Family Home Evening: Five Ideas to Help You Spend Time Together

by Miriam Caldwell | More from this Blogger

27 Oct 2007 11:30 PM

When you have family home evening, you may be struggling with what to do with your time. The term family home evening implies more time spent together than just a twenty-minute lesson. (Although if that is all that you family can do, then that is all that your family can do.) If you are scrambling to find more to do with your family during family night here are five ideas.

1) One thing you may want to consider adding to your family home evenings is music time. This could mean different things to different families, but initially you may want to focus on one hymn or Primary song a month that you learn as a family. This is a great way to help your children learn spiritually songs. If your family is musical, as your children grow older, you may want to learn to sing the parts together as well.

2) A family activity is another great way to spend time together. Growing up my family had the lesson on Sundays and on Mondays we just had an activity. These activities took at least an hour, and they really brought my family closer together. Our most common ideas were charades, baseball in the backyard, trips to the library, and baking together as a family.

3) You may want to include letter writing or journal writing as part of your family home evening night. This is especially true if you have a child on a mission. If you do not you can write to cousins on missions or to members of your ward that are on missions.

4) You may want to have a service activity as part of your night as well. This could be as simple as dropping off cookies to someone, or making a meal for a family. Occasionally it may be more complicated such as yard work or painting someone's house.

5) You may want to spend time working in the garden or around the house together as well. These types of activities would be best at the very end of family home evening, and should be done in a way that the family is working on the project together, not several projects in different parts of the house.

Related Articles:

Family Home Evening: Five Ideas for Activities

Tips to Help You Use General Conference Talks for Family Home Evening

Five Resources for Ideas for Family Home Evening

Learn more about Miriam Caldwell

Miriam is a SAHM mom of three children. She has a daughter who is seven, and two sons, four and two. She loves being a parent and spending time with her children.

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