why are you posting so many activities?

no, no one actually asked me that question. except, maybe my mom. she would ask me that question. because she would legit want to know why there are so many "activity" ideas and other garbage on this blog. ha! the grams (what we've nicknamed her since she became a grandma), is ALL ABOUT THE DOCTRINE. seriously. when i emailed her to tell her about my super awesome nursery party social media idea, she emailed back with:

"Awesome!  Don't forget Jesus.  Put a lot of Jesus pictures around in nursery."

and then later when we were emailing back and forth about her upcoming winter trip to visit her grandchildren she said...

"Wow!  I'm to excited.   Whatever you decide and however you want done.   Let me see.  Right now you are a little frustrated because you feel alone in what has been going on.   PRAY AND LISTEN!   HE'S RIGHT THERE AND KNOW EVERYTHING!  I know some things and I hope I'm helping you know what HE knows."

guys, now that i am a mom, i am totally obsessed with my mom cause she's a genius. i'll be bragging about her all the time cause she's so great. 

anyways, to answer the self-imposed question of "why are you posting so many activities..." since you talk about teaching the doctrine and keeping it simple is because of this. 

nursery is two hours. TWO HOURS people. some of you have classes that are as small as two kids and they might be your own. some of you have 72! (seriously, 72, see here). and the rest of us i am guessing have everything in between. so with all of those 18 month olds to 3yo in your class and with attention spans of ants, you need a lot to occupy them. you need amo! 

besides, all the lesson help you need, is IN THE MANUAL. (obsession with the manual in this post) that's the best part. is you don't have to rack your brain trying to figure out what to teach, you just have to figure out all the other stuff that takes up about 115 minutes. the manual makes our lives so much easier.

so i hope i answered your question. i want this blog to be more than lesson helps because you already have lesson helps, the Church provided it. i'll just add a few lesson applicable craft ideas for keeping the kids busy post-lesson and other helpful survival tips. 

lesson printable and craft for lesson 15 - I will be thankful

november, thanksgiving. so we are going to be doing gratitude activities the last couple of weeks this month, duh! i spent all of last week revamping our closet with the motor skills activities, that i really didn't have time to think of a thanksgiving thing. and my personality is to make things as simple and stress free for myself as possible. which means i'm only doing one big thanksgiving lesson/activity the week of thanksgiving. it just makes my life 10 million times easier. i'm juggling two kids under three by myself every sunday since my husband is the bish, so naturally i'm all about the one-trip-wonder method. gather everything--bags, nursery stuff, snacks, kids and take it all all in one trip into the building.

i've created a simple printable for coloring and a craft! each printable i create, i want the kids to have the opportunity to learn, see letters, color in lines, etc. not just color a picture. though your nursery party kids may not be able to read just yet, some might be able to identify letters, enjoy learning a phrase. the printable provides some dialogue for the teacher. dialogue = extending an activity by four to five minutes (in my personal experience!) i'm all for making the time go by!

hopefully most of these things you already have in your house or can find for cheap/free at different places. and if you don't have stuff and not a lot of budget, ask the parents of your nursery party kids if they have things they can save (like toilet paper rolls, cereal boxes, pringles cans) or donate (scraps of paper, paper bags, lunch sacks, etc). if they are anything like me, they'll have hoards of craft things hanging around the house that their spouses are dying to get rid of.

and here's the "I will be thankful" booklet that you can use in addition to the worksheet provided in the manual.

i love free hand stuff. let the kids put stickers, stamps, markers, pens, crayons all over this little booklet. the older kids might enjoy tracing around the letters and coloring them in.

just print, cut and staple! and if you want it to appear to be a little fancier, use that vintage brown looking scrap book paper for the cover page and the last page.

here's the link, enjoy!

if you are having trouble downloading it, send me an email at josie.nurseryparty@gmail.com and i'll send you a copy!

and here is the thanksgiving paper plate turkey! cut the paper plates, the toilet paper rolls, beaks and draw the eyes in before you take them to your activity, helps keep the attention span!