About a month ago, we had one of the worst sacrement meetings in a long time, and I had had enough. I looked up ideas for keeping kids quiet at church. I found some good ideas that gave me a great start. I molded it to my family and this is what I have come up with:
The Quiet Church Bag:
We have a bag designated ONLY for the quiet church bag. I have several activities and toys that I rotate each week so it's always new. Each activity is kept in it's own zip lock bag with everything you need to use it. Like coloring books and crayons all in a bag. Each week when I get the Quiet bag ready I just grab a few all inclusive zip lock bags out of the box, and we are good to go.
Up till now, each week I've added something new. Now that I have a good selection I'll add something new about every 3 or 4 weeks. This is what I have so far:
A picture book with pictures of our family, and a couple temples in that one, a board book, the friend, dry erase boards (that are magnetized) magnet numbers, magnet robot parts, kinda like build a robot. Dry erase letter books, to practice writing letters, sewing/lacing shapes with shoe laces for lacing, pipe cleaners (endless possiabilities)
cool hot wheels, coloring books and crayons.
To show you the sewing thing
It's a plastic grid that I cut shapes out of. I had to cut the holes a little bigger though so the shoe laces would fit. I had 6 squares so they could make a cube, a circle and a duck shape. I'll be making more of those. They were a big hit. I think I'll do small shapes that can be put together to make something bigger, like a house or a bike or...whatever.
I found this online:
So I printed it on card stalk, cut out the pieces, put a little adhesive magnet on the back and then laminated all of it with clear contact paper. (I did it that way cause I have a Danton that would other wise pull the magnets off the back)
Here is what I have learned after a couple weeks. DO NOT let the kids have toys before the sacrament. They are excited about the new toys and they want to see everything at one, and the quiet goes right out the window. Our rule is you can read the friend (or another book) till after the sacrament, THEN we will pull out the toys.
The cool stuff, like the white boards the kids each have their own. And Markers and 2 year olds in white shirts are not a good combo. I found dry erase CRAYONS. They easily mark on clothing, but they also come out just as easy. No worries.
Also, no matter how new or cool the stuff is, if your kid ONLY likes cars, trucks and motorcycles, the other stuff will only interest him SO long before all he wants is a car, truck or motor cycle. So I got some VERY cool hot wheels for Danton that STAY in the box. He gets only one each week but it's a different one.
He does however really REALLY like the picture book with family pictures. Because of that most of the pictures in there are of him. He will look at that one book for 10 or 15 mins. I'm going to do more of those.
Things I will eventually add to the box:
A prophet picture book
A temple picture book (perhaps with the temples aunts and uncles were sealed in along with their pictures)
An extended family picture book, to get to know faces of aunts and uncles and cousins that dont live here.
I spy bag (hopefully I'm doing this with my sister and my cousin so I don't have to come up with as many little things, just several of the same thing to share with them for their bags too)
A magnet bag (same concept as the I spy bag, only with metal things, and a magnet is attached to move the metal things around inside the bag)
Flannel board pictures
Felt make a monster faces (like the robots only out of felt with different facial features to choose from)
magnifying glass
crayola color wonder
Living Scripture activity books. (you can print them ALL for free on their web site. You have to have a member log in, which is free, and then you can down load and print any of their activity books, and they have one for all their movies, and they have mazes and dot to dots and other stuff too. I'll probably coordinate with FHE. If we do a scripture store I'll print up a few pages from that activity book for them to color the next week.
Magnet alphabet letters
Toys will be aloud till they are 5 or 6, then only the Friend till they are 8, and then they need to learn to sit quietly. That was some body else's rule, and I think I'll adopt it.
I hope someone else can benefit from this idea like I did.
Up till now, each week I've added something new. Now that I have a good selection I'll add something new about every 3 or 4 weeks. This is what I have so far:
A picture book with pictures of our family, and a couple temples in that one, a board book, the friend, dry erase boards (that are magnetized) magnet numbers, magnet robot parts, kinda like build a robot. Dry erase letter books, to practice writing letters, sewing/lacing shapes with shoe laces for lacing, pipe cleaners (endless possiabilities)
cool hot wheels, coloring books and crayons.
To show you the sewing thing
It's a plastic grid that I cut shapes out of. I had to cut the holes a little bigger though so the shoe laces would fit. I had 6 squares so they could make a cube, a circle and a duck shape. I'll be making more of those. They were a big hit. I think I'll do small shapes that can be put together to make something bigger, like a house or a bike or...whatever.
I found this online:
So I printed it on card stalk, cut out the pieces, put a little adhesive magnet on the back and then laminated all of it with clear contact paper. (I did it that way cause I have a Danton that would other wise pull the magnets off the back)
Here is what I have learned after a couple weeks. DO NOT let the kids have toys before the sacrament. They are excited about the new toys and they want to see everything at one, and the quiet goes right out the window. Our rule is you can read the friend (or another book) till after the sacrament, THEN we will pull out the toys.
The cool stuff, like the white boards the kids each have their own. And Markers and 2 year olds in white shirts are not a good combo. I found dry erase CRAYONS. They easily mark on clothing, but they also come out just as easy. No worries.
Also, no matter how new or cool the stuff is, if your kid ONLY likes cars, trucks and motorcycles, the other stuff will only interest him SO long before all he wants is a car, truck or motor cycle. So I got some VERY cool hot wheels for Danton that STAY in the box. He gets only one each week but it's a different one.
He does however really REALLY like the picture book with family pictures. Because of that most of the pictures in there are of him. He will look at that one book for 10 or 15 mins. I'm going to do more of those.
Things I will eventually add to the box:
A prophet picture book
A temple picture book (perhaps with the temples aunts and uncles were sealed in along with their pictures)
An extended family picture book, to get to know faces of aunts and uncles and cousins that dont live here.
I spy bag (hopefully I'm doing this with my sister and my cousin so I don't have to come up with as many little things, just several of the same thing to share with them for their bags too)
A magnet bag (same concept as the I spy bag, only with metal things, and a magnet is attached to move the metal things around inside the bag)
Flannel board pictures
Felt make a monster faces (like the robots only out of felt with different facial features to choose from)
magnifying glass
crayola color wonder
Living Scripture activity books. (you can print them ALL for free on their web site. You have to have a member log in, which is free, and then you can down load and print any of their activity books, and they have one for all their movies, and they have mazes and dot to dots and other stuff too. I'll probably coordinate with FHE. If we do a scripture store I'll print up a few pages from that activity book for them to color the next week.
Magnet alphabet letters
Toys will be aloud till they are 5 or 6, then only the Friend till they are 8, and then they need to learn to sit quietly. That was some body else's rule, and I think I'll adopt it.
I hope someone else can benefit from this idea like I did.
5 comments:
awesome i think i will have to buckle down and make a quiet bag, my kids are "ok" during sacrament because they are getting older but Briar is a wiggling ball of energy (and slippery depending on the dress) and i need to find something that she will be happy with. also, the older kids would appreciate something fun to do, even though they have already (sort of) accepted being bored, lol.
this is great my boys are crazy during church! and the crayola color wonders are amazing by the way we have those cause white shirts dont mix with colors as you said:)
Sarah- I am SOOOO doing this! My kids are ROTTEN in church. No. Angie is rotten. Then Caleb whines when she does. I love the family picture book idea. That's my first project. LOVE LOVE LOVE!
Sarah, You are such a smartie! What a good idea. (and so much easier and more versital than the "quiet books" we use to make. Thanks for sharing.
Great ideas! Quiet books and such are the best during sacrament. We've used the same idea of using certain toys/activities only for church and it's fabulous. We have a rule of NOTHING before the sacrament. It gets tricky, but I encourage Brielle to sit still and think about Jesus during the sacrament. She can thumb through the hymn book but that's it.
Another rule we have is that if she gets off the bench, she has to sit in one of our laps with her arms folded (she was going up and down and crawling underneath and being too disruptive). If she starts to scream (which thankfully has never happened) then we take her out and have her sit on our laps in a vacant classroom where no kids are running around. Makes it VERY boring which is the point.
Good luck with it all! Keeping kids quiet can sure be tricky sometimes.
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