Family Scripture Study For Toddlers
Warning: This post is LDS-based so you can ignore it if you’re not Mormon
We had a talk in church last Sunday that TOTALLY made me feel guilty about family scriptures and family home evening. It talked about how when your kids are so young it is easy to say “we will start it when they are older”. But the problem is you NEVER end up starting it. I have totally had this attitude because whenever I’ve tried to do stuff I feel like it is never worth it. Well in the talk he really hammered on the fact that you just need to DO IT because there is never going to be a magical moment when all of a sudden they will get it. You just need to get in the habit now
He also talked about how it is the Priesthood holder’s responsibility to make sure that this happens in the home. I nudged Mike at that part to see if he was listening but he was actually asleep. So I decided I better take things into control myself 
I searched around the Internet and using a combination of resources I found a pretty darn good program to start doing with my kids. I wanted to post it here for any of you other young mom’s who might want to get started but don’t know what to do.
Book of Mormon Study Guide (Age of Innocence)
This guide is AWESOME! It has split the Book of Mormon into 104 story-based sections. For toddlers you do one story per week so this will be good for 2 years. Each day you re-read the story and do some sort of activity or discussion around it. I printed out the schedule and leave it sitting on my kitchen table. We have been doing it at breakfast every day this week. Most times Mikey asks me to read it 3 times and wants to do it again at lunch. I am amazed at how interested he is in it.
Book of Mormon Picture Stories
Instead of just reading the stories from the scriptures, I found the Book of Mormon Stories book online and printed out the appropriate section. This is the book that we had as kids with a tape that goes along with it. The scripture stories are written in regular terminology and have accompanying pictures. Both kids LOVE this! Lexi always tries to grab the page with the pictures.
Activities
The activities include a lot of coloring pictures. I just search online for an appropriate picture and then we hang it on the fridge for the week. The church website has a lot of good resources for pictures and I also search on preschool sites for printable pages.
Results
Just for fun I took a video of Mikey during our first week of this new plan to see how much he is getting. We’ve been doing the Lehi story of where he sees a vision of the destruction of Jerusalem and tries to warn the people and they try to kill him. Here is Mikey’s interpretation of the story!
How do you do family scriptures with YOUR toddlers? I’m always looking for new ideas!
July 26th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
I love the helps on this post. My kids are a wide range of ages, 9, 5, and 3. When my older ones where toddlers I just read the scripture readers to them whenever I thought about it. I sometimes would only get one page read but I figured that was enough. Now we do a daily devotional which goes something like this: Prayer, Article of Faith recitation (we work on one a month, I did the Pledge of Alligence first and when I saw that even my 2 year old, at the time, could memorize that I went on to the AOF), scripture reading. We are currently using a chart from the January 2008 Friend http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=21bc9fbee98db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD&locale=0&sourceId=44bcf44804d17110VgnVCM100000176f620a____&hideNav=1. We all take turns being the one in charge. We rotate daily. Everyone has their own copy of the Book of Mormon. When it is my little ones turn to read I use their finger and read the words 2-3 at a time then they repeat it, on their days we only get through 3-4 verses. I usually take a chance to point out things that relate to us. Prayer helps this to happen because the spirit will put a question or a thought in my mind to help teach them and me.
FHE
This is hard when they are little. It is so important to have a good attitude and keep them short! My kids now will ask when is FHE or what are we doing for FHE. I really don’t think that they would be so excited if would have started now. We are not perfect at it. Some months are better then others. Sometimes I find my biggest whinner is my spouse! I try not to think ill of him (although it is hard and sometimes impossible, sometimes I feel self conscience and think he is annoyed by me too). I found a little book called 52 Weeks of Family Night by Tamara Baggett. It come in handy and is short, sweet, and simple. Good Luck with everything!
July 28th, 2008 at 10:01 pm
I just had to post an update because it is too hilarious. Today Mike was asking Mikey some questions about prophets. The conversation went like this:
Mike: So who is our prophet today?
Mikey: Adam
Mike: No honey, Adam was a prophet a VERY long time ago.
Mikey: No Daddy, Adam is our cousin and Adam is a prophet.
Mike: Who told you that?
Mikey: Mommy did! She always sings “Adam was a Prophet …….”
HAHAHAHAHAHA
July 29th, 2008 at 11:07 pm
Jodi,
these are awesome tips, thanks for sharing your find!!
March 3rd, 2009 at 12:41 pm
Hi,
I have been trying to find the rest of the ‘Age of Innocence’ Book of Mormon study program but on the School of Abraham site it only brings up the first 2 units (1 Nephi to Mosiah 2) Do you know how to get the rest? I tried emailing their site but didn’t hear from them and found out my email got sent back. My little boys LOVE this program and I am trying everything to find the rest of the program. Can you help?
April 29th, 2009 at 9:12 pm
Why do you have to be Mormon to look at this???? I can not wait until the day when we can come togeher in unity!!!! God Bless!!!!