Ways to Spend a Sunday

Spending a Sabbath day is a whole different experience with young children. In an effort to maintain some sense of reverence for that sacred day, here are some of the ways that we like to spend our Sundays:

Attend our church meetings (of course)! Even if much of the time is spent walking the halls with a crying baby or curious toddler. (My Sweet Bee had her first week in nursery last Sunday--hooray!)

Connect with family. Since our closest family members live a few states away we don't have a lot of opportunity to interact with family. So we like to make phone calls, send emails and chat on the web cam.

Watch movies--the Sunday appropriate kind. Anything produced by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Here is what's in our collection.

My husband grew up watching the great BYU produced movies like The Phone Call and Measure of a Man (follow the link to watch it online) and The Award. I've sat through a few family dinners listening to quotes from these classics ("A beer can sweats, what about me?" or "Colleen. Hurry!" or "You two lovebirds all made up yet?"). I think they're great fun! Does anybody else remember these movie greats?

Don't forget home videos!

Lately we have been uplifted as we watch the Mormon Messages shared on YouTube by the LDS church. The Ant Bug loves to watch this one from President Hinckley--it teaches a great lesson.



Play with folder games, puzzles and lacing cards.

These cute folder games come from Finch Family Games.

After a recent clean-out of our ward Primary storage cupboard I found myself with a stack of gospel photos leftover from incomplete lesson sets. So I used some of them to make puzzles and lacing cards.

Make use of The Friend. The Friend magazine is an excellent resource and can fill many afternoons. The Sunday Stations story printed in the March 2009 edition provided a great pattern for Sunday activities (our stations were more like 7 minutes than 10 minutes, but it worked).

Games can be laminated for longer use.
The magazine is just chock full of stories and activities to keep little minds busy (and likely you as well). If you have multiple children using the magazine you can always print copies of the activities and coloring pages.

Bake cookies. Eat some. Share them. Enough said.

Play pretend Primary. Some Sundays we have multiple sessions of church, since the Ant Bug loves to play pretend Primary. Our pretend Primary includes a large portion of dolls and stuffed animals and much singing. Maybe someday I'll convince the Ant Bug to be the teacher, but until then I don't mind another opportunity to teach a gospel lesson.

Worship through music. We sing a lot of Primary songs at the piano. And we enjoy listening to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and a whole assortment of uplifting musicians.

Looking for more ideas? Check out this list of over 100 Sabbath Day Activity Ideas on Sugardoodle.net