family home evening chart

In January I had this big elaborate idea that I was going to plan our Family Home Evenings out for the entire year. I would spend the afternoon going through the many various lesson ideas I had and decide what lessons I would do each week of the year. I would type all this up in an excel spreadsheet and be the most organized Family Home Eveninger you'd ever seen. I sat down and started going through all my stuff when I realized that this was not the point of FHE. Once again, the perfectionist in me was missing the point. Family Home Evening should be based on the needs of our family at that particular time, not planned months in advance. Family Home Evening should be something that my children feel involved in, as opposed to me preaching to them every week.

I found this silly little chart that our kids got at a primary activity last year. I immediately colored it {I mean, one of my kids did}, laminated it and then printed off a picture of our family. I cut out our heads and laminated those too. I attached Velcro adhesives to the chart and the pictures. This project took me less than 30 minutes to do and it has completed changed the spirit of our Family Home Evenings. Everybody loves having a part, which we always tried to do before, but never did that well. My boys beg to do the lessons. Who knew?

I've learned that sometimes the big elaborate things we try to do are just wasteful, they are completely missing the point and detract from the spirit. This simple little chart was all our family needed to have successful Family Home Evenings...together!