FHE: Acronym Night

As you know, I decided to focus on just a few things this upcoming year. To help me remember, I created an acronym with a picture. I was pretty happy with the way it turned out. So, I figured I would foist the idea onto my entire family.

Last night for FHE everybody created their own acronym based on goals for the year, and I offer this as a suggestion for you if you need an FHE idea. It went really well and created some really good discussion.  Here’s how I rolled it out, and I think the sequence is somewhat important so the artwork doesn’t drive the goals.

1) I talked a little about how this year, before I worried about setting specific goals, I wanted to work on larger traits and issues that I wanted to improve on. I gave them some examples.

2) Everyone made a list of things they feel they need to work on this coming year.

3) Pick out your top three, and then list synonyms next to them.

4) Then we went around the room and talked about them. It was personal. I was surprised how many of my kids already had some ideas in mind.

5) Then I showed them my GAP and PIG acronym, and explained why I did it.  (If you missed it, you can read it here.) You can see them here:

6) Everyone began looking at their top three goals and tried to create an acronym. If they struggled, we all played thesaurus and pitched in with different words that might work. One wanted to go for 4 letters, while my youngest insisted on 5, because he thinks Parley P. Pratt is the coolest. Go figure!

7) After we closed, I went to work finding some graphics and worked with each of them, individually, to see what direction they wanted to go in, and if they wanted a tag line or not.

8) Then we printed them out to put on their walls, mirrors, etc.

I was pleased with how they turned out. It was a fun activity, and should serve as a reminder – for a while anyway -that we are trying to improve each day. I have included small versions of the finished product below. Remember, these are individualized.

There are a few of things I might add:

a) One picture is not included, because it would be a dead giveaway as to where we live.

b) I wish I had broken this into two parts, so that there could have been some time to think and pray about what things to work towards, instead of having to do it on the spot. I think it was still good anyway…

c) Even though some of the words seem vague, we drilled down and discussed what it they meant by words such as “devotion” or “endurance”. They were all surprisingly specific as to what those terms meant to them, and what they intended to do.

d) It might have been fun to have everyone color their own page, rather than have me build it in Photoshop. Now the FOMLs are older, I know that they would rather not color themselves.

e) The process took a while – longer than the standard FHE lesson, so be warned that you can’t force this through in a 30 minute FHE. I like it when FHE consumes more of the evening – especially when everyone is engaged in the activity.

f) If you do this, be careful not to be manipulative. It would be easy to interject what you want your kids to do into the process – let them control their own, and you might be surprised at the results.

Overall, we had a great FHE, got to skip a mediocre bowl game, and had fun.