Week 1: Parable of the Ten Virgins
As my husband and I discussed the best way to add "Come Follow Me" to our young family, we decided to focus on two stories or lessons each week. We plan to teach one on Thursday evening and the other on Sunday evening. These two nights are our new, official family nights. I currently have three boys - ages five, three and two months. My focus is to make these lessons a lot of fun, very hands on and include a lot of object lessons.
Before I begin, I'd like to mention that each morning while the boys eat breakfast we talk about one scripture story. We call it our "morning meeting" and it's quick - only ten minutes or so. There are so many great children's Book of Mormon or Bible story books that we enjoy reading together. We talk about the story and what we can learn from it. I'm trying to help my boys apply these stories into their lives, even at a young age. Since the new "Come Follow Me" manual was released, we decided to dedicate Thursday morning and Sunday morning as a mini lesson or preface to what would be taught in the evening. Here's a look at our first week:
The Parable of The Ten Virgins:
Morning Meeting - We discussed the following: "The parable of the ten virgins is based on ancient Jewish wedding customs. The bridegroom and his friends escorted the bride form her home to the home of the bridegroom. Along the way friends of the bride waited to join them. When they arrived at the bridegroom's home, they all went inside for the wedding. These weddings usually took place in the evenings, so those waiting for the bride and bridegroom carried lamps." I drew the story on a piece of paper while explaining what happened. I actually used a pepper shaker as "the groom" and a salt shaker as "the bride" and acted out the groom picking up the bride and taking her back to his home. I also included how the wise virgins couldn't give their oil to the foolish virgins, because there wouldn't be enough. The wise virgins made it to the party, but when the foolish virgins arrived outside the groom's home they asked to come in. The groom asked them to hold up their lamps, so he could see their faces. They didn't have any oil or light in their lamps. The groom couldn't recognize them, so they couldn't enter. (I added the oil pieces in the evening).
FAMILY NIGHT:
1) Make Clay Lamps - We started making our lamps first, because they need thirty minutes to bake in the oven. The clay is harder than I anticipated, so my husband and I did most of the sculpting work. My boys were very interested in watching and helped where they could. Here's what you need for the lamps:
- Sculpey Brand Oven Baked Clay: I bought ours at Michaels. The clay comes in 2 oz. packages. I bought two of them and we had each package make one lamp. We baked the clay first, before adding the candle wicks.
- Candle Wicks: I bought ours on Amazon. It comes in a huge pack, but I thought we could save them for future projects. Note: We had to trim them down to the size of our lamps.
- Olive Oil
- Optional: Pipettes
2) Discussion & Oil Cards - While we were waiting for our lamps to bake, I brought back out my drawing from this morning. We quickly reviewed the story and I taught the meaning of the story. The groom represents the Savior and the Second Coming. Just as the virgins needed to be prepared with oil to go to the party, we need to be prepared for when the Savior comes again. My boys took turns drawing "oil cards" and we talked about why each one would help us prepare.
3) The Parable of the Ten Virgins Movie - I love the Animated Series of the Book of Mormon and Bible. When I was first married, I found the entire set for a great deal on KSL. We watched The Parable of the Ten Virgins that's found in the "The Kingdom of Heaven".
4) Light our Lamps: We pulled our lamps out of the oven and added in the candle stick. We reviewed our oil cards while my boys added oil into their lamps with pipettes. "You read your scriptures. Add oil to your lamp!"
My husband used a lighter and my boys were so excited to see their lamps actually worked!
We turned the lights out and spent a lot of time watching the fire and talking about the importance of the oil in the lamps. Here are a few more of my favorite pictures - my boy's expressions are priceless. Before bed, we talk about the favorite parts of our day and both boys said, "Making Lamps!"
