Last Sunday Aunt Linda assigned the song Follow the Prophet for Miriam to learn on the piano, so Miriam practiced it until she had it memorized and could play it up to speed (sometimes practicing for an hour a day). She really wanted to sing it for family night tonight and that worked out just fine because with General Conference coming up I wanted to do a lesson about following the prophet, anyway.
Here's our opening song, take two (because I forgot to record it the first time; Miriam played it a little slower this time around because she found it tricky to play while we were all singing):
Calendaring is a lengthy process at our house these days, even with the end of soccer (hallelujah). The kids were quite excited to move onto the lesson because I'd prepared two mystery bags (inspired by this post) and they were sitting there at the front of the room being all mysterious and stuff. There was Mystery Bag A, which I'd decorated with stars, and there was Mystery Bag B, which I'd decorated with butterflies. Their job was to choose a bag to open without knowing what was inside.
We didn't open the bags yet, but I recorded their preferences and they were fairly well split 50/50.
Daddy wanted to open Mystery Bag A (for Andrew), along with Miriam and Zoë.
Benjamin wanted to open Mystery Bag B (for Benjamin), along with Rachel and, they claimed, Alex.
"Alex would probably actually really like what's in bag B," I hinted.*
Now they they knew what their initial choice was, we selected a "leader" to come up and peek inside the bags, and then give advice to the others about which bag was the better choice. I chose Zoë to be the leader, though we had many volunteers for this job. We explained several times that she was supposed to look inside but not tell what was there; she was only to tell if the bag was a good choice or a bad choice.
She opened bag B first and exclaimed, "A di-...!" and then clapped her hands over her mouth because she remembered she wasn't supposed to tell. Then she opened bag A and declared, "Bag A is the better choice!"
Now, with the advice of a leader who knew more than they did, I gave everyone the chance to change their answer. Rachel quickly switched over to side A. Benjamin stubbornly clung to side B. So I told everyone on side A to take one of what was inside Mystery Bag A and pass it down. They each got a penny (a good thing). Then it was Benjamin's turn to open Mystery Bag B. He greedily took it from me, peeked inside, then wadded it up, stormed over to the garbage can, threw it in, stormed into his bedroom, and slammed the door.
We all took a few minutes to silently laugh because Zoë had all but told everybody that Mystery Bag B contained—yes—a dirty diaper!
Honestly, his stubbornness made it a much better object lesson than I could have imagined. I thought for sure everybody would "choose the right," so to speak, once they were directly told which bag contained something good and which bag contained something bad.
When we'd all recovered from laughing over things, I invited Benjamin to rejoin us and asked him if now he'd like to choose Mystery Bag A. He did and was happy to get a penny.
We read a few scriptures (Amos 3:7 and D&C 1:38) and talked a bit about the role of the prophet and apostles and what we'd hear over General Conference weekend. And then we played Simon Says, which quickly morphed into "Prophet Says," thanks to Zoë, and we had a rip-roaring good time until everyone was commanded to do a somersault and Benjamin somersaulted into Zoë and...so forth.
I think everybody laughed...and I'm pretty sure nearly everyone cried at some point, too.
So this FHE can go down in the books as a win.
* Alexander loves diapers. Clean ones, dirty ones—doesn't matter. If you want him to stay still for a diaper change you can just hand him a fresh diaper to play with and he'll be happy as a clam. But once you're finished you have to make sure to take care of the dirty diaper fast because he'll want that one, too. Today he learned that when he stands on his tippy-tippy toes he can reach into the garbage can (at least on Mondays when the garbage can is at its fullest) and fish out diapers. What fun!
This is possibly the least flattering picture of Alexander, ever (but we can't all be beautiful all of the time, can we?). I had just said, "Alexander, what are you doing?" in a rather disproving voice and he guiltily held up this dirty diaper for me (he should know the garbage can is a no-no, but what does "no" mean, precisely?). You can see that he's already tossed a few diapers elsewhere (one is in the box of wipes, there's a stray wipe down by the stool—he made a grand ol' mess).
Here's our opening song, take two (because I forgot to record it the first time; Miriam played it a little slower this time around because she found it tricky to play while we were all singing):
Calendaring is a lengthy process at our house these days, even with the end of soccer (hallelujah). The kids were quite excited to move onto the lesson because I'd prepared two mystery bags (inspired by this post) and they were sitting there at the front of the room being all mysterious and stuff. There was Mystery Bag A, which I'd decorated with stars, and there was Mystery Bag B, which I'd decorated with butterflies. Their job was to choose a bag to open without knowing what was inside.
We didn't open the bags yet, but I recorded their preferences and they were fairly well split 50/50.
Daddy wanted to open Mystery Bag A (for Andrew), along with Miriam and Zoë.
Benjamin wanted to open Mystery Bag B (for Benjamin), along with Rachel and, they claimed, Alex.
"Alex would probably actually really like what's in bag B," I hinted.*
Now they they knew what their initial choice was, we selected a "leader" to come up and peek inside the bags, and then give advice to the others about which bag was the better choice. I chose Zoë to be the leader, though we had many volunteers for this job. We explained several times that she was supposed to look inside but not tell what was there; she was only to tell if the bag was a good choice or a bad choice.
She opened bag B first and exclaimed, "A di-...!" and then clapped her hands over her mouth because she remembered she wasn't supposed to tell. Then she opened bag A and declared, "Bag A is the better choice!"
Now, with the advice of a leader who knew more than they did, I gave everyone the chance to change their answer. Rachel quickly switched over to side A. Benjamin stubbornly clung to side B. So I told everyone on side A to take one of what was inside Mystery Bag A and pass it down. They each got a penny (a good thing). Then it was Benjamin's turn to open Mystery Bag B. He greedily took it from me, peeked inside, then wadded it up, stormed over to the garbage can, threw it in, stormed into his bedroom, and slammed the door.
We all took a few minutes to silently laugh because Zoë had all but told everybody that Mystery Bag B contained—yes—a dirty diaper!
Honestly, his stubbornness made it a much better object lesson than I could have imagined. I thought for sure everybody would "choose the right," so to speak, once they were directly told which bag contained something good and which bag contained something bad.
When we'd all recovered from laughing over things, I invited Benjamin to rejoin us and asked him if now he'd like to choose Mystery Bag A. He did and was happy to get a penny.
We read a few scriptures (Amos 3:7 and D&C 1:38) and talked a bit about the role of the prophet and apostles and what we'd hear over General Conference weekend. And then we played Simon Says, which quickly morphed into "Prophet Says," thanks to Zoë, and we had a rip-roaring good time until everyone was commanded to do a somersault and Benjamin somersaulted into Zoë and...so forth.
I think everybody laughed...and I'm pretty sure nearly everyone cried at some point, too.
So this FHE can go down in the books as a win.
* Alexander loves diapers. Clean ones, dirty ones—doesn't matter. If you want him to stay still for a diaper change you can just hand him a fresh diaper to play with and he'll be happy as a clam. But once you're finished you have to make sure to take care of the dirty diaper fast because he'll want that one, too. Today he learned that when he stands on his tippy-tippy toes he can reach into the garbage can (at least on Mondays when the garbage can is at its fullest) and fish out diapers. What fun!
This is possibly the least flattering picture of Alexander, ever (but we can't all be beautiful all of the time, can we?). I had just said, "Alexander, what are you doing?" in a rather disproving voice and he guiltily held up this dirty diaper for me (he should know the garbage can is a no-no, but what does "no" mean, precisely?). You can see that he's already tossed a few diapers elsewhere (one is in the box of wipes, there's a stray wipe down by the stool—he made a grand ol' mess).
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| "I'm not doing anything wrong." |
Good playing, Miriam!! (Lovely singing, Nancy.) I love the picture of Alexander!! Ahaha!
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