Delicious Rewards!

So, at the beginning of last year, I found this idea on some website (I think it was the idea door), for learning your Articles of Faith. I wasn't sure what I expected when I started on this endeavor with the kids being 5 and 7, but I am amazed at the results. So, the idea was to print out 13 ice cream scoops (1 for each article) and a cone. Every couple of weeks, we would learn a new article of faith, and put the scoop on the the cone. I promised the kids that when we finished them all we would have an ice cream party.

It was a hard thing for me to teach, because they have some pretty big words and concepts in them, and even though memorizing them was my goal, I wanted my kids to have "some" understanding of what they meant. So, as we learned each line, I would explain what it meant (the best I could), and then we would come up with actions for the words. So, we made up sort of a sign language to remind us what the words were.

Anyway, 3 weeks ago we finally tackled the mother of them all --- #13! "We believe in being true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men, indeed we may say we follow the admonition of Paul; we believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things; if there is anything virtuous, lovely or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things." (whew) I wasn't sure if they would be able to do this in one FHE....but they wanted that ice cream party so bad, they did it!

I can't believe how well they know all 13. Austin can pretty much do them all without any help. Katelyn, surprisingly at the age of 6 can pretty much do them all with only a helping word occasionally (mainly on #13). It is so impressive to me what these sweet little children can memorize. I started this because in Kindergarten both of my kids were taught the preamble to the constitution, and I figured if they could learn that, then they could learn these! So, it took a little over a year, but it is done! So, we finally had our ice cream party at Cold Stone. The kids had a blast! They loved getting to pick what they wanted in their ice cream! So, this year's goal is going to be either memorizing the Family Proclamation, or maybe their Scripture Mastery Scriptures.