Church Crafting

When Matt and I moved into our new ward we were called to be sunbeam teachers. I never knew how challenging it was until my first week. 3-4 year olds have little to no attention span and have a ton of energy. So all year I've been experimenting different ways to teach the children the gospel. I feel so good when I know that they actually understood what I was teaching and it got through to them. Here are some of my tactics I've learned over the last 6 months that are kid tested and work. I also am glad I'm preparing lessons now because I will have ready prepared FHE lessons when we start our family.

1.) Make a felt board. Kids are very visual learners and won't listen unless you have a visual aid. This felt board was so easy to make. It consisted of getting a thick poster board spraying it with spray adhesive and then sticking on the felt. After I just cut around the poster board to get rid of the excess felt. So easy and took 5 minutes.



Once you have your felt board you need to get some figurines for it. I bought a felt Book of Mormon kit at Deseret Book (shown above). Or you can print and laminate these figures on this website or whatever you want.

2.) Going along with the visuals. I like to laminate stories, puzzles, and games that go along with the lesson. I've found some good stuff at this and this website. The Friend is also an excellent resource.



3.) Make some puppets. Kids love puppets. I made some of these puppets to explain that we have a spirit and a body. I used fabric markers to draw it on. It started to die at the end so some of the puppets don't look as good. Don't use sharpies! They bleed and I learned that the hard way. I got the idea from my mom. She had one growing up and we used it for talks all the time.



4.)Make a memory game. Kids love this and are learning as they match things together. Matt made a really cool prophet one to go with our prophet lesson. By the end they started to recognize the prophets faces.

5.) Play the fishing game. I made a fishing pole with a magnet and a wooden dowel. I change it up each week by putting paperclips on different things that relate to the lesson. Kids love it and learn a lot at the same time.

6.) Arts and crafts. I use this book all the time for arts and crafts projects. Someone gave us a copy, but you can find it on Amazon or at Deseret Book. Works great!

7.) If all else fails tempt them to be reverent with gummy bears. That works too!