Underlined is from the Come Follow Me 2024 manual
Ideas for Teaching Children
Jesus Christ helps me overcome the effects of sin.
To help your children understand Lehi’s invitation to “shake off the chains” of sin, maybe you could work together to make a chain from slips of paper. On the slips, your children could help you write some things Satan tempts us to do. Then you could read together 2 Nephi 1:13, 15, 23 as they act out some of the phrases in these verses—including shaking off the paper chain. How is sin like a chain? How does Jesus help us “shake off the chains” of sin?
You can print in B&W and color it if you don't like how I colored it.
You don't need to print this. You can cut your own paper stripes, I recommend card stock so they can't see through to the picture underneath.
Click on the image to be taken to Etsy.
I am blessed when I obey God’s commandments.
Would it help your children to compare God’s commandments to shoes, hats, gloves, or other things that protect us? Maybe you could let them try on some as you talk about how the commandments protect us. Then you could read 2 Nephi 1:20, emphasizing that we “prosper” (are blessed or protected) as we keep the commandments. Share an experience when you were blessed or protected by following the commandments.
For older children mix up these stripes of paper and let them put it in the correct order, while they look at the scripture in the Book of Mormon. If you want to add some color, print on colored card stock.
LOVE This object lesson:
To illustrate the difference between prospering and being cut off from God (see 2 Nephi 1:20), you and your children could look at a healthy plant and a leaf or branch that has been cut off from the plant. Then your children could review choices that Nephi and his brothers made (see 1 Nephi 2:11–16; 3:5–7; 18:9–11). What were the results of these choices? What choices help us stay connected to God?
Here is a great story from the Friend about keeping the commandments. Click on the picture to be taken there.
Fun valentine hand outs this week. Just click on the image to be taken to Etsy.
God gave me the freedom to choose.
To help your children understand what Lehi taught about opposites and making choices, you could play a game in which you say a word (such as light) and your children say its opposite (dark). Help them learn why opposites are part of God’s plan as you read together 2 Nephi 2:11, 16. Then you could share stories about a child who is tempted to make a wrong choice. Your children could share what the opposite of the wrong choice is and act it out.
Here is a match up game that might help them understand the words in the scriptures better.
I LOVE this idea!:
To learn about the difference between “liberty” and “captivity” (2 Nephi 2:27), your children could draw pictures of an animal in a cage and an animal in its natural environment. Which animal is free? Invite the children to point at the correct picture when you read the word “free” in 2 Nephi 2:27. Testify that Jesus Christ makes us free.
Sing together a song like “Choose the Right” (Hymns, no. 239). What do we learn from the song about making choices?