The Three Families and the Big Bad Storm!

O.k. I don't normally write books but as per request from many people I decided to type up the Sharing Time our Primary class did this past Sunday. I was very proud of our class at how well they did and I am so excited to have been called as one of their Primary teachers. If you might have a Sharing time Lesson coming up this year, please feel free to use any or all of this. I'm sure you could even expand more on this idea. Have fun with it. We sure did!

The following night was our night to have all the family over for dinner and FHE, so Sierra and Robbie wanted use our Sharing time Lesson for FHE. Here are a few pics from our FHE version.

Contractor Bridger for our Brick house

Our Three Contractors on Duty

Bob the Builder

Our Faithful Family

I walked into the room wearing a construction hat and tool belt, and told the Primary that my name was Sister Builder and I was in the neighborhood to build three houses. Set up previously, in the front of the room, I had three tables each one with the supplies to build a particular house. Straw House(flexible kind), Stick house(Popsicle sticks), and the Brick house(large Lego's). Each house was to be built on a foundation. I used a plain 8x11 sheet of paper as the foundation for each house to be built upon except for the Brick house, I taped a picture of Christ under the sheet of paper not allowing anyone to see the differences of the foundations. I also made "blue prints" for each house. These were mainly instructions for the leaders that would be helping to build the houses. For example: the Lego's need to be built more flat than towered(a ranch home instead of a 3 story home), both the straws and sticks need to be built in a criss cross pattern(you can draw a picture to illustrate this for them). I chose 3 children from my class to be my contractors to overlook the job and then chose 1 kid and leader from the Primary to help build for each house. My 3 contractors also wore construction hats. While I gave them a few minutes to build, the rest of the Primary spoke about how to build a house, what kind of tools you might use, when it's done what might go inside of your house etc. etc.

When the houses were built we talked about the families that were now living in these homes. In the straw house we had a family that never chose the right, never held FHE, never prayed, etc. I asked the Primary to continue to give me ideas of how this family never chose the right and then would write their responses down on a sheet of paper. The child was to hold on to this paper until later on in the lesson. Next we spoke of the family who lived in the stick house and how sometimes they did what was expected of them but mainly when it was just convenient for them. Finally I introduced the family that lived in the Brick house. My class dressed up as the Faithful family(I had costumes for a dad, mom, brothers and sisters) and showed items that represented how they choose the right and stay faithful to there Father in Heaven. Brother Faithful held a rake and said they enjoy serving others, Sister Faithful held a can of food and explained they follow the counsel of the prophet and have food storage, son Faithful held tithing envelope, daughter Faithful held scriptures.

After meeting the families I explained how the Lord tests us to see if we will be faithful and that Satan is always trying to tempt us to do wrong. Then I told them there would be a big bad storm! All the children that had papers, I told them to crumble them up and come to the front of the room to throw them at the houses. The straw and stick house fall over immediately, and the Brick house of course stays strong and intact. They really try to knock that Brick house down, so make some ground rules. Next, I explained the importance of building on a good foundation, and how both the straw and stick house were built on virtually nothing but sheets of blank paper but the Brick house was built upon the foundation of Christ. I read the scripture from Helaman 5:12 and then closed with my testimony. My friend that I teach with and I, made a handout for all the primary children. I bought some 5x7 pictures of Christ and then affixed a toy tool on each one so that each child could remember to build their foundation upon Christ!