2016 LDS Sharing Time Ideas for August Week 4: Reading, watching, and listening to wholesome things keeps my mind clean.

2016 Sharing Time Outline Theme: "I Know the Scriptures Are True"

August 2016 Sharing Time Topic: My Body Is a Temple of God

August 2016 Scripture: “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? … The temple of God is holy, which temple ye are” (1 Corinthians 3:16–17).

August 2016 Song:  “The Lord Gave Me a Temple” (CS, 153)

August Week 4 Topic: Reading, watching, and listening to wholesome things keeps my mind clean.

Preparation:

Prayerfully study and think about what the specific needs of your primary are and how you can teach them this doctrine.

Sharing Time Instruction:

Image can be downloaded from lds.org 

Begin Sharing Time with an object lesson. One the board place a photo of the Savior, have it covered up.  Tell the primary children that when you uncover the picture you would like them to look at the picture and try to remember as much as they can about the picture.  Uncover the picture for 30 seconds to 1 minute. Then cover the picture back up.  Then ask the primary children to share with you what they remember about the picture.

Next, play a song for the primary children and invite them to tell you what the song was about. "Choose the Right Way", would be a great song to play for this.

Then, show a short little video clip, invite the primary children to share with you what they remember from the video. "The Sting of The Scorpion", could be a good one to show.

Show the primary children the week's theme poster and invite them to repeat, "Reading, Watching, and Listening to wholesome things keeps my mind clean."

Show the primary children a sponge.  Have in front of you a glass or clear plastic bowl with some clean water. Explain to the primary children that like the sponge we absorb what we listen to, read and watch. So if you want to have a clean mind and the companionship of the Holy Ghost, then we need to read, watch and listen to things that are wholesome or things that would invite the Spirit.  Place the sponge in the clean water, showing that the sponge absorbed that clean water.  Explain that in the world there are things that can dirty or cloud the water, those things are from the adversary and are meant to dirty our minds. We can seek our Heavenly Father's help to stay away from those things and not let them dirty the waters, so we can keep our minds clean.

Let's play a little game called "Swat it".  (Before primary, using the printables above make two posters (you can use one big poster and cut it in half to make two posters). Place the images randomly on the posters and glue them on. If you would like it to last, you can laminate it. You will also need two fly swatters for this activity. I found mine in a pack of two at the dollar store.

To play the game, split the primary into two groups. Choose a primary kid from each group to come up.  Place the posters on the board and hand each child a fly swatter. You will then give a scenario and they will need to swat that picture with the fly swatter. So for example for the picture of the friend magazine your would give the scenario, "During Church me and my sister read the friend magazine and learned about the Savior". See if each person swats the right thing. Invite them to hand the fly swatter off to someone else in their group. Then continue with another scenario. Continue until all scenarios have be talked about.  If you find this too difficult for Jr. primary you could just say the word that goes with the picture instead of the scenario.

Conclude by sharing your testimony on the importance of watching, listening and reading the things that will keep their minds clean. Invite the primary children to pay attention to the things they watch, listen to and read. They Holy Ghost will help them know if it is clean or not.

Here is the list of the pictures and their scenarios:

Picture of Magazine with Christ: Scenario: "During Church me and my sister read the friend magazine and learned about the Savior"

Picture of a Radio: Scenario: "While in my bedroom my friend and I were listening to our favorite church songs on the radio"

Picture of a Computer:  Scenario: "For Family Home Evening, my family watched a Mormon Message on the computer, about President Monson, having the courage to stand alone"

Picture of Book of Mormon: Scenario: "Every morning to start off my day, I read the scriptures"

Picture of a Movie Screen: Scenario: "My family choose a family friendly movie to go and watch, we had fun laughing and eating popcorn."

Picture of a cell phone: Scenario: "I like to listen to uplifting music on my phone/ipod"

Thank you so much for stopping by! I hope that these ideas were helpful. Below are the other topics for the months as well as more ideas and resources.

What else have the primary children learned this month? Here are links to this month's past sharing times:

1. 2016 LDS Sharing Time Ideas for August Week 1: My body is a temple.
2. 2016 LDS Sharing Time Ideas for August Week 2: Dressing modestly shows respect for Heavenly Father and myself.
3. 2016 LDS Sharing Time Ideas for August Week 3: Living the Word of Wisdom shows respect for my body.

Want more ideas:

• Family Home Evening on Seeking Media that Uplifts You...
• Choose the Right Media
• Media

Click this link for past Sharing Time post: LDS Primary Sharing Time Ideas

***Basic ideas for this sharing time came from the 2016 Outline for Sharing Time, you can find a link here: 2016 Outline for Sharing Time