School starts next week for us and I’ve been busying planning our annual Back to School family dinner.
I’m SO excited about this year’s theme.
I can’t WAIT to share ALL of the details with you next week!
For the rest of this week I’ll be sharing ideas from years past.
Enjoy and please let me know if you have any questions about how to DO one of these! It’s super simple and just takes a little bit of prep on your part but the lasting effects with your children and what they take from it are priceless!
{Yes, even though I’ll have a high schooler, middle schooler and elementary schooler this year…they STILL get excited!}
The theme we chose for our 2018-19 school year comes from a scripture in
“And now, my sons, remember, remember that is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall.”
These are critical years for our children.
I feel, more so now than ever, that our kids are about to face temptations and challenges like we can’t even begin to imagine.
I’m a firm believer that you can’t shelter your kids from these things. I wish like crazy you could…but you just can’t!
No matter what school they go to…
what activities they choose…
who they hang around with…
they will eventually face adversity.
It’s just a matter of fact.
I’m also a firm believer in TEACHING our children IN OUR HOME what is RIGHT…and what is WRONG.
I hope with ever fiber of my being, that my kids will REMEMBER the things that they’ve been taught in our home.
That they’ll REMEMBER why it’s SO important to CHOOSE THE RIGHT.
And that they’ll REMEMBER that is upon our Savior Jesus Christ that WE AS A FAMILY choose to build our foundation.
Because…our Savior Jesus Christ is OUR ROCK!
Because of all of this…I chose to do a ROCK themed dinner.
{I’m all about the symbolism, puns…you name it.
Anything to help them REMEMBER!}
Each place setting had a large rock on it with each member of the family’s name on the front – – and a scriptural reference of our theme on the back.
{When our dinner was over I had the kids place these in their bedrooms on their nightstands as a daily reminder.}
I also filled clear plastic tubes with chocolate ROCK candy and placed them by their utensils.
Our menu for the evening was:
I’m all about the daily reminders in life and so I made up a set of vinyls and allowed the kids to choose where they wanted to place it in our home. I told them that it needed to be a place where we could all see it daily.
They chose the garage door in our laundry room.
{Last year, they chose their bathroom mirror and our refrigerator}.
I even made up ROCKS for Joe and I.
Joe took his to work yesterday and put it on his desk.
I placed mine on my nightstand.
Because…PARENTS NEED THIS REMINDER TOO!
A couple of other things worth mentioning about our theme:
I found and showed a couple of short video clips explaining the importance of this scripture. I starred the ones I showed. They can be found here:
https://www.mormonchannel.org/watch/series/mormon-messages/counsel-to-youth-2– counsel to the youth
I also stressed the fact that in this scripture…it doesn’t say….IF the devil shall send forth his mighty winds.
It says WHEN.
I wanted my kids to be warned that temptation can and WILL happen. And that they NEED to be ready by REMEMBERING where their foundation has been built.
I love these children of ours.
Oh. So. Much!
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DETAILS on how to replicate this dinner:
My 8×10 THEME and MENU can be downloaded for FREE!
Theme HERE
Menu HERE
You can find….
Rock vinyls HERE
Name // Scripture vinyls HERE
You are amazing. School this year has been heavy on my mind. My oldest is entering 7th grade and this is a weird year to be facing such a huge change from child to adolescent. I had felt impressed to use this scripture for our Feast that j am at the last minute planning and am so grateful for your printables and the example of how you presented this scripture for your feast last year. Thank you!!
Thank you so much for sharing Amy. I so appreciate your thoughts and words. So glad that you were able to use some of my ideas…xoxo
ohmygosh! <3 I love this! I'm definitely reading up on past dinners to get some ideas! I have a few days left to plan!
I love seeing your back to school dinner themes and can't wait to see what you do this year! You gave me the jumping off point for our Girls Camp theme (Rock Solid) with this one last year. Thank you for all the cute ideas. I really wanted to do something with rocks and you showed me how to make it cute.
This is sooooooooooo cool, Marci. I love everything about it. Thanks for posting.
Oh my goodness .. yeeesssss to all of this !!!!!!!