Teach the Doctrine: Younger Children
“The heavens declare the glory of God.”
Psalms 19 and 33 teach that we can find evidence of the glory and goodness of God all around us in His beautiful creations. Help the children learn to see God’s hand in the world around them.
Possible Activities
Show the children some pictures of beautiful things God has created, or look out a window together to see these things. Ask the children what they love about Heavenly Father’s creations. Read either Psalm 19:1 or 33:5, and ask the children how they feel about Heavenly Father when they see His creations.
Go on a nature walk, and collect little things that you find in God's Earth.
Giving each child their own bag, explaining that whatever they collect, needs to be small enough to fit in it.
Have paper plates available so they and pour out their findings and be able to look through it to see what they want to glue to their page.
Very fun, and great sensory activity.
Sing together a song about God’s creations, such as “The World Is So Lovely” (Children’s Songbook, 233). Invite the children to pick something God has created (such as something mentioned in the song) and draw a picture of it to share with their families.
Pass the cards out to the children and have them place the card on the mat/paper as you sing the song and point to them. Then take the blank cards and have the children draw their own pictures and sing the song again, with new words...instead of “the sunshine, the flowers....” You might say “The dinosaurs, the dogs..” whatever the children have chosen to draw. (:
“The Lord is my shepherd.”
If the children can learn at a young age that the Lord is their shepherd, they will be more likely to follow Him “in the paths of righteousness.”
Possible Activities
Give each child a copy of this week’s activity page, or give each of them a picture from the activity page. Invite them to listen as you read Psalm 23. Ask them to point to or hold up a picture when they hear it mentioned in the psalm. Bear your testimony that Jesus takes care of us, just as a shepherd takes care of his sheep.
This is another song, but I was never good at singing, so I just read it like a poem. It is a flip chart so they can see that the shepherd is Jesus.
Tell the children some ways you know that the Savior loves you. Invite the children to stand one at a time and share some ways they know Jesus loves them. Sing together a song that could give them ideas, such as “I Feel My Savior’s Love” (Children’s Songbook, 74–75).
We are all kinds of musical this week(:
I have a video, too so you and play it while they are doing a craft.
This video is amazing!
Jesus Christ can turn sadness into joy.
Ponder how you will help the children gain their own witness of the joy Jesus Christ offers us when we are sad.
Possible Activities
Invite the children to pretend to cry while you read from Psalm 30:5, “Weeping may endure for a night.” Then ask them to be joyful as you read, “But joy cometh in the morning.” Repeat this phrase a few times, and testify to the children that because of Jesus Christ, the sadness we feel in this life can be replaced with joy.
Show a picture of the Savior, and tell the children about some of the things He has done for you that bring you joy. Give each child a turn to hold the picture and share what Jesus has done that brings them joy.
Teach the Doctrine: Older Children
The Lord offers me peace, strength, and guidance.
Many of the Psalms testify of the Lord’s blessings in our lives. You can use the Psalms to help the children learn to trust Him and turn to Him.
Possible Activities
Write on the board The Lord is . Let the children choose one or more of the following scriptures to read: Psalms 23:1; 27:1; 28:1; 28:7; 32:7; 46:1. Ask them to complete the sentence on the board using what they learn from their scripture. Help the children discuss what these symbols teach us about the Lord.
Write "the Lord is..." on the board, pass out the scriptures and lay out the pictures. After they read the scriptures they can choose the picture that most applies and add it to the chalk board.
Show the children a picture of a lamb. Ask them to name some things a lamb needs to be safe and healthy, and encourage them to look in Psalm 23:1–4 for ideas. Then show a picture of a child. What do we need to be spiritually safe and healthy? Read together Psalm 23, and ask the children how the things the shepherd does in this psalm could be compared to what Jesus Christ does for us.
We must be spiritually clean and pure to enter the Lord’s presence.
To enter the temple, we need “clean hands, and a pure heart.”
As the children look forward to entering the temple someday, help them understand that they can prepare by becoming spiritually clean through the Savior’s Atonement.
Possible Activities
Show the children a picture of a temple. Invite them to read Psalm 24:3 and find words that remind them of the temple. Then read together verse 4 to learn who can enter the temple (define any unfamiliar words). How do our hands get physically dirty? How do our hands and hearts get spiritually dirty? How do we clean our hands physically? How does the Savior help us clean our hands and hearts spiritually? (If it is helpful, explain that “hands” in this verse can represent our actions and “heart” can represent our desires.)
Review with the children the requirements to receive a temple recommend (see Russell M. Nelson, “Closing Remarks,” Ensign or Liahona, Nov. 2019, 120–22; or invite a member of the bishopric to discuss these requirements with the class). Invite the children to choose one thing they feel inspired to do to prepare to be worthy to enter the temple.
From the Friend Magazine:
Cut out the temple on the solid lines, fold on the dotted lines, and glue the tabs to the inside of the walls to form a box. (The temple should be at the front of the box.) Cut out the My Gospel Standards cards (p. 16), and place them inside the temple box. Choose a gospel standard from the box, read it, and decide what you can do to live the standard. In family home evening, share how living this standard can prepare you to enter the temple someday.
There is a bunch of stuff for temples, in the lesson a couple weeks ago:
Just click on the images
“Be still, and know that I am God.”
Taking time to be reverent and still, despite the busyness around us, can help us build our testimonies that God lives.
Here is a puzzle, from when we were studying D&C.
Possible Activities
Help the children memorize the first line from Psalm 46:10: “Be still, and know that I am God.” Talk with them about what it might mean to “be still,” both physically and mentally. Share with the children an experience in which being “still” strengthened your testimony of Heavenly Father. Ask the children to share any experiences they have had. Why is being still an important way to know that God lives?
Click on the image to be take to my Etsy. I'm print these for my YW, but I'm going to send them to my local copy center, because I don't want to drain my dark ink. If you are printing for a lot of people you might want to do that too. Just download and the email it to them.
Invite the children to review with you what they do during a typical day. Help them think of moments during their day when they could try to “be still” and feel close to Heavenly Father. Encourage them to set a goal to use such moments during the coming week to strengthen their testimony of Heavenly Father.
Invite the children to list some things we can do to know for ourselves that Heavenly Father is real and that He loves us. Invite them to choose something from the list that they want to do.
That's all for this week, Hope you enjoy!