Preparing for General Conference--With Children

Viewing General Conference is a different experience now that I have young children in my home. I feel very fortunate to be able to see and hear the words of the living prophet in my home (hooray for BYU-TV). But if I expect to be able to actually listen to any of the conference proceedings with two children, it's best to be prepared.

Sugardoodle.net is the best place to look if you're searching for General Conference packets and resources to use with your children. Melanie has one page indexing the General Conference activities on her site. There are a lot to choose from! Since my oldest daughter is 4yrs old, this Conference Coloring Booklet is a good match for us. Here you can get the one sheet page to color the General Authorities Ties.

This packet that Melanie created is great for older children. And this packet by Jodi is a great combination for older and younger children.

Did you see this excellent article in this month's Ensign magazine? Preparing Children for Conference. Kate took the ideas from the article and compiled them in an easy-to-read list. These two ideas sounded like fun to me:

• Hang the pictures of the apostles near the T.V. and each time a new speaker gets up to speak, find his picture on the poster. When the picture is found, put a sticker on that person’s picture.
• Have a bowl of small treats for each session. Next to the bowl place objects that represent key words for that session. Each time the children hear one of those words spoken from the pulpit they can help themselves to one treat.

With still a week and half to go until the big weekend, it's quite likely that more resources will still appear. Check the main page for any new postings. Thanks again to all of the wonderful people who have shared their ideas with us on Sugardoodle.net.

You can also check out Mormon Momma for more ideas on Making General Conference Memorable.

That should give you plenty to last through four sessions. Or, really, with the attention span of most children, that's probably just enough for one session. When all else fails, I am thankful we can read the proceedings of conference online and in the Ensign!