Family Home Evening Made Easier

We have been good at doing Family Home Evening but sometimes it was a real scramble to come up with something meaningful for the lesson on the little time we seemed to have.  What finally made it easier was the Friend magazine, which we found to be a great resource.  For each story there was always a scripture that went with it.  We would read the scripture out loud and then the story, and then we would read the scripture again and ask how it related to the story and then ask how the story/scripture related to our family.  A simple formula that worked well for us because it often seemed so hectic with little kids and big kids, after school activities, homework, and dinner and everything else that always needed to be done.  This was my go-to lesson plan when we didn’t have something specific that we wanted to talk about, and it often generated good conversations.  We also found the activities, articles on children in other countries, apostles and prophets were things my children liked to hear about, and even my older kids liked hearing a story read out loud.  This would last about 15 minutes and then, on a good evening, we even had time to play a game or do something fun with those who wanted to, which was usually the younger kids because really, we were lucky to get the older kids to sit there with for 15 minutes with us to begin with.