This month the theme for sharing time is “Heavenly Father Hears and Answers Prayers.” This is a great theme to teach to your children, and it should be fairly easy to extend the lessons into your home this month. In July 2006’s “The Friend” you can find an activity to make a prayer reminder card. Your child will place this on his pillow in the morning to remind him to say his prayers, and at night he will put it next to his bed to remind him to say his prayers in the morning. As an additional craft activity you could have your children make a prayer rock.
You may want to review with your family the proper way to pray. It is important to remember to open and close a prayer properly. Remind your children that you should always remember to thank Heavenly Father for the wonderful blessings that we have. It is also important to ask for things, which we need. Teach your children about the special language that we use in prayers such as thou, thee, and thy. Encourage your children to kneel while saying their prayers. Speak about the reverent manner in which we pray.
It would be great to share some personal stories about when and how your prayers were answered. You could ask your children to share any experiences that they might have had. Daniel and the Lion’s Den is a great scripture story that illustrates the power and importance of prayer. This is a link to the story, and here are activities that are related to the story. Another great scripture story is the story of Enos. Here are some other activities in “The Friend” related to prayer.
The song for this month is “Tell Me, Dear Lord” p 176 of The Children’s Songbook. You may want to practice singing it during family home evening this month. If you are not familiar with this song you can visit lds.org to listen to it.