing through the study guide though I had a thought as I noticed the little section after each lesson for a family discussion. I've seen this my whole life, but it hit me a bit differently that moment. I started reading through a few of them and thought these would be great FHE lessons. Why not actually do what they suggest and discuss this as a family. Why not make life easier on us and have the FHE lesson, be the same as what we've been studying as a family in scripture study as well as what we are studying in church. 


Most of the time Beau and I end up picking a topic that we feel our family needs at the time, and do a  Family Home Evening lesson on that topic. But my thoughts were different that day. The thoughts I kept having were: The Book of Mormon has the power to change lives. Teaching Doctrine will improve behavior faster than teaching behavior will improve behavior. The promises made in the quote, and how we are need of them.  I knew that if we did this our family would better in so many ways.

So I shared my thoughts with Beau and we decided to simplify things for the year. We're going to read the Book of Mormon as a family, and follow along with the Sunday School lessons, the following week, we'll use the family discussion suggestions in the Study guide to use as a basis for our family home-evening on the chapters we had studied the week before.  Basically it's all about the Book of Mormon.

We are continuing to do our scripture stories with our kids as we read. Our goal is to illustrate as close as we can every chapter of the Book of Mormon, and then I'll bind them at the end of their year for their own scripture story book. We are really wanting them to learn the people, stories and events of the Book of Mormon. We've also be been able to have some great discussions with them while they are coloring about various things we're reading. One being the attitude of Laman and Lemuel. We discussed how they were still obedient to everything they were asked to do, the difference was they complained and murmured about it every time. We discussed our attitudes when asked to do something. 


I try and print up all the chapters we'll need for the week, then all I have to do is put them on the table with the bucket of crayons when I set it for breakfast. When we're finished eating, Beau will pull out the scriptures and read while the kids grab their paper and start to draw about what we are reading for the day. Here is Savannah's for the week.

  

Tonight was our first Family Home Evening lesson, discussing the importance of the Book of Mormon. We also discussed how the Book of Mormon came about. 

I assigned everyone a prophet from the Book of Mormon and then handed them each their own plate of gold (created from a Styrofoam meat tray I cut up).  I gave them an opened paper clip to have them try writing some scripture on their own plates. The styrofoam works great to press into, but it's still a lot tougher than writing on paper. They did great and loved the hands on part of the activity. I was impressed with what Mirian and Savannah chose to write on theirs. 


We then had Mormon (Isaac) abridge the plates. (combine all the pages together with some book rings.) We talked about how he had to take all these records from so many prophets, and through prayer and revelation know which parts to include in the final gold plates, which would come forth in the last days. We then had him give them to Moroni who buried them.  Joseph Smith was then visited in a dream by Moroni (thousands of years later) and acted out the whole story of how the Book of Mormon came to be translated, published and now prints over a million copies a year.

We then ended with the testimony of Elder Holland on the Book of Mormon. His testimony affects me so powerfully every single time I hear it. It affected my kids too when they heard it this time. It resignates deep inside my soul, with my own testimony and knowledge that Joseph Smith was indeed a prophet and he did translate the golden plates and brought forth the Book of Mormon. It is the most correct book on earth. The prophets and people that wrote it did live, I feel that every time I read it, and it hit home even more so tonight in our little acting lesson. 


This book is the word of God.  It is so powerful and as I've been re-reading it again, I am always amazed at how much more I learn from it. I encourage you to watch Elder Holland's testimony. I would encourage you to re-read it this year and study it with your families. If you have never read it before. I encourage you to read it from start to finish all the way through for yourself. If you need a copy let me know and I will give you one, (in your preferred language.) See what it's about, find out for yourself why Elder Holland's testimony is so powerful. It is a true book. I know that with all my heart. I have no doubt. It will change your life if you let it. I'm excited for it to change my family's this year.

A Year Ago

I thought I would share one more month from our Family Book.  This is the month of January. Look at where we were a year ago, and how much the kids have grown!  This was also a month were I took little pictures and didn't blog much.  So it ended up being a short section. That has made me want to take more pictures and record more of what we were doing. What kinds of things do I want to remember and read about 30 years down the road when I pull one of these books out.  I want to be better at documenting the little things, and recording our life happenings.  


While working on this month, I included a calendar of what had been on our original calendar for the month, and decided I would like to include this as the last page of every month. (I now need to go back and update some of the months with this.) You never realize what a great historical document your calendar is, but it shows a great overview of those little every day happenings of the month. 

 

Our Family Year Book

So it was obvious that I wasn't around much on the blog during November.  It was the start of that busy holiday season. Another reason I didn't blog much was because I decided I wanted to try and complete a family history album of the past year for our family.  It was a huge undertaking and I'm still not finished, but I was able to get quite a bit accomplished.  

I wanted to create it by month. Each month contained an overview, what we've been learning about in school and any other significant happenings.  I'd really like to go back and do one for every year we've been married and continue doing it every forthcoming year. I think it would be such an incredible legacy for your kids to look back on, and for me to enjoy when they are all gone. I have so many thoughts about this, but won't dump them all on you right now. :) 

One thing I wanted to accomplish during the project was making sure that it was fast and easy to do. No complicated layouts.  I also wanted it to be cost effective. After trying several options, it came down to doing it 8.5 x 11, printing it for now and putting it in plastic sleeves. Eventually I do plan on binding each year into a finished book. 

I've fallen in love with the 8.5 x 11 size and plan to never go back to the square format.  (I'll still be doing them occasionally for my design work, but I've figured out how to convert those ones to 8.5 x 11 too so I can have a finished printed copy.  I'm also happy to say that ScrapGirls is now doing a lot  for 8.5x11. Yeah!!  

So I thought I'd share our month of November from our book, since I didn't post much about it here.

 

 

Another Year to Look Forward To

I love everything about the new year. I'm one of those people who thrive on change, love a chance to make goals and look forward to seeing what can happen over a year.  

I realized I was pretty much absent for half of November and the whole month of December.  Oops.  Life was busy, hectic and full of good things.  We enjoyed a wonderful holiday together as family and were able to relax from a busy month. Beau was on a deadline to finish up a journal paper that he needed to finish before Christmas. He almost made it, but decided to relax and spend Christmas Eve, Christmas and a few days after with us. It's a good thing too or Santa might have just left him a hunk of coal.  We had a great time, and he was able to finish it up before the new year. 

We are now on the countdown to writing the final dissertation and finishing up the last of the research by mid February so he can graduate come April.  I think we see an end in sight.  Our first 10 years of marriage to complete his education.  Would I have done it differently? Never.   He has grown so much in these years. The things he is now capable of doing, and the things he has learned have been amazing.  To see him develop talents and abilities, along with watching him grow as a person has been worth it all.  There have been hard times, frustration, late hours, stress and tight finances that we have experienced here and there through this road of getting a higher education while choosing to have a family, but the Lord has truly blessed us for that choice. It doesn't add up by the world's ways or on paper, but it has added up in our lives in blessings  more numerous to count, happiness that is we could never imagine, and experiences we would never want to pass up.

It is going to be a good year. We can both feel it. Change is in the air and I love it's feeling.  Here's to another new year of joy, growth, trials, love, new people, learning and fun.  

October in Review

October was a busy month, and I know I wasn't able to get everything posted on here that I would have liked to.  So I thought I'd share a month in review with you. 

 


 
 
 

Graphing Exercises

Mirian had a science lesson on how scientists sort their data, as part of the scientific method. The lesson taught various methods, one being making graphs and charts to compare the results.  So we did some exercises in graphing. This is also a great math activity too. We first sorted stuffed animals by types and graphed it. We then had Mirian go outside and tally how many trucks, vans or cars drove in front of our house over a period of time. We then did the exercise the kids enjoyed the most because it allowed for a snack afterwards - sorting Fruit Loops by color. 

Isaac loved this activity and joined in the fun as well. In fact Isaac spends most of the time doing lessons right along with Mirian as well as Caitlyn.

They both graphed their numbers and looked at the results.  Orange was the main color for both of them. So  there's a good chance that your Malt O Meal bag of Fruit Loops is mostly orange.

Another graphing exercise Isaac really enjoys comes from these preschool packs. There is a dice that has a different picture on each side that he roles, and then a graphing chart to color in. To him it feels like a game, and yet he's learning graphing skills and how to record results in an organized manner.

Another things I've made is these learning to write books that I found here.  You can find all of them under the printables section.  She has a category of them called sticky learnings.  They are cute!  I printed out the number book and the letters upper and lower case. I then laminated them and created little books with rings. Now when Mirian is doing Phonics and Issac wants to join her, I can pull out one of these books and have him practice writing with a dry erase marker. She also has another cool book called, "About Me" that I created for him too.  It has things like my home, phone number, address, birthday and pages of "my favorite...."  I then used the Dashed font to write his answers he gave me. He can then copy over them to practice writing and learning important info like his phone number and address.  

This homeschooling hasn't just been for Savannah and Mirian, it truly is a family affair with everyone involved. Isaac gets excited about what they do too. By the time he is in Kindergarten next year, he'll be flying through it.

It's been a long time....

It's been a long time since I have actually put out a Collection Biggie. They just take me too long.  This time around I was able to get all of these done in about a week. It was insane! I love it when inspirations hits like that and I can pump something out in the few moments I have throughout the week. Plus this one was just too much fun!

Just click on the products to go directly to their page in the store. You can also get all of them in this value pack for a killer price, especially with the 27.7% sale going on in the boutique right now too! (Up till Oct. 24)