Confession: we are not a 100% FHE family. We have periods of regularity, and periods of striving to be better. I'm sure we're not alone in the striving part!
Several years ago, in a former ward, a friend gave a terrific presentation at Enrichment about Family Home Evening. One thing that stuck with me was the box. She had a huge apple box full of manila envelopes that were full of FHE activities. She said that while they had committed to having FHE every week, having the box made it a lot easier. All of her materials were in one place, and it was easy to put together a lesson at the last minute, rather than just not doing FHE, because of the work involved.
I went home and put together our little FHE box. I had this plastic tote sitting in a closet, but you could use whatever you have on hand. I printed out a little label and voila! an FHE box. I went through my books and my files (which I know you all have sitting around somewhere) and put everything together that had been used for FHE or could be.
Some of the things in our box:
Preach My Gospel, which can again, be purchased at
Church Distribution or
elsewhere. Some wards have purchased them for their ward families. Also, any church lesson supplementation videos that you might have are a great resource.
Church lesson manuals and the
Family Home Evening Resource Book which can be purchased at
Church Distribution online or at a local outlet if you're fortunate to live near one. These are perfect for quick lessons. Alternatively, church lessons can be printed on the LDS website as well. Sometimes we will do this to reinforce a topic from a Sunday lesson.
Deseret Book used to have awesome, free, FHE lessons each week (I printed a ton of them a couple of years ago). While it appears that the
lessons as I knew them have disappeared, I believe that there are still lessons available at
Times and Seasons. Print them off and file them away for future reference!
Books that we have used for other issues, but that work for FHE. These two are
101 Activities for Kids in Tight Spaces, by Carol Kranowitz and
10-Minute Life Lessons for Kids, by Jamie Miller. (Click on the links for more information or to purchase them.)
Other books in my box are:
Teach Me Mommy: A Preschool Learning Guide, by Jill Dunford and
Transition Magician, by
Ruth Chvojicek, Mary Henthorne, and Nola Larson. (I need to replace these with resources for older children.) Both of these books have activities for preschoolers that are easily incorporated into FHE lessons.
I also actually borrowed my friend's entire box and copied a lot of her activities and lessons, and have purchased some of my own over the years. We love the
Finch Family Games, and I've found that they're reasonably priced and can be used over and over again. Mine are laminated, and each game is kept together in its own gallon-sized ziploc bag.
Whatever you decide to put into your FHE box, I can assure you that having it all in one location really does help with your planned and last-minute Family Home Evening lessons.
My boys love bingo games.
