So why am I doing this? Today and tomorrow is General Conference, a special time every 6 months in my church where we get to listen to our Prophet and other leaders...for 8 hours at home, on the TV or over the radio or on the computer, etc. etc. It may seem daunting and extreme but it can be very spiritually enlightening also. Feel free to follow this link and check it out for yourself/learn more!
While this can be a lot easier than trying to convince my kids to get into nice clothes and go to church and sit still in front of everyone else and go to class without me, it can still be a struggle to get them to be quiet enough for me to listen and for them to gain something, anything, out of the conference for themselves. True it's done in 2 hour spurts but 8 hours is A LOT of time for kids to listen to adults talking, and talking, and talking. And so it is that each conference I find myself (almost always the night before) scrounging around for activities and things for my kids to do that will 1. keep them quieter (a 6 year old and a 4 year old will not be "quiet" unless you say to them "be noisy" like today in between conference sessions when I asked them to go outside and be loud and noisy and that's when they decided to sit quietly, LOL) and 2. tie them in to conference in some way
Thankfully there's tons of resources out there - one has just to put "conference packet" or "general conference kids" in google or pinterest and a plethora of stuff comes up. I have found with my kids that some of the stuff shared works great and some of it doesn't really work at all. My 6 year old daughter will color but my boy... not so much. Honestly he's not into much of anything that requires sitting still. So I pick a bit here and there, print off a few pages from this packet, another from this other blog. Today I found a great activity for my boy - shaped scissors (the ones for scrapbooking and crafts and such) a stack of paper and a bowl - I had him cut the paper into the bowl (to help the mess be somewhat contained) and he was as happy as a clam sitting and trying out all the many scissors I have.
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| Wahoo Craft Scissors to the rescue (Image from scrapbook-advice.com) |
P.S. I'm including some of my favorite places to get conference packets, coloring pages, etc. etc. at the very bottom too!
Some of my favorite sources for conference activities:
Conference packets (they've made a few over the years and I pull from different years and from nursery and primary, but they also have some for older kids and even adults!) www.sugardoodle.net
Amazing coloring pages (and not just for conference) - http://ldscoloringbook.com/coloring-pages/
Armor of God coloring page for girls! - practicalpages
Stick puzzle (this idea is for a church bag, and any of those kind of things can be great to pull out for conference, but these are really fun) - blog.bitsofeverything.com
Conference Trains (did these last time and kids really liked it)- katiesblogness
Hummm - here I also sit, almost as late the night before Conference pulling new ideas and revisiting old standards too. Thanks for including my trains in your post BTW. We are doing them again this year, but switching up how they use them. I am loving the "Poke Pages" idea - SOOOOO going to try that! I have a few with destructive tendencies that would REALLY love to be told it's just fine to completely destroy a picture! :) I also have two that are SUPER into scissors - I may just have to bust out all my goofy edge ones and follow that idea too - sounds brilliant - maybe even a talk and a half worth! Hooray! Thanks :)
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