Becoming a Larger Family

When God told Lehi to take his family into the wilderness, they went. But they went alone. After some time (enough time for Lehi and Sariah to have two more boys, so at least 3 years) God told Lehi to have his sons travel back to Jerusalum and ask a man named Ishmael and his family to join them in the wilderness. Ishmael said yes so the brothers and Ishmael's family traveled thru the wilderness back to where Lehi's family lived. Ishmael had 2 sons and several daughters.

Soon Laman and Lemuel, of course, and 4 of Ishmael's children started being angry with Lehi, Nephi, Sam and some of the others for bringing them to the wilderness. Laman and Lemuel decided to tie Nephi up with a rope! The rope was so tight that Nephi couldn't get out, but Nephi was smart and prayed, asking God to make him strong enough to break thru the ropes and he did. Laman and Lemuel then felt sorry for tieing Nephi up and asked him to forgive them.

After a while, God told Lehi that the sons of Lehi and the daughters of Ishmael should get married and they should continue to travel farther into the wilderness.

I cut out 20 (yea, i know) footprints for each boy. I layed them out and told the boys to walk down the hall carefully making sure they didn't miss a footprint. I told them they were doing what Lehi's family did. Lehi's family walked in the direction God told them to. When the footprints got a little unorganized, I told them to look at them carefully. Did it look like anyone can find their way if the footprints are disorganized and going different directions? They were able to understand that the path needs to be straight and narrow for us to get to the right place. Also, I numbered them 1-20 so they could count as they walked. Could also do ABC's or spanish numbers or whatever you'd like. This could even teach them a song if they could read well enough.

I had the boys get on their backpacks and

pretend to travel to the wilderness back to Jerusalum. What I should have done was put something heavy in their packs for them to feel what kind of weight Nephi and his brothers had to carry when they traveled. I did mention however that there were no cars or anything to carry heavy bags so they only took what they absolutely needed.

 Decorating wedding cakes.

 

I decided to make a "wedding cake" for the marriages between Lehi and Ishmael's families. It worked great for our snack too. The boys got to have a part in creating their piece of cake. The figures on top of the cake are from a store here in Independence. They are actual Lehi's family characters. Way cool. I was super excited to find them. James loves them and I know they help him to understand the story a little better. If anyone would like to know where you can get them, give me a shout. If your from out of town I would be happy to figure out a way to get them to you!

I traced a hand and cut out a bunch of copies. We glued all the hands together to show that the families became one when they got married. This little "wreath" craft was made into a refrigerator craft by slapping a magnet on the back to proudly show off :)

I'm trying to add as much extra learning into these crafts as I can, the boys are in preschool right now and it won't hurt any. Plus something like this is super easy to do and they can see that they accomlished something in the end.

Another thing you could do (these boys don't have the patience to color this long) is have your child draw a picture of the 4 sons of Lehi and 4 daughters of Ishmael on their wedding day standing next to each other. You could talk about the day you got married, or make a family scrapbook page.

Questions:

Why did Lehi's sons travel back to Jerusalum? Who did they get?

Why do you think Laman and Lemuel are naughty so often?

Have you ever been to a wedding?

Who do you think can get married? Who can't?

Do you think you will ever get married?