I love General Conference, the messages and feeling of the weekend, but it seems like it comes and goes too quickly. I try to read as many talks in between but this time I've decided to spend more time studying and using the talks for family home evening. I'll be sharing many of them as we go.
This first one is inspired by
President Dallin H. Oaks talk "By Small and Simple things." I love that it reminds us of the power that our actions have on our life. Its a great reminder that even if we can't see progress after a day, week, or even a year at some point we will be able to look back and see a significant change.
I realize that we are all going to have different quotes and thoughts that come to us as we read these talks. I included an outline that I used for my family but pick and choose what works for you. Here's a run down of whats included (all the printables and game pieces are in one download at the end of this post)
2 printables-We used the first one to keep track of our answers to the question: What are some small and simple things we do? The second one we keep displayed in our home for the week as a reminder of what we learned.
A page of quotes that I used in the lesson. You can cut them out and have others family members read them out loud.
Boat Board Game includes the board, 1 page of boats, 2 pages of cards, and dice.
To assemble:
Print (cardstock optional)
Tape the game board together
Cut out as many boats as needed (play as teams or individually) There are 9 to choose from.
Cut the cards apart (yours will not have "the move... spaces" I tweaked the game a little after we played)
Assemble the dice-cut, fold, and tape together
To play:
Take turns drawing a card. Read the senario and decide if that action will help you move upstream or downstream. Roll the dice and move that many space either foward or backwards based on your card. The first one to the finish line wins.
You might be wondering why I used a boat theme, well it comes from this paragraph:
"We are surrounded by media influences and cultural deteriorations that will carry us downstream in our values if we are not continually resisting. To move upstream toward our eternal goal, we must constantly keep paddling. It helps if we are part of a team that is paddling together, like a rowing crew in action. To extend that example even further, the cultural currents are so strong that if we ever stop paddling, we will be carried downstream toward a destination we do not seek but which becomes inevitable if we do not constantly try to move forward."
I loved the visual of paddling a boat upstream to our destination and the need to keep going. I couldn't find any paddle boat clip art but hopefully the connection will still work. In the lesson plan I shared how I explained it to my kids.
If you want just the scripture print or need it in a different size you can find it
here
