Opening/Closing Exercises (reverence ideas?)

Hello,
 
My husband an I were just put in has Bro an Sis. Temple and we are going to talk about the temple in the world. This Month we are featuring the New Zealand Temple and the people, better still the children and there experiences in there homeland. We would like to do something fun and spiritual.  We would like to know more about the Maori 's
 Is their anyone  out there whom could share with us some ideas??    e mail here                                                              7/14/02

 
Colleen Larsen from Kenn, Washington
 
 

Since we now can get 30 years worth of church magazines at the click of the mouse, I decided to put to use all of the "The Friend" magazines just sitting on the shelf.
 Last year I went through 10 years of "The Friend" and cut out all of the flannel board stories, music ideas, crafts, etc., and glued them on construction paper and then cut it out leaving about 1/4" of the construction paper around the edge. I then contact papered them and cut around the edge leaving 1/4".
 I put each story in a ziplock bag and sorted the different topics.Now when we need a last minute talk (or the parents can find one ahead of time) we have a really neat talk!
 (To display the cutouts we use sticky-tack on the back of the pictures, turn the music stand around and put the pictures on the back of the stand.) This really works out great!

Kristin Dougherty, Primary President
Ava Ward, Springfield MO South Stake



We have a spotlight during opening exercises this year and since the theme is on temples I made a wooden replica of the SL temple.  We have the parents bring favorite things of their childs and we put them in the temple and show them to the primary as they try to guess who it is.  We don't use everything just a few items before we reveal who it is so they can come up and tell about some of the items.  The parents have also written some things about their child, like favorite color, food activity etc.  The temple is made by making just the sides, front and back, the bottom and top are open.  We don't really say anything about the temple but it's set up once a month at the front of the room when we do the spotlights.


 I made a puzzle of a boy and girl being reverent.  They were sitting on a bench (this is a primary girl and boy)  I made puzzle pieces for the hair, head, top of body, bottom of the body, and feet.  As we put each puzzle piece on the outline of them, we discussed how that part of our body could be reverent.


This is an idea for reverence, it works best in a class setting. Provide a special duty for the reverent child each week.  This way each reverent child could have a duty.  We have used it before for sharing time but recognize a class instead of individuals and give them something special to do, like being the first class to be excused to class or to go home.  For some of the younger classes we recognize them in opening exercises by having them stand up or come to the front and give them a sticker or stamp their hands.  The little ones like it.


There is a reverence boy with moving arms, legs and feet in the October 1982 Friend.  Enlarged it can be used with reverence stories.


In our ward we had a problem with reverence. One Sunday I made about 60 little bees. (These were just copied and cut out of card stock) Then I stuck them all over the primary room. They were everywhere, even on the ceiling. Then I explained to the children that these bees are here to remind us to BEE- REVERENT. That I would bet that no matter where they looked in the room during primary they would see a BEE reminding them. It was unBEElieavable to see their reverence. The next week I told them I had little BEE stickers and if I saw anyone BEEing reverent they got a sticker. But, knowing BEES can sometime misBEEhave if that person started to not be reverent then I had a fly swatter and the BEE would be have to go home to the hive. And I would peel the sticker off the child and put it back.(Not one child needed that) . Every week I keep putting up the BEES and we discuss things like BEEing kind to others. BEEing happy. BEEing a good friend. One of the week we made our own bees out of pipe cleaners and netting. We have really had a BEEautiful time in primary. And our primary is so reverent now that the bishop came and asked us if we could help our parents BEE reverent in sacrament. Oh! I got special permission by the bishop to put a tiny bee on the pulpit so it would BEE our secret sign to all the children to try and BEE reverent even during sacrament.