Family Fun: Temples

This Sunday is the dedication of the San Antonio Temple. My husband and I will get to participate in the dedication from our stake center, but it’s going to be one loooong day for my boys, who struggle with the Sabbath even when four hours of it is eaten up with Church meetings. So I’ve come up with a lengthy list of things they can do, with the hope of keeping them from eating the curtains and, oh yes, making the Temple dedication meaningful for them. I thought I’d go ahead and post the list for anyone looking for FHE or other ideas.

I’m going to print these ideas on separate slips of paper and set a timer and pick one every 45 minutes or so.

Have a “picnic” at the Temple grounds. (we’ll spread out a blanket on the floor, surround it with Temple pictures, and have a snack.)

Go to this website and watch temples dot the earth.

Go to this website and play a game about the Temple.

Play Who Am I? (a temple and prophet riddle game) from the February 1993 Friend.

Make a Temple mobile (June 1993 Friend).

Play the Follow the Prophet to the temple game from the August 1993 Friend.

Do the Signs for Temple Preparation Game from the October 2002 Friend.

Look at the construction photos online for the San Antonio Temple.

Make a Temple out of sugar cubes.

Make a Temple out of tissue paper squares. (You cut white tissue paper into one inch squares. You smoosh the square over a pencil eraser, dip the end in glue, and then press onto a sheet of paper. Repeat 100 times.)

Have a Temple picture hunt around the house. (I once bought a set of little tiny picture of the Temples, but if you don’t have these, you can use the ones they published in the Friend. Just do a keyword search.)

Match up the Temple pictures to their cities on the world map.

Sing hymns about the Temple, including ‘The Spirit of God,’ which is always sung at Temple dedications.

Write a journal entry about the Jubilee.

If you have any ideas to add, I’d love to hear them.

8 comments for “Family Fun: Temples

  1. Maybe you could just hook electrodes up to their brains and zap them whenever their thoughts stray elsewhere…

  2. …substitute “mosque/Quran” for “Temple” and you’ve got a program that will sell well with the Wahhabis…

  3. It is my guess that those leaders who will occupy the Celestial Room during your temple’s dedication will not have attended a three-hour block of church services earlier in the day. Maybe on that singular day your children shouldn’t either.

  4. Yes, but the leaders who will occupy the Celestial Room, who may or may not have attended a three-hour block of church services earlier in the day, probably will have participated in many other meetings throughout the day, both before and after the dedication.

    No one should assume that Pres. Hinckley (or whoever else attends the dedication) has spent the morning with his/her feet up, sipping orange juice or playing “Who Am I” with their kids.

  5. I was under the impresson that children under 8 weren’t allowed into temple dedications — including those via closed circuit TV/satelite. Has this policy changed?

    NO

  6. Not Ophelia,

    Careful with your signature there — it looks like you’re asking a rhetorical question and then answering it.

    (“Has this policy changed? NO.”)

  7. I guess my original post wasn’t very clear:

    (1) There are no regular Sunday Services anywhere in the Temple district, so Pres. Hinckley and anyone else involved will not be attending any regular Sunday meetings.

    (2) Children under 8 are not permitted to attend the dedication in the stake center, which is considered an extension of the celestial room.

    Consequently, my children who are used to getting out of the house every single day and having some (OK, a lot) of wild physical activity every day, have ‘nothing to do’ all day Sunday, not even Primary or an excursion out of the house. Hence, my plan to have some activities prepared so they don’t remember the Temple dedication as “the day we were really bored and stuck in the house.”

  8. Ah, then you should ask one of your non-member friends to babysit. They could get their physical activity and your friend would hear another interesting tidbit on the LDS church.

    N.O.

    (Kaimi — just for you, I changed the signature :~)

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