Scripture Heroes: Book of Mormon Review

Today we reviewed the people in the Book of Mormon that we have talked about so far.  I showed them pictures from the Gospel Art Kit and had them tell me who the people were and a little about them. We also played a review game.  You can find the questions here. I  printed out cards that look like this below and they went through and picked out the answer using these cards.  We also sang "Book of Mormon Stories"
You can download the cards here, here, and here.  You can view all my Scripture Heroes throughout my blog if you have missed out on any.

We are going to do people from the Old Testament next.  I am not going to cover every great person in the there, but many.

Scripture Heroes: Nephi Part V

We wrapped up talking about Nephi and having courage today.  You can download the scripture hero chart here.  We watched three of the LDS Scripture videos today "Building the Ship", "Crossing the Sea", and "A New Home in the Promised Land".  After we watched the videos we talked more in depth and reviewed what we had learned about Nephi building a boat and crossing the sea as well as what happened after they arrived to the Promised Land.   We also watched some Living Scripture video clips.

 Teaching LDS children has some good ideas including this worksheet where you can discuss the types of tools Nephi used to build his boat.  I had my children guess and then we talked about how he had to make the tools himself and they decided which tools looked more hand made.

 Teaching LDS Children also has this fun game to help get our boat to the promised land by doing things that invites the Spirit.  It was a simple game where we worked together and everyone was a winner.

 I thought we needed to make some origami boats ourselves and I found this really cute printable that looks like a boat with Nephi inside when it is finished.  Sadly, I could not figure the directions from the website so I had to enlist my husband.  He had it folded in less than two minutes.  He is an advanced origamist, but still... I made him fold enough for each kid.  They were pretty happy about their boats.

 Of course, they needed to try them out in the bath tub. My husband said once when he was in Scouts they used rain gutters that worked well for this.  I don't have any rain gutters so we made do with the bath tub.

 Here is a close up of the finished boat.

Check out our other Nephi activities at the links below:

Nephi Part I

Nephi Part II

Nephi Part III

Nephi Part IV

Scripture Heroes: Nephi Part IV

Today we talked about Nephi again.  In particular we talked about things that happened while they were traveling in the wilderness.  We talked about them going back to Jerusalem to bring Ishmael's family with them, the Liahona, and Nephi's bow breaking.  Here is Nephi's hero chart.

 We watched the LDS Scripture video about them traveling in the wilderness and then discussed the things that happened in more detail.  Teaching LDS Children is always a good source if you need some guidelines for telling the story.

Here is a dot-to-dot of the Liahona that the kids each did of their own.

 Here is my 8 year old with his finished Liahona.

 I found this cute idea using pencils, rubber bands, and tape to make bows and arrows. (The link shows a better picture of it)  I thought it'd be a big hit, but sadly only my 8 year old had much fun with it. The other two found it too challenging for their little fingers to use properly.  Quite frankly, it was kind of a rough day all around.  I didn't have a lot planned because I felt the other days were kind of big, but my main event was the bow and arrows and it kind of flopped.  Hopefully, they still remember the message of the story which is the main point I am trying to get across anyway.

You can also check out Blues Skies Ahead for more ideas about Nephi's Bow.  Book of Mormon Kids also has some fun ideas with this topic.

You can see my other Nephi posts at the links below.

Nephi Part I

Nephi Part II 

Nephi Part III

Scripture Heroes: Nephi Part III

Today we talked more about Nephi more specifically about Lehi's Dream.  You can find this Nephi Hero Chart to download here.  We watched the Church's video about Lehi's Dream. 

 I used these cute printable flannel board figures from Mormon Mommy Printables to help retell the story and really emphasis what the things in Lehi's dream represented. Teaching LDS Children is a great aid for this and gives the scripture reference as well.

I taught them the first first of "Hold to the Rod" which you can find in the Hymn book on page 274 or here. 

We also watched a clip from the Living Scriptures video the link also has more ideas to go along with this topic.  A Year of FHE also has a great lesson for Lehi's Dream.  I adapted her activity for us in following the iron rod.  First I put out some obstacles and put a frisbee at the end with some Starbursts. Then they each took turns with a blindfold and no help trying to find the frisbee and Starbursts.  In fact, the other two boys had fun trying to distract them from getting to the end goal.

 Then I had one of them lead the other with the yard stick being the iron rod straight to the frisbee and starburst.  Of course, we talked about how it all correlated with Lehi's Dream.  We also talked about Nephi and how he had courage to hold to the rod and make good choices throughout his entire life.

 I have a few books from Family Finch Games that my mom gave me a while ago and so I will be putting as many as I can to good use as we study these scripture heroes.  In one of the books there was a "Hold to the Rod Game"  They have a great website where you can buy books or things to download.  I had to print off the things for the game, color them, cut them out and laminate them, but we had a great time.

 Here are the game pieces.  They rolled the dice and went around the board.  They had to pick something from the hold to the rod pile or letting go pile and read what they picked as they went along.

You can find Nephi Part I here and Nephi Part II here.

Also be sure to check out the great links I have on the side bar on the right.  They are great resources for any LDS topic.

Scripture Heroes: Nephi Part II

Today we continued to talk about Nephi from The Book of Mormon.  You can download this Nephi Scripture Hero Chart that I made to help my boys remember some important people in the scriptures.  Today we talked about Nephi and the Brass Plates.  We watched the video clip Brass Plates from www.lds.org. 

After we watched the video I tried to do a whisper game that I found on Teaching LDS Children where you whisper in someone's ear and it goes around the room until the last person.  Usually by the end it is something totally different.  This is used to point out how important it was to have a written record like the Brass Plates in their possession to help know and understand the gospel.  The game did not go well with my kids, but maybe for older ones it would work.  

A Year of FHE has a great lesson called Nephi's Courage that I used to help me retell the story.  I also used Mormon Mommy's flannelboard story printables when telling the story.  I tried to point out every time that Nephi showed courage.

When we got to the part where the brothers cast lots I held up some different sizes of toothpicks and they each chose one so they could understand how that worked.  They enjoyed that.

 A Year of FHE also had some fun printables with her Nephi's Courage lesson that the kids did.  A Brass Plates Maze.

 Nephi shows courage in getting the Brass Plates booklet.

 Here is my six year old with his booklet.

Then we went outside and acted out the story.  I got to be Laban.  Luck me.  :)

We also watched this sing-a-long video clip from Living Scriptures.  Naturally we sang the first verse of Nephi's Courage from the Children's Song Book as well.

Scripture Heroes: Nephi Part 1

Today was the first day of my kids Summer Vacation!  This Summer I thought it'd be fun to focus on some neat people in the scriptures.  We are started with people in the Book of Mormon.  I don't know about other kids, but I know my love super heros and since there are some pretty awesome people in the scriptures I thought it'd be fun to take a scripture hero spin on things.  I have pointed out to my kids that though these were awesome people, they were not perfect by any means. I also gave each person a "super power", but plan to point out each time that these people have other admirable qualities as well. I'm just hoping that giving the people a super power it will help my kids remember something about each person.

I made charts for each hero.  Here is Nephi's Scripture Hero Chart.  I hope that if you click on the link you will be able to download this file for personal use.  If you blog about it please link it back to this blog. The clip art for this chart came from Free LDS Clip Art.

We will be focusing on Nephi all week.  I made plans and then switched after I had already planned a week of Nephi activities so he'll be the only one we focus on for that length of time.  Looking back, I probably should have made today's about Lehi, but I didn't.  Anyway, we focused on Nephi and his family leaving Jerusalem today.  We watched a couple of videos to help tell the story about Lehi  warning the people and Lehi leaving Jerusalem. These videos are put out by the Church and I will be using them daily.  I also used these flannelboard figures to help us remember Nephi and his brothers while we reviewed why they were leaving Jerusaluem.  

 I wrote down a list of things that they would take or leave behind as they traveled in the wilderness.  I had them pull the items out of a hat and decide whether they thought they'd take them or not. I also taught them a little song that I learned as a kid from Scripture Scouts about leaving Jerusalem.

 We then "packed" up and took a walk around our neighborhood pretending to travel to the wilderness.  As we walked we talked about all the things they had to leave behind and how Laman and Lemuel complained a lot because the journey was hard.  However, Nephi prayed to Heavenly Father and knew that his father had been commanded to leave and how Nephi had the courage to follow him.  After our walk we came home and built a tent pretending to be in the wilderness.  They loved this part.

 After being in the tent for a while I gave them these coloring pages to color while they were still in their tent.

Teaching LDS Children is a valuable source when looking for ideas and printables for these lessons.  Check out Lesson 2 for more about Lehi leaving Jerusalem.

Blue Skies Ahead also has a great F.H.E idea for this topic as well.

We had a lot of fun so I hope it continues as the summer goes on.  Tomorrow we will talk about Nephi and the Brass Plates.