With the increased emphasis on the family, including The Proclamation on The Family and recent General Conference addresses, as well as the 2004 theme for Primary, and the assault on the traditional family in the United States and in the United Nations, I have felt a Family Home Evening Resource would be a valuable asset to my visitors.  

It is interesting that even when people are determined to make Family Home Evening a regular weekly event, there continue to be frustrations on how to implement the program without having children and even parents rise up in open rebellion.  It is not that families don't want to spend time together, nor that they don't want to teach and learn the gospel - but just how to make it engaging for all ages, and be something everyone looks forward to rather than dreads is the challenge.

Family Home Evening With a Kick! is an answer to that challenge.  This is an online paid subscription.  When you subscribe, you will be able to access Volume I of the online ideas.

How it came to be:  I received a group of hands-on Family Home Evening activities from my friend, JoDee Baird.  She gave her permission to publish them on my website.  I was excited at first, till I realized that the activities all  took place at Salt Lake City locales, because the people who submitted the ideas all lived in Salt Lake City.  My website has a worldwide audience, and I shelved the ideas for a couple of years.  Recently I got them out and decided that in most cases, they could be adapted to most families regardless of where they lived, and so I have edited them to be for a wider audience, and added a treat recipe to each activity.

Here is the forward that my friend, JoDee Baird, wrote to the original ideas:

Dear Reader,
This packet came about because I was asked to do a display on Family Home Evening ideas for a Stake Women's Conference.  When I was asked, I cringed.  Two thoughts came to my mind.  The first was: I don't enjoy Family Home Evening.  The second was:  I don't do cutesy, clip art, sit still, listen Family Home Evenings.  I have four children.  Three of them are boys, which have a combined attention span of about five minutes.  I needed a way to teach the gospel that was hands on and out of the house.  I soon discovered I was not the only person that struggled with FHE.  My deep thanks to all of my Right (and a few Left) Brained, creative, busy friends who have helped come up with ideas for this packet.  It contains 23 activities to do with your family, outside your home, which correlates with the Book of Mormon Reader (available through Church Distribution).  Or you could use the "real" scriptures.

My family is going to try all of the activities after reading each of the stories or sections in The Book of Mormon.  Each time we do an activity we are going to take pictures of us doing the activity.  We'll draw pictures of the activity.  Then we'll do a scrapbook page.  Hopefully my children, as they go throughout life, will remember, not just reading the Book of Mormon, but experiencing the Book of Mormon.

Sincerely,
JoDee Baird

Volume I, will add a new lesson twice a month starting in August 2003.  In future volumes, I will focus on other books of scripture as the basis for original hands-on activities.  I hope you enjoy these creative lesson plans and think of others that will work for your family - it just takes a little "thinking outside the box."

Debra Woods
Editor