Come Follow Me: Romans 1-6 (August 5-11)

This week for Come Follow Me we are covering Romans 1-6.   As always the printables are free and found in one big download at the end of this post.  I truly hope you find something that will work well for your family or primary class. 

Romans 1:16-17 "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ..."  I knew I wanted to discuss these verses this week but I wasn't quite sure how I wanted to approach this topic.  I decided I want to simplify it to being brave enough to live and share the gospel even when its hard.  I plan to share this story about Joseph F Smith.  Paul was also a great example of being bold in sharing the gospel even though he was persecuted for it.  I think of the prophet Joseph Smith and the early saints being driven from place to place, threatened, and in some cases hurt.  To bring in some modern day example that they kids can relate to I remembered a lesson we had last year about letting our light shine.  These stories show how we can be brave in our living and sharing our faith (not ashamed).  When I think of ashamed I think of someone hiding and that goes right along with not putting our light under a bushel. Instead we should let our light shine.

Each story has a basket, candle with a name, and a puppet to show while you tell the story. The stories come from last years primary manual.

If you print these on cardstock use some of the left overs to cut a small rectangle not much bigger then the candle.  Tape to the bottom of your basket then slide your candle in.

You can hold them up and the candle will stay in place until you gently slide it down.

Here are the character puppets for each story.  Aren't they cute!

There is an extra basket and candle with a question mark.  Save this for the end and ask "How can you let your light shine?" Then they can use this journal page to write some of their answers.  Use the page blank and write or draw pictures OR you can use the next page of candles.  Let them color, cut, and glue to their page with ways they can let their light shine on the candles.

Next we are going to talk a little about baptism and repentance (Romans 6).  More specifically that as we are baptized we become clean and later as we repent our sins are washed away.  I wanted a way to teach my little ones this concept of becoming clean.  Okay now don't laugh I am not a writer haha but I did come up with a little story to about a teddy bear to illustrate this idea. Its about a little boy named Tyler (I used my own little guys name but feel free to change it to one of your kid's names.  They love this).  He gets a new teddy bear and drags him everywhere during the day.  While they are playing he gets dropped in the mud, food on his face, and really dirty.  In the end his mom helps him give his teddy a bath and wash away all of the dirt until he is clean.  We are then going to compare ourselves with the teddy and how we get spots on us and feel unclean when we make wrong choices.  Just like the teddy was washed clean we are also washed clean when we are baptized and feel so good.  Unfortunately we don't stay sparkly clean forever.  We will eventually make a wrong choice BUT its okay because we can repent and those spots and dirt are washed away.

 The really fun part is I included a bear, stains, and a bathtub for you to use as you tell the story.  Cut all the pieces apart before your lesson and as you tell the story add the different stains to the bear.  Stick him behind the bathtub and pull the stains off to show he's clean again. 
 *If you want to make it more hands on pick a toy that can get wet and dirty (my kids like figurine or lego guys).  Use that toy in the story and get the toy nice and dirty.  You may need to substitute some of the messy parts to fit what you have at home.  Then pull out a bowl and some soap and water and clean the toy.

To go along with the idea of being clean we are going to learn/practice the song "When I am Baptized."  I have different pictures to represent some of the words in the song.  To make it easier for you I did include the words to the song and underlined the ones that have pictures.  If you have little ones you can use them as visuals to help them remember the words.  If you have older kids or maybe they already know the song pass out the cards to the kids.  Have them look to see what words they will be in charge of during the song.  When their word is said they will need to raise the right card.  Start slow and then increase speed after you tried it once or twice.  I've done something similar and it usually ends in them giggling.

 Sticking with the rainbow theme I have a cloud template to create this cute craft.  Print and cut out the cloud.  Then cut out strips of colored paper to make your rainbow.  Now here is where you can customize it to fit your kids...on the rainbow pieces they can write their baptismal covenants, ways they are preparing to be baptized, or ways they follow Jesus Christ.  It would also be cute to add a string to the top to create a mobile.

Need a few other ideas this post has some other fun  Baptism & Repentance ideas

Romans 3:23-24 included in the download are a few ideas to teach your children about grace.  For this one i found a great idea that uses the analogy of piano lessons (find it here)  I also loved the object lesson in the Come Follow Me Primary manual that teaches us that the Savior did for us what we could not do for ourselves.

Download Here