Come Follow Me: Matthew 21-23, Mark 11, Luke 19-20, and John 12 (May 20-26)

Sorry I'm running so late this week!  All I can say is its May.  We were busy with dance recitals and practices all week and trying to catch up on things that were put on hold due to colds over the last couple of weeks.  I wrote this pretty quick so if you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask-I know there are a few spots that aren't super clear.  This week there are so many topics to pick from.  I hope there are a few things that work for you. 

Palm Sunday
-Bible Video- I love these videos.  It really helps my kids (and me) visualize the story.

Story Cards-This is perfect to  help younger kids understand the story.  I used the words from Elder Uchtdorf in this Friend article.

Word search-using words from the story

Temple: This would be a great time to talk about the importance of the temple and the blessings that come for going or preparing to go to the temple.

Temple match game (also found in this FHE about temple blessings)

Coloring page.  Use the blank space to write or draw ways you can prepare to go to the temple.

 I decided to leave this craft open ended.  In the blank space draw, paint, cut out, etc. a picture of your favorite temple.  I'd love to see what you do...I have a project in mine that I will share after we make ours.

Zacchaeus- I often scan through the lesson before I start reading the chapters and have a general idea of the topics I want to cover.  Every once in a while there is story or scripture that really stand out to me.  This was the story for me this week.  I love the example of Zacchaeus.  He wanted to see the Savior so much that he ran and climbed a tree.  Then Jesus called him by name and he quickly came down and  joyfully received him.  This would be a fun story to act out with your kids.  I also included puppets that you can use to tell the story. Print (cardstock is best). Cut along the lines and add to a Popsicle stick.  You can leave the tree or cut it out.  There are two circles to hole punch.  string a piece of yarn though the holes and tie the two ends together.  Tape your Zacchaeus to the string.  You can now pull him up and down the tree as you tell the story.  (All add pictures soon!)

Quote from the Sunday School manual that goes with this story and a journaling card.  We use a notebook and add our projects and journaling cards.

If you want to print this a different size or have it printed some where, right click on the picture below and save to your computer.  I like to paste it in a word document and size.

Jesus calls Zacchhaeus by name.  Jesus and Heavenly Father also know us by name.  For this coloring page your little ones can draw their face inside the circle.

 Greatest Commandment-In Matthew 22:34-40 we learn that the two great commandments are to Love God and to love others.  All other commandments fall into these two categories.  To illustrate this we are going to play Commandment Sort.  Print the 3 pages.  cut the little cards apart and decide if the commandment shows love to God or love to others.  Another fun way to play this would be to pick a commandment card and then draw a picture of the commandment while your family members guess what you are drawing (pictionary).  Once they guess the right commandment place it on the correct board.  Don't be afraid to add additional cards.

That's all for this week!  As always if you have any questions or trouble downloading the file please let me know.  I will try and update the file with written instruction and some clarifying pictures to this post over the next few days.  Thanks for being patient with me :)

Download Free Printables Here

Pillow Forts with free printables!

With kids around the house one things for sure — nothings ever boring. That is, unless you ask them. Any parent of grandparent knows how often kids can complain of boredom. With all their energy and need for new experiences, it can be a difficult task to keep any kiddos entertained, especially so on cold or rainy days.

When they can’t go outside, this printable pillow fort is the perfect indoor activity for the whole family. With the printable instructions, making a fort together is fun and easy. Plus, the included signs encourage kids to decorate and play in their creation for hours. A pillow fort is all the fun of an outdoor adventure, all without ever leaving the house!

To take the pillow fort to the next level, use the printable gift tag to pack a fort to-go! Simply bundle together an inexpensive sheet, some clothespins, and the printables by Sleep Advisor, and you’ll have the perfect slumber party gift or rainy day activity for everyone!

 With summer just around the corner this would be the perfect boredom buster. Grab these adorable free downloads and have fun creating some special memories with your kids.

Free Come Follow Me Printables for May 13-19

I had a sweet person ask for a printable with this quote that she could display in her home this week. I love reader requests like this and thought there might be a few of you that would also like it.  You can grab it in an easy to print pdf form here or Click on the picture.  Right click to save to your computer. Print at home or send it to your favorite place to print pictures. If printing at home I like to insert the picture in a word document and adjust to the size needed.  This would also be great to share with your ministering sisters.

If printing at home I like to insert the picture in a word document.  Size and print 3 or 4 to a page depending on how many you need. 

Find the lesson helps for this weeks lesson here.

Come Follow Me: Matthew 19-20, Mark 10, Luke 18 (May 13-19)

Here are some fun and  free lesson helps to teach this weeks Come Follow Me lesson.  It covers Matthew 19-20, Mark 10, and Luke 18.  These are great for families and primary classes.

Jesus teaches about the importance of marriage.  This would be a great time to share some of your wedding pictures and memories with your kids.  Talk about the importance of temple marriage. If you have older children maybe talk about some of the characteristics you looked for in a spouse. You can also read part (or all) of the Proclamation to the Family.  After pick one or both of the following activities.

 Print and cut the puzzle.  Work together as a family to put it together.  Want to add an extra element of fun?  Hide the puzzle pieces around the room.

 To play the next game print the board.  You will need a dice and something to cover the hearts.  You can use anything such as buttons or cheerios.  On your turn roll the dice. If you land on 5 use your button to cover the heart.  Then share one way you can show love to your family.  Then pass the dice to the next person.  continue playing until all of the hearts have been cover.

Jesus Blessing the Children-
Here's the link to the bible video (found towards the middle of the page)
I thought it would be fun to watch and learn the words to the song I know that My Savior Loves Me (found here).  We learned this one a few years ago in primary and I love the beautiful message.
Craft-Color and cut out the circle and the hearts.  Inside the hearts draw either a way you know the Savior loves you OR a way you can show the Savior you love him.  Hole punch the top of the hearts and 3 holes along the bottom of the circle.  Connect the hearts to the circle with yarn or string.

"What Lack I yet?"  The story of the young rich man.  I love the into to the lesson found in the Come Follow Me manual. This would be great to share with your family or use for your personal study. With the topic of "What lack I yet?" I really enjoyed studying this talk by Sister Becky Craven.  Also this one by President Oaks and this one by President Nelson.

This is also a great story to teach our children about being willing to follow Jesus Christ.  This young man was doing a lot of really good things. When he asked what more does he need to do the answer the Savior gave him was something he wasn't willing to do.  I think its important for children to learn that we are not always asked to do easy things.  The big question is are willing to do it.  For this activity I have a coloring page that says "I can follow Jesus Christ" and a 2nd page with different commandments and thing we are asked to do.  Have your kids color and cut out some of the things they do to follow Jesus.  Also encourage them to ponder the question "what lack I yet?"  meaning what is the Savior asking me to do.  They can add their thoughts to the page.

The final activities go with the parable of the laborers in the vineyard.  Can I just tell you parables are so over my head but I have loved studying them this year.  I almost skipped this one because its impossible to get to everything each week.  However, I love the message of this parable so much that it has now moved to my top priority to teach this week.  I included parts of Elder Hollands talk.  If you are like me and parables are a little tough to understand use this talk!  It explains it so well.  To start we are going to use the idea in the I&F manual.  It suggests setting up a race and having your family members compete.  After its over give a reward to everyone no matter when they completed the race.  I inlcuded some medals you can cut out for each person.  hole punch the top and add yarn to so you can put it over their heads.  Next use these adorable puppets to tell the parable.  I plan to use Elder Holland's words.  Pull out a new person for each time it mentions.  Then when its time for them to be paid use a pom pom or actual coin and set one on each person.  Stop and ask your family if this seems fair.  Then continue on wit elder Holland"s explanation.  

That's everything for the week.  you will find the free download at the end of this post.  I'm hoping to add instructions in the download next week. 

Download Lesson Helps here 

Come Follow Me: Luke 12-17 John 11 (May 6-12)

The chapters for Come Follow Me for May 6-12 are Luke 12-17 and John 11.  There are so many topics you could cover with these chapters.  I chose to focus on The lost sheep, The lost coin, The prodigal son, and The 10 Lepers.  All of the free printables are in one big download at the end of this post.  The ideas below are great for families or primary classes. 


The Lost Sheep-I have two game ideas for you this week.  The first one  you only need one sheep form the printable below.  If you have a stuffed animal or little figure that would work to. Send one person out of the room.  Hide the sheep.  Invite the person back in and play hot and cold while they look for the sheep. 

Second option-Print the page with the bush and the colored sheep.  Give everyone a second to look at all of the sheep and try and memorize the colors.  Have one person or everyone close their eyes.  Hide one of the sheep under the bush.  Have them open their eyes and guess which sheep is missing. 

Extra idea: Print 2 of the colored sheep page on cardstock and use as a match game.

The Lost Coin-Loosing something special can be a big deal to a little kid.  Start by asking if they have ever lost something.  How did they feel?  What did they do?  Did they find it?  If so how did they feel after they found it?  You can also share a time you lost something. They can use the page below to write or draw a story about the time they lost something. 

The 10 Lepers:  Tell the story or watch the video on lds.org
I love the idea from this blog to wrap some one up in toilet paper and put sticker dots on them.  I decided to change it just a little by using the spots below.  Print and cut (colored paper would be fun!).  After you have wrapped someone or everyone up with toilet paper tape the stickers to the person.  To remove the dots they need to say one thing they are thankful for.  You can keep them and have them draw or write they thing they were thankful for.  You can have them glue their spots to a piece of paper. 

If you have older kids that can write this is a really fun game.  Have them write 1 thing for each letter of the alphabet they are thankful for.  Have even older kids set a timer.  After have each person read off their list.  They get 1 point for each one that nobody else had.  The person with the most points wins!

This would be a great time to write a thank you card to someone.  Print on cardstock and cut apart.

 Thankful Dice-Print (cardstock recomended). Cut along solid lines.  Fold dotted lines and tape in place.  Take turns rolling the dice and sharing something you are thankful for based on the side you land on.  Another option would be to roll the dice and act out or draw the thing you are grateful for while your family members guess.

 Puppets to retell the story of the Prodigal Son.

Extra idea-you could play this game from one of my old primary lessons if you want to talk about how choosing the right makes us happy.  You can find it in this post.

That's it for this week.  I hope you find something that will help you teach your family.

Download the Free Printables Here!

Sheep Color Matching Game

Good Morning and happy Mother Goose Day!  (If you do not know what I'm talking about check out this post-really you should it's awesome :)  Yesterday morning I had the idea to create a huge packet for you full of nursery rhyme fun and have it all ready and posted before now.  Well lets just say the day didn't go as planned.  I have it almost done and I'll share the rest with you as soon as I can.  It will be worth the wait I promise and nursery rhymes are super fun any day!  But I did want to give you something to use so I have this adorable color sheep match game. Print 2 on cardstock or back with colored paper.  While you play teach your little ones Mary Had a Little Lamb, Baa Baa black Sheep, or Little Bo Peep!

Download Match Game Here!

Adorable graphics are from  Educlips and fonts from Kimberly Geswein Fonts

23 May Holidays your Kids will LOVE

Last year I created fun holiday calendars that are full of your common and not so common holidays.  My kids loved them but with our busy schedules I wasn't planning on doing them this year.  I missed them and so did my kids.  After 4 months without them I'm bringing them back!  So come back each month to find your updated calendar.  

  Slowing down and creating memories with my kids is very important to me.  This calendar makes it so easy to do just that.  We don't celebrate every holiday and we keep it pretty simple  For example this month we'll make lemonade and drink it outside on the 6th and eat pizza while watching a movie on the 17th.  Simple but your kids will love it.

Download a copy of the calendar, print, and display.  You do not need to celebrate all of them (we probably won't) just pick and choose what works for you and your family.

Download your copy here

I'll be posting ideas as I finalize my plans and also as we celebrate some of these holidays.  My hope is that this will be something fun for your family and a way to create some special memories.  I'd love to hear your ideas and see pictures of your celebrations!

Holiday's came from here, here, and here. 

Amazing graphics from

 The Learning Attic, Creative Clips, Graphics4kids, Prettygrafik,  Dorky Doodles, my cute graphics, Cathy's Store,Isma Clips, revidevi, Teacher Laura, Laine Sutherland - A Little Peace of Africa,   P4 Clips Trioriginals, and fonts from Hello Literacy