Gratitude

November has come, which means GRATITUDE is the theme!

I have Sharing Time the last TWO weeks of November and have been struggling to come up with something fun.  Do any of you have any suggestions?

I liked this idea (from HERE) about spiritual blessings:

 

I love this object lesson on Gratitude (from Sugardoodle):

 

OBJECT LESSON: Tell the children, "Look around the room and find all the things you can that are purple." After they had a few minutes to do so, she had them close their eyes. Then she said, "Okay, now tell me all the things you saw that were yellow."And they couldn't do it. That's because they had focused so intently on the purple that they didn't even notice the yellow things."  You can see the application to contentment and gratitude. When we focus on what we don't have, pretty soon that's all we can see, so we become discontented, and whiny, and unsatisfied. But when we focus on our many amazing blessings, we become more and more aware of them, and thus more and more content and humble and grateful. And I might add, happier. And more peaceful."  (Mary Ellen Edmunds, You Can Never Get Enough of What You Don't Need, [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2005], p. 153.)

 

Fun game:

GAME: To show the children just how easy it is to be grateful, play alphabetical gratitude. Go around the room and have each person say something he is grateful for. The first person names something that starts with the letter a, and the next person names something beginning with the letter b. Continue around the room as many times as necessary until the entire alphabet is complete.

 

If you have a small group, you could make a 'web of gratitude':

http://www.lds.org/ensign/2006/06/random-sampler/web-of-gratitude?lang=eng

 

 

 

Testimony Meeting

Last week I was able to do something I've wanted to do for AGES - invite the children to share their testimonies!

I had heard of some music time leaders doing this as part of their singing time, but it never fit in for me.  Now that roles have switched and I was in charge of Sharing Time - especially on a week when the topic was Sharing the Gospel - I thought the timing was perfect.

In Jr. Primary, especially, we talked a little bit about what things are and are not appropriate to talk about in a testimony - what their purpose is, what topics they can be about, etc.  Then I turned the time over to the kids after setting up a few chairs in front for those waiting for a turn.

They did such a great job.  Since their testimonies were so short, I think just about everyone who wanted to got the chance to share in about 10 minutes.  But their sweet spirits shone through and they taught us all much better than I ever could.

If you get the chance to do the same, I highly recommend it!  These kids are amazing!