Fruit of the Tree

We started our Celebration on Family on Monday. It just was a good time to start something new. We have added the Family Proclamation to our devotional time each morning. I like the idea of doing a little craft or activity each day to go along with our study, much like Jocelyn does here with her 30 day for Family activities.  I am not as crafty as she is so I am sure my activities are going to be a little less impressive.

In 3 days we have actually only got as far as the first paragraph.

We, the First Presidency and the Council of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, solemnly proclaim that marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God and that the family is central to the Creator's plan for the eternal destiny of His children.

On the first day we discussed who the First Presidency and council of 12 are. We went through and named each one and then talked about to whom the Proclamation was given . Who is the message for? They realized the answer was in the title. It is proclamation to the World, not just members of our church or to the United States but to all people in every country.

The next day we reread the first paragraph again and this time talked about the Creator's plan. I have some left over visuals from my missionary days so the kids arranged them to form the Plan of Salvation. 

After playing with the visuals for a bit they decided to draw their own versions of the Plan.

(I think we have been listening to a little too much Harry Potter because Ian called the Judgement the Sorting. It think the idea works.)

For our third day on the first paragraph we talked about families and how they would be central to the plan. We talked about Molly and how she came not knowing how to take care of herself so she needs all of us, her family, to teach her things and help her learn how to take care of herself.  We talked about how each of us comes as a baby to parents who then teach us how to live. For our activity we made a little family tree and wrote the names of some of our Grandparents and Great grand parents. The kids thought it was fun that they were the apples under the tree. The "fruit" of our family tree.

I think we have exhausted the first paragraph. Today we will have to start the 2nd. I don't have every lesson or day planned out yet. I like just taking each line and discussing it with the kids. The activities so far have just flowed out of the discussion.  We will see where it takes us next.