20+ Ideas for memorizing the Articles of Faith

Memorizing the 13 Articles of Faith can seem like a mammoth task to anybody - old or young...I personally still get a bit muddled up trying to quote #10!!

So a while ago I printed up the Articles of Faith on A4 card for my kids and laminated them (of course!), they are now regularly used around the home - in bedrooms/kitchen/before family scripture study/FHE to help and remind us of them.

Recently I made some smaller cards which have the first letter of each word each of the Articles of Faith, this is great to help the older children, and super for popping in your Sunday bag to help keep them entertained during sacrament.

Thought I'd look online and find some other great ideas to help my children (and me) become better at learning and memorizing them...lots of links & pictures are below. 

 Articles of Faith Memory Quest -- lds.org

Articles of Faith flashcards -- All Things Bright and Beautiful

1st Article of Faith -- LDS scripture study for kids

8th Article of Faith -- LDS Games

6th Article of Faith crossword -- lds.org

Articles of Faith cards -- Latter-day chatter

Article of Faith posters -- A year of FHE

Cross Connections: 10th Article of Faith -- lds.org 

13th Article of Faith fill in blanks -- LDS Games

4th Article of Faith maze -- lds.org

4th Article of Faith -- lds.org

1st Article of Faith -- LDS Games

Articles of Faith bookmark and other activities -- 3 dinosaurs

2nd Article of Faith crossword -- lds.org

Activity Book:Article of Faith -- LDS Greats

Articles of Faith keys -- Finch Family Games

11th Article of Faith crossword -- lds.org

Teaching the Articles of Faith -- The Giggly Girls Guide

(LOADS of great ideas to help learn AoF in the link above)

Articles of Faith Jeopardy -- Shannon Makes Stuff

4th Article of Faith poster -- lds.org

Articles of Faith Punch Card -- about.com

1st Article of Faith coded message -- lds.org

Articles of Faith badges -- about.com

Articles of Faith Ice Cream Chart -- about.com

Hope you and your family enjoy learning the Articles of Faith

again and again and again :)

Daniels in the Lion's Den FHE

My 7 year old daughter organised our lesson for FHE (Family Home Evening) and she did an amazing job, and yes, she did it all by herself!!  It was sooooo simple, but it was really effective and worked for ALL our family aged from 12 to 3 years...and yes, my husband and I are older than 12 years of age, but maybe not mentally, haha!! ;)

This is the script that she read to explain her lesson, in case you can't read it I've typed it out below, spelling mistakes and all...

'Ok.  So this is a kind of game but it is a listening game so you have to listen very carefuly.  

So if I say lion you get down on the floor with your hands and feet, and ROAR as loud as you can, 

but not that loud so you crack a window.  

And the next rule is when I say Daniel you sit down if your a boy and when you sit down you cross your legs.  

And if I say King all the girls act posh like a queen, but you can't be one because their weren't a girl in the story.'

Love it!!! She inserted an additional action for when she said 'Daniel', the boys would have to fold their arms (as well as crossing their legs) so that it would look like they were praying.

She then held up the picture from our Gospel Art Box to show everyone, and then commenced reading the story that is printed on the back....and that was it (told you it was simple).

It was heaps of fun and everybody listened very intently to the story, so that they wouldn't miss out any of the acting.  Our lions got a tad ferocious at one point during the reading and attacked daddy, haha...and by the end of the story everyone was acting out all the parts named.

She was really proud of herself at the end of it all, and so she should be.  It really was such a lovely night and everybody loved her lesson and EVERYBODY got involved, no tears tonight (woohooo!), just lots of KugAlls!!

ps I've checked store.lds.org and I can't find the Gospel Art Box listed anymore (the Gospel Art book doesn't have the words on the back of the pictures)....but you could use the script from this Old Testament Stories (it's not as long though).

Bespoke Notepads

At Christmas I was trying to think what we could give to our children's teachers that would be 'homemade' but wouldn't take too much time as I was really busy with several large assignments at church.

So the cogs got rolling, and I thought why not design an image on photoshop and then get it printed on a notepad.....and of course I got carried away with myself and ended up making quite a few of them (and I'm still getting bespoke orders now!).

I then attached a small pencil using ribbon or twine and then put the pad in a cellophane bag, to some I put some adhesive magnetic strip so that they could be used on their fridge.

You could easily use a word processor to design something bespoke for a teacher, family or friend....or for you!!

These notepads have been great for Christmas presents for teachers, friends and families...and have helped put a few extra pennies in my pocket too :)

If you live in the UK, here's my facebook page where you can buy these notepads along with other things that I've created...the page is called KugAlls Kreations.

I also have a facebook page to go alongside this blog (I haven't got around to finding out how to do a facebook icon to this blog yet), so for now here's the link to KugAlls.

Sweet Words to the Soul

We've been playing this 'game' at the dinner table since February, at first we did it every day and now over time we probably play it just once a week.

It takes no preparation, just a family sitting around a table eating dinner together...and it doesn't even need that!!  We tend to do it when we've finished our meal or when we are waiting for pudding/sweet to be served (that makes us sound posh, like we have servants to tend to our every need, oh how I wish!!)

Anyway back to the real world where my kids are delightful, treat each other nicely and are angels all the time....oh how I wish, lol.  Seriously though as I was reflecting on one of my children's behaviour and how negative comments seemed to be outweighing the positive ones, this idea just popped into my head (I love it when that happens).

The first time we played the game, I told everyone to stay seated after dinner and to look at the person opposite them and say 5 nice things about them and then for the receiver to do the same.  Luckily we have eight people in our family, so we were all paired off.  But if this doesn't work for you, then you could do it so that they say the 'sweet words' to the person to their left??

Some of our children had compliments flying here, there and everywhere...while some were struggling to come up with just one!!  And even then, the so called lovely words were actually being a bit nasty....'Mum, dad, was I ever like this??!!!?'

So the next day we did it again...we heard 'yay, I love this game' vs 'groan, moan, not again!!!'  But it was lovely, as they sat there the words were making them smile inside and out, so that the once grumpy faces were erased.  Soon the negative feelings towards the game changed and everyone was making sure that they sat opposite different members of the family each night so that they could hear what they had to say about them.  Our two youngest children proved to be the most popular to sit opposite, everyone loved being on the receiving end of their compliments as they were sooo from the heart :)

I love hearing my children say nice things to each other, and watching the heart of the receiver soften as they are being said.  It's also nice to stop as a parent and just look at your beautiful child and see them full of goodness no matter what sort of day you've had with them.

The words of Proverbs 16:24 are still true today...

 Pleasant words are as an honeycomb, sweet to the soul, and health to the bones.

For Peace at Home

I can't believe it's been two months since Conference, time is just flying by!!?!  I loved conference and didn't know where to start with the things I've learnt and the FHE's and activities that we've got planned....soooo excited, can you tell??!?  We decided to start with Elder Richard G. Scott's talk entitled 'For Peace at Home'.

As Elder Scott spoke the words below in his talk an image popped into my head and I sketched it down in my notebook so that I wouldn't forget.

I’m sure you can identify the fundamental principles that center your home on the Savior. The prophetic counsel to have daily personal andfamily prayer, daily personal and family scripture study, and weekly family home evening are the essential, weight-bearing beams in the construction of a Christ-centered home. Without these regular practices it will be difficult to find the desired and much-needed peace and refuge from the world.

I'm still not super duper at doing graphic images but I'm good at sharing (lol) and hopefully getting better at it as I go?!!  Well this is what I came up with.

to download file

click here

We used this talk as our guide tonight for FHE, there was sooo much in the talk that we could focus on, and I didn't want to leave any of it out, so I broke it up into smaller bite size chunks/topics so that the kids could take it all in.

I stuck a picture of the Saviour in the centre of a piece of paper and after we had read each of the quotes from the talk, we discussed them and then wrote on the paper what we could do to make Christ the centre of our home.

This is now stuck on our kitchen door as a reminder of what we are going to try to do to make our home more peaceful (here's hoping!!) and Christ centered.

For the activity at the end of the lesson, everyone got a strawberry lace and we put a big bowl of Cheerios in the middle of us all.  One by one we had to say something that made us 'cheery' (aka happy), and then we could put one cheerio on our lace...we set a time limit of 5 minutes to do it, so everyone was trying to think of things to say as quickly as they could.

It started off well with the kids saying things and quickly threading on their Cheerio so that they were ready for their next go.  It was only as we were half way through the game that the older kids noticed that every time they were saying something my three year old was repeating it and handing a Cheerio to his dad to thread on...hence his lace had lots more than the others, then everybody just went for it and shouted out lots of 'cheery' things with no waiting this time...it was really funny, and we had such good giggle at it all.

I really enjoyed the lesson and game tonight, but more so the game...it wasn't particularly peaceful, but hopefully we heard some of the things that makes others in our family happy, and will look for ways to make them cheery in the future.  Playing the game was easy, but the further it went on, the harder it got...but as I heard some of my children's answers it made me reflect on lots of wonderful things in my life that have brought me so much happiness and joy.  We are all so blessed in so many different ways, we've just got to stop, look and think and we will find things that make us 'cheery', no matter what our circumstances  :)

Scriptural Easter Egg Hunt

I've been asked to cover my Primary's music time this Sunday and thought I'd do an Easter Egg Hunt, so I cut out some brightly card into an egg shape and wrote different songs on...I had some left over and thought I could use them for us tomorrow to help us read the Easter story.

I looked in John chapter 20 to see what verses etc I could group together and write on the eggs and couldn't decide as it was all so lovely (cheesy but true).  So I grouped them according to the six paragraphs already highlighted in the King James Version.

Egg 1 - John 20:1-10; Egg 2 - John 20:11-18; Egg 3 - John 20:19-23

Egg 4 - John 20:24-25; Egg 5 - John 20:26-29; Egg 6 - John 20:30-31

We are going to hide them around the room and one of the children has to find number one first and then we will read/discuss those scriptures and then we can find the next one etc...once we've read them all the children can then hunt for their chocolate eggs.

Happy Easter everyone xx

General Conference Rocks!!

I've been hanging onto these leftover mosaic tiles from our bathroom just in case I could use them for something, and yep four years later and I've turned them into fridge magnets...woohoo, I don't know how I do it, lol!!?!

I used some masking tape to attach some tissue paper to card so that it would go through the printer (I got this idea from several blogs) but as you can see from my photo below my printer didn't seem to like this and chewed it up a tad.  Fortunately I managed to salvage a few squares so it wasn't a total failure :)  Your printer might be kinder, so you might be able to get a whole sheet??

I cut the non-smeared/chewed squares and stuck them onto the tiles using my DIY Mod Podge.  When they were dry, I trimmed off the excess tissue paper and used my hot glue gun to stick a magnet on the back....yep, I'm sat on my bed in my PJs making rock magnets, awww my kinda heaven :)

I used quotes/themes from General Conference for my rock magnets but you could use scriptures, children's names, a phrase...anything!!  As I was giving mine as a gift I made a little label for the top out of card, I  kept smirking at my play on words, haha!!

Rock on!!!!

I am a Child of God tote

Sugardoodle posted a link the other day to a wonderful blog entitled 'My Computer is My Canvas' that has a load of free printables and cute stuff????????  She's done some really cute images for the Primary Theme this year 'I am a Child of God'.

My Computer is My Canvas

From this site I downloaded the 'I am a Child of God' SUBW...6x20.jpg (1022KB), when I went to print I noticed that because of the American sizing I would miss some of the lettering, so I right-clicked on the image to copy it and then opened up Microsoft word and pasted it onto my page...I had to shrink it a whole lot to get it to fit, and then centred it and left more of a gap at the top of the page to accommodate for seam allowance and attaching handles (see picture below).

I then printed the above onto calico fabric using my 'How to print onto fabric using your printer' post.  I then used the printed fabric to make a cute little tote and drawstring bag, but you could make a cushion, frame it etc.  My little tote bag worked out to be the perfect size to fit a Book of Mormon in :)  And yes, I am still squealing with delight every time I print onto fabric, haha...what am I like!!?!!?

Christmas Pouches

Another idea that originated from Pinterest, wahoooo, I'm actually making something that I've pinned!!!!!  Below is the original idea.....mmmm, me thinks, I need to invest in a new camera and some photography classes very soon, lol :) 

picture source

I thought I'd make this gift more religious as the candy cane can represent the shepherds staff.  So I used Microsoft word to do a template, I changed the page format to landscape, and divided the page into 4 columns, typed out the words and added the graphics below.  I used the candy cane as a guide to the size up both the white and red pieces of paper/card. 

I then lined them up and sewed along the edge of the white front, remembering to reverse over the beginning and the end of the stitching to hold them firmly in place, trim the loose threads, slide in a candy cane....and it's done :)  These work out really cheap, but make great gifts for neighbours, friends, teachers, postman etc.

I also made another type of 'pouch' using vellum for the front so that the chocolate gold coins could be seen inside.  I then use a hole punch to  make a hole at the top and threaded through some gold ribbon...this one works out a bit more expensive, but is sooo cute (I know I'm biased!!)

You could make these pouches in all different shapes and sizes and fill them with lots of different and exciting things, the possibilities are endless!!!

Consider the Blessings

I loved General Conference, and where better to start than with the prophet's talk entitled 'Consider the Blessings' for our FHE tonight.

We started by singing the obvious choice of song, 'Count your Many Blessings' (Hymns #241).

I asked the children to listen carefully as two verses from the scriptures were read and to share with us which verse showed someone who was counting their blessings and someone who was not.

First we read 1 Nephi 2:11

11 Now this he spake because of the ^astiffneckedness of Laman and Lemuel; for behold they did ^bmurmur in many things against their ^cfather, because he was a ^dvisionary man, and had led them out of the land of Jerusalem, to leave the land of their inheritance, and their gold, and their silver, and their precious things, to perish in the wilderness. And this they said he had done because of the foolish imaginations of his heart.

Followed by 1 Nephi 2:13

 16 And it came to pass that I, Nephi, being exceedingly young, nevertheless being large in stature, and also having great desires to know of the ^amysteries of God, wherefore, I did cry unto the Lord; and behold he did ^bvisit me, and did ^csoften my heart that I did ^dbelieve all the words which had been spoken by my ^efather; wherefore, I did not ^frebel against him like unto my brothers.

We discussed theses verses and decided that Laman and Lemuel were doing alot murmuring and complaining whilst Nephi who was also in the same situation chose to pray and gained a grateful heart for the situation they were in.

Then we read the following quote from President Monson's talk -

My beloved brothers and sisters, this conference marks 49 years since I was sustained, on October 4, 1963, as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Forty-nine years is a long time. In many ways, however, the time seems very short since I stood at the pulpit in the Tabernacle and gave my very first general conference address.

Much has changed since October 4, 1963. We live in a unique time in the world’s history. We are blessed with so very much. And yet it is sometimes difficult to view the problems and permissiveness around us and not become discouraged. I have found that, rather than dwelling on the negative, if we will take a step back and consider the blessings in our lives, including seemingly small, sometimes overlooked blessings, we can find greater happiness.

I then showed them the poster with the title of the talk on and an outline of a body (that is somewhat misshaped, haha!!), and we took turns writing in the body how we would feel if we didn't see, notice or consider any of the blessings in our lives.  We had answers like, grumpy, unhappy, unthankful etc.

I told them that the 49 colourful circles around the edge of the paper represented each year that our prophet has served as in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and the First Presidency...and that from today each FHE till next General Conference we would decide on 2 specific blessings that had happened during the week to place in our empty body, so that by the time April comes it would be full of lots of colourful blessings.

The children chose coats (as two of the children had just got new ones) and Sister Win (who is a lovely lady in our ward) and wrote them on 2 circles and stuck them inside the outline.

A bit of cheese now, but I'm so grateful for General Conference and for the spiritual uplift that I receive from listening to the General Authorities of the Church that helps me and my family, and I'm also grateful for this blog, it's helped me in so many ways especially being more confident on the computer...I know I still have a long, long way to go yet but I'm getting there post by post xx

Tell Me the Stories of Jesus

After hearing this talk in General Conference in April 2010, I made the chart below for help us to read and study John in the New Testament...each of the squares represent a page in the LDS edition of the Kings James Bible.

As you can see it has also been used to practice spellings on and just general scribbles, makes it look loved, don't you think??!!?...I made a simpler chart below where one letter can be coloured in when a chapter is read.  Feel free to copy the image and photocopy it for personal use.

This is the bit from Neil L. Andersen's talk that mentions reading the book of John....the rest of the talk is lovely too - 

Do our children say, “Tell me the stories of Jesus I love to hear”? ³³

To the youth and children: Live up to your important responsibilities and great spiritual capacities. Seek to know more about Jesus; open the scriptures. One idea would be to read again the book of John and then discuss it with your parents, teachers, and each other.

Our family have really felt the spirit and a greater love of the Saviour as we have read, we have yet to finish...but we are loving every minute of it. 

The Power of Scripture

FHE is over for tonight and although it was one of our better ones, tears were still shed :(...we will get their in the end :)  Anyway, we used the first talk from Conference by Elder Richard G. Scott entitled 'The Power of Scripture'.

  
My daughter and me started the lesson by sharing how important the scriptures are and that one of the apostles talked about it at conference, we then watched a bit of Elder Scott's talk...we only watched a teeny bit of it, from 2:15-3:26mins.  My daughter handed out pieces of paper with the quote below on and separated us into groups to read through it and highlight the words that told us the blessings that come from memorizing the scriptures.

We shared what blessings we had found and then extended the challenge to memorize a scripture...so, we chose to start off with our family scripture for the year which is Luke 2:52.  We read through it once and then showed them poster below (whipped up a few minutes before)....it's the first letter of each word in the verse, we then recited it again. 

Next we had the words of the scripture cut out and the kids loved sorting them out to get them in order.  They worked together in pairs (using the 'first letter poster' above as a help) and then by themselves... and being the competitive type it of course had to be timed...daddy won with 20 seconds!!

The older 4 children could recite the scripture by the end of the evening, so that was really good...I'm going to make a prettier and laminated copy of the above game so that they can play it again, and it will help them to remember it a bit more...another handy activity to keep them entertained on Sundays:)