New Habit Made EASY with **FREE PRINTABLES 8.5X11″- 20X24″ POSTERS**….Family Scripture Study
Ok….so this post is dedicated to our friends that showed us this trick….and we are so grateful for their great idea. It worked for us (I’m still surprised myself), and I hope it works for you too! Thanks Wood Family 🙂
Ok so last year at this time we embarked with a new year’s resolution that honestly I didn’t think we would be able to keep up….how’s that for a resolution! This resolution was to read scriptures every day as a family….not a whole chapter, not even a whole ten verses, just at least one verse. We just wanted to make family scripture study a habit, whether it was one verse or 20. We had tried in the past to make this a habit with no real success or consistency. BUT WE DID IT THIS YEAR! We missed only 2 days! That’s not to say that there wasn’t fighting and wrestling and rough housing and crying on some or all of those days; but that’s the beauty of it, that’s just how it is, for us at least…heavens…my kids are 7, 6, 5, and 3. 🙂 Let’s be honest, it’s like herding cats. If we can do this, ANYONE can do this, trust me.
SECRETS TO OUR SUCCESS (isn’t that an 80’s movie?): There are definitely secrets, but they are “EASY PEASY LEMON SQUEEZY”, as my kids would say.
- BE ACCOUNTABLE: This is the BEST SECRET of them all, I tell ya…use one page CALENDAR CHART that represents the whole year!!!!!! Dave and I said so many times throughout the year that just the thought that we were going to have a gap on our reading chart was enough to muster up the umph to read each night, and how we didn’t anticipate that we would be motivated by that, but it worked.
- USE COLORED STICKERS & make it a game: This was also a main key for us. The child that was the most well-behaved got to choose the sticker for the chart that night. This was a major motivator for our kids.
- CHOOSE THE SAME TIME EACH DAY TO READ: For us, the time of day we chose wasn’t exactly at a specific specific time, but right before bed which was around the same time each night. If you can choose the same time each day that works best for your family, you are really setting yourselves up for success.
- KEEP YOUR EXPECTATIONS LOW: Ok this is one of those times that low expectations are GREAT. The kids are going to be rowdy, mean, ornery, and not want to do it at times…hang in there :). There should be a level of respect while reading, from my point of view, but it’s not going to be perfect. Sometimes the best things are HARD, until it’s a habit. Just tonight as we were reading, the younger two got into trouble because they were being too loud, it happens still, but at least we are reading, right!
WHY WE’VE MADE IT A PRIORITY?
Boyd K. Packer, in a talk titled, Counsel to Youth (can be found there), said, “I say again that youth today are being raised in enemy territory with a declining standard of morality.” This is so true. I believe that a loving Father in Heaven communicates to his children through prayer & scripture. I want my kids to have this open communication with their Savior. I know without a doubt that learning to be more like God will help them more in their lives than learning to be like any other person they could model themselves after. Since my job as a parent is to equip my children with the best tools possible for success, this is top priority.
(the thing that worked best for us is to print this out, front and back, on a piece of white card stock and laminate)
DOWNLOAD FRONT (8.5″x 11″): HERE
DOWNLOAD BACK: (8.5x 11″): HERE
DOWNLOAD FRONT (16X20″ POSTER): HERE
DOWNLOAD FRONT (20X24″ POSTER): HERE
This is so great! I love how you just have the date, instead of certain verses you “should” be reading each day. I think I can manage this with my young children. Thank you!
AWESOME, Kirsten! Thanks for the lovely printable, excited to use it. xoxoxo
Thank you for the cute printable. We are going to do our best this year to stick to it! We are way too off an on with reading scriptures at home. I love the saying on the back of the printable, sooo true!
What a great idea! Thanks for sharing.
I couldn’t get the printable to print? Dp I have to sign into the box?
I figured it out…I had to sign out of my works vpn…
Thank you so much for posting this! It’s something we’ve struggled with, too, but REALLY want make a habit of. Thanks for the printable and inspiration to keep at it! 🙂
GOOD LUCK….let me know if it works for you!
Scriptures, Prayers & Fhe ~ what is Fhe?
Family night 🙂 a night dedicated to just our family, one night a week where we have a gospel message and do things like games, service, make a treat, go out and do a fun activity, and just play together and spend time together :).
love it! thank you 🙂 I love the temple box, too. brilliant!
Kirsten,
Boy, Mr. Packer is so right on. Thanks so much for the link to Counsel to Youth. I, myself have 7 children and out of them, the three oldest are teenage girls. It is so hard in this day and age for our youth, our teens. My dad told me the other day, “boy I am sure glad that I am not raising kids in this day and age.” It is hard, and a constant thing to keep up with and maintain, but I do it. I love my children dearly and will keep on. The Good Lord gave them to me and it’s my job to do my best. We have a scripture reading night on Sundays and the kids have enjoyed it. I get the rowdy and rambunctious like you do with my little ones and then the teens say sometimes, “ah, come on, we are tired, lets just say a quick prayer and off to bed.” But, I maintain and keep on with it. Then, one night, I overheard one of the girls in their room, say, “ya know, I really enjoy our family time on Sundays and that mom and dad love us so much that they do this and have us read the scriptures, it gives me my weapon to go out and face the week.” The other 2 agreed with her. So, they may moan, groan, get rowdy and loud, but the message is getting to them. I was always told by my parents to keep on talking, keep on preaching, that they hear you, even though you think they don’t.
Thanks so much for the share and I am gonna bring it up and see if my bunch want to make it a daily thing or at least maybe 3 times a week thing, instead of just on Sunday night. But, whatever happens, I will keep on fighting the enemies out there and give my kids good morals, respect, kindness, and love, and have them pass that along in life.
You are amazing!!!! You are really setting them up to succeed when you can bring Christ into their lives. In our church, we have a program for girls ages 12-18, maybe you could get more ideas from it…here’s the link: https://lds.org/youth?lang=eng for the youth website where there are some new and amazing Bible videos, and also the young women link to the program that they complete between ages 12-18: https://lds.org/young-women/personal-progress?lang=eng&X-Forwarded-Scheme=https
YES, it all sinks in when somehow, I think that “consistency is the key.” -David A. Bednar 🙂
So awesome! Great idea. Pinned it ; )
I love this!! Thanks so much!
What a great chart! Thanks for sharing. We had a similar struggle trying to figure out how to have daily family scripture study. We decided to start with reading just one or two verses a day before bedtime. It has been great! Our almost-3-year old won’t let us end the night without reading from her scriptures.
This is a great idea! Thank you! We do the gather them on the couch version as well. But this worked excellent! What we did was print out a scripture for each month. We picked the primary 2011 scriptures last year, and the 13 articles of faith the year before, this year we did the 2012 primary scriptures (to learn more go to lds.org) . I printed them in 2×2 inch squares. Then I put them together and laminated them. Punch a hole in the top and put it on a key ring. I actually made two- one for the house- hung on our FHE board, or key rack, and one for the car, which actually wound up attached to my purse. Now we are never without scriptures! If we missed it in the morning, or we are traveling, we have no excuse! We say the scripture of the month every day- so that we memorize it. Once they have it memorized, we try to go back and do others. It is a great opportuinity to talk with kids about a specific scripture for an entire month. Hope this makes sense! it has been such a blessing, and such a non stress way to study the scriptures, even my 3 year olds memorized all the scriptures and articles of faith! Letha
That’s such a great idea! We so often underestimate what our children are capable of, don’t you think?? I love this idea, maybe we will incorporate this somehow :). THANKS!
Hi! I LOVE this, and I would love to print this a little bigger (like poster size), is there a way to get it at a higher resolution? Thanks!
printed it off, thanks so much i was just thinking about somehting like this last night! its great! thanks for sharing your talents and DITTO on the POSTER SIZE!!!!!???//
I am adding the poster size option right now! ENJOY! I am uploading it as a 16×20 and 20×24, 🙂
Sometimes the only time we are together is at dinner time. So we have started to listen to the scriptures while we are eating dinner. We have it on our iPod and we will listen to about 10 minutes of scripture while we eat, and then we turn it off and talk about it. We told the kids that after so many days, we will have an ice cream sundae party while we listen to them for FHE night! It seems to work, the kids remind me if we forget.
Thank you for sharing this! I just had my first year anniversary with my husband and with all the good that the first year brought we realized that we didn’t read our scriptures as consistently as we would have liked to. We don’t have any children yet, but I’m excited to use this just for us! I think this will help us get into a more consistent pattern of scripture study that will prepare us to be parents one day. Thanks again!
Hello! I love this printable chart! I’m so sad that I just discovered it with only 3 months left in 2012–would you PLEASE consider making one for 2013?? (And I would absolutlely love an email if you do, so that I don’t forget to check back! ) 🙂 Thank you!
I just found this website and I LOVE the chart. Do you happen to have one for 2013?
Never mind. I found the printable for 2013. THANKS!!!!!!