Lessons are every other day during the summer in our household.
As always the only mandatory items are the Old Testament and the CFM manual whether that be a hard copy or on the Gospel Library app (recommended method), however, journals are highly recommended.
Although not mandatory The Beginner’s Bible is also highly recommended as we use it frequently and have found it to be an amazing resource to get to the point quickly and clearly. Fantastic for families with littles as well as families short on time.
Although we do not have Walking with Women of the Old Testament on the plans for any week this month, I do plan on reading through Ruth, Naomi, and Hannah with the kids throughout the month. Often time we spend some time on Sundays diving deeper into their stories/history.
This month starts off the same as usual but the last week of the month you will notice we change it quite a bit. We begin our summer schedule that week and as much as I should maybe try to do CFM still everyday I also really don’t feel bad that we don’t. 🙂
As always the weekly items we use are our Old Testament, the Come Follow Me (CFM) manual, and our journals. Although I have the manual pictures above we don’t use it often, we use the Gospel Library app because it’s so much easier to access the links to scripture, videos and more. Not pictured is the Don’t Miss It Word of the Week posters that we use. We introduce the word every Monday and review every Sunday as well as discuss throughout the week when we notice something that helps us better understand why that word must have been chosen.
We also frequently use The Beginner’s Bible. We occasionally use Walking with the Women of the Old Testament in our CFM lessons but more times than not we use that book for additional reading on Sundays outside of CFM. The Color Your Way Through the Old Testament is a book our youngest uses to keep herself busy while we do the lessons (sometimes our youngest 2) but we never have it incorporated into the lessons.
First week of May: WEEK 19
A pretty straight forward week with minimum amount of prep work needed.
We do use some of the “extra materials” this week with The Beginner’s Bible and Walking with the Women of the Old Testament both being used for lessons. There also is the potential of some prep work needing to be put into the FHE lesson depending on what you choose to use.
HERE is the link for the video mentioned for Thursday’s lesson.
FHE will take a little prep with cutting out some hearts for the lesson but that is it. I labeled mine already for the sake of showing an example but I personally will not label the others and let the kids do them as they choose. Sunday may take a little prep work, or at least thinking/planning in advance, depending on what nice thing you want to do for your family. Day to day CFM lessons take no prep work.
There is another “Thoughts to Keep in Mind…” at the beginning of this weeks CFM section that you may want to read through and highlight parts you want to share with your family throughout the week. Other than that, I’m going to say no prep work for this week unless you want to put together a way for your family to memorize a scripture in advance. I plan on the kids coming up with their own way of memorizing and doing the work themselves but it’s up to you. We do use The Beginner’s Bible throughout the week again but it is not mandatory. It is a great option if you have little kids though or even just short time frames to do these lessons in; they really do a great job getting to the moral of the story and keeping it short and sweet.
This is the beginning of our summer schedule so we’ll only be doing CFM every other day and even then I keep them extra short…lots of reading from The Beginner’s Bible I want to make sure we don’t just give up on CFM for 2 months but I also want to be realistic with what we can get done with our summer schedule. No prep work needed this week.
May you enjoy your CFM experience with your family and remember they are getting SOMETHING out of it, even if it doesn’t always feel like it in the moment! Hang in there and don’t give up, it’s more important now than ever to make sure we’re giving our kids all the tools possible to stay strong in their faith. You’ve got this, parents!
Same as every other month, you really just need the Gospel Library app to do these lessons but if you have journals for your kids it is an added bonus. This allows them to write any promptings or thoughts they have while having these very short lessons or even drawing pictures or phrases that come to mind. Overall, it’s been a very positive experience for our family when we do it.
We also use The Beginner’s Bible a lot but it is not mandatory to do these lessons. I mention in the lesson which chapters are covered by the story we read so if you don’t have The Beginner’s Bible you can just ready those chapters in the Bible instead. The Beginner’s Bible is a great option for families with young children, children with very short attention spans or even for families with busy schedules that leave them short on time for CFM.
I should also mention that each Monday it talks about introducing the word of the week and then it’s mentioned again on Sunday when we review it. I’m referring to the Don’t Miss This Old Testament Poster Set we use. Again, something that we love and use because it was gifted to us but it’s not a MUST HAVE. It is not mentioned throughout the week but we do often as a family while discussing the lessons mention when we see now why that word was chosen for the week’s lessons. It’s nice but can easily be skipped.
This is the week of Easter for CFM schedule so the FHE lesson has a little something special.
There is also a special video to watch on Easter found here or you can google the title I give on the lesson printout and it will take you right to it.
The printouts for each week, your scriptures, the Come Follow Me manual (hard copy or from the Gospel Library app – the app makes videos quick and easy to find), and The Beginner’s Bible are the items needed for this week. The Beginner’s Bible is not mandatory but it is a huge help to keeps things quick and to the point whether because of younger kids in the house or busy schedules that don’t leave a lot of time. (I do get a small payment for purchases made through this blog. Thank you in advance for using this above link!) We also use the Don’t Miss This – Word of the Week. You see me reference “introduce the word of the week” on Mondays and “review word of the week” on Sunday…that is what I am referring to. You can find it here if you are interested in it. One last thing that is not mandatory but that we use is journals. The kids each have their own CFM journal and at times there are specific guidelines of what they should be writing but often times it is just a space for them to take random notes, pictures, quotes, and doodles of thoughts that come to mind during these short lessons.
It’s been the craziest month, luckily I had these planned back in January but I just typed them up tonight to be ready to start CFM again tomorrow so, no pictures to post this month. Hopefully there aren’t too many typos, I did zero checking this time. Such is life.
Items needed for this week: 2 magnets and 1 paperclip (for FHE lesson). Links for videos not on the CFM manuals: The Refiner’s Fire and After the Storm.
Your scriptures, the Come Follow Me manual (shortened to: CFM), The Beginner’s Bible (this is optional, I let you know what pages from the bible you can read as a replacement but his is a great option for a fun summary for kids. I use it the times I want them to get the summarized version so we can spend more time on discussing the lesson to be learned. This is an affiliate link so if you purchase through here, thank you so much!), print outs for each week, Walking with the Women of the Old Testament (I got mine at Costco but I did find it HERE. Although the cover looks different, it is the same author so I’m assuming it’s the same. I will say I don’t use this book often in CFM lessons but we do read it each Sunday with our older kids and have LOVED it so far).
Week 6 (1st week of February):
You’ll notice that there are some extra pages to print for Family Home Evening if you choose to do that lesson. I found all of my pages from ColoringHome. I printed 6 that went along with the story we read which will allow us to use our cut out coloring pages to reenact the story as it’s read. You will also need your to pull up videos from Library app in the Primary CFM Manual OR “Old Testament Stories” put out by the church. You can find one here: Noah and His Family but The Tower of Babel will have to be found on the Gospel Library app. I don’t have them pictured, but our children always bring their CFM journals to our lessons so they can write when inspiration strikes and in some lessons it is worked into the lessons.
The Beginner’s Bible will again be used this week along with the usual CFM manual and your scriptures. Note that there is some prep work needed this week. See the printout for more details. Technically you could get away winging it or just reading it all but as they are longer sections you may want to read in advance and just highlight/underline the parts you would like to review as a family.
The book, Walking with the Women of the Old Testament, will be used this week in one of the lessons, however, it can be left out if needed.
There are some videos you will watch so make sure to also have your phone with the Gospel Library app available and ready to go.
This week you just need the CFM manual, your scriptures, and your phone for the watching THIS video. If you do the FHE lesson planned, you need to also have some sort of treat for them to look forward to after the lesson (they are going to learn about the wait being worth it often times). Because this is falling on Valentine’s Day, I put together little bags for them as seen below.
You will need The Beginner’s Bible, CFM manual, printout for the week, your scriptures and your phone for watching the videos which can be found on the Gospel Library app. As always, journals are another great addition but not mandatory. There is an additional clip to watch, Water of Life, which I included here since it is not found in the Gospel Library. I tell you the info in the printout as well so you can also look it up yourself easily.
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