Fathers: Day Four

Father's Love

Children will learn about fathers and family and how we can show our love for them.
(taken from “Lesson 23: I Belong to a Family,” Primary 1: I Am a Child of God, 74)

Introduction:

• Sing Daddy song
• Show a picture of a nest with baby birds. Let the children talk about the picture and have them identify the birds and the nest.

• • Who built the nest for the baby birds?

• • Why do the baby birds need a mother and father to take care of them? (To feed them, to keep them warm, and to protect them from danger.)

• • When the baby birds get a little older and stronger, who will teach them to fly?

Explain that the baby birds belong to a family that will help take care of their needs. Do the following fingerplay:

We will find a little nest (cup hands together)
In the branches of a tree (hold arms up rounded over head).
Let us count the eggs inside;
There are one, two, three (hold up one, two, and three fingers).
Mother bird sits on the nest (cup left hand, place right hand on top)
To hatch the eggs, all three (hold up three fingers).
Father bird flies round and round (move arms in a flying motion)
To guard his family.


The baby birds' mother and father provide for them and take care of them, just like your mommy and daddy do for you.

All week we've talking about fathers. They play such an important part in our family.

Lesson Activities:

Invite children to tell about his or her family. Help children draw stick figures to represent the members of his or her family. Have children say each family member’s name aloud and then count the members of the family. Share something about each member of the family.

Heavenly Father and Jesus want family members to show love for one another

Song

Help the children sing or say the words to “A Happy Family” (Children’s Songbook, pg. 198).

I love mother; she loves me.
We love daddy, yes sirree;
He loves us, and so you see,
We are a happy family.
(From Merrily We Sing, © 1948, 1975 by Pioneer Music Press, Inc. [a division of Jackman Music]. Used by permission.)

· • How do you know your family loves you?

· • What do you do to show your family members you love them?

Activity:

Have children think of different ways they could help their families at home, such as picking up their toys, playing with the baby, or helping wash the dishes. Let the children act out their ideas. Encourage the children to help their families during the week.

We can also do nice things, like making cards or presents for our fathers.

Make this puzzle card to give to Dad!

Enrichment:

FAMILY HELPERS
Help your children trace around their hands on paper and cut out the shapes. Have them dictate ways that they help out at home, such as putting away their toys or raking leaves, for you to write down on their paper hands. Let the children decorate their shapes with crayons or markers. Then use their finished creations to make a Helping Hands display on a wall or a bulletin board.

LET'S PLAY FAMILIES
Challenge your children to create "families" using various sizes of small objects, such as rocks, twigs, blocks, unshelled nuts, or dried pasta shapes. Let them play with their families in a pretend dollhouse or a real one. Or draw a floor plan of a home on large paper for a play area.

FAMILY COOKING
Talk about how family members sometimes work together to make a meal. Then plan to make a cooperative dish with your group to serve at snacktime, such as vegetable soup (let each child contribute a veggie) or cookies (have everyone take part in cutting out cookie shapes and helping with the decorating).

FAMILY PUPPETS
Cut out pictures of family members. Glue them on popsicle sticks. Act out things fathers do with families.

FATHER COLLAGE
Cut out magazine pictures of fathers, families with fathers, things fathers do. Make a collage with pictures.