I am excited to be studying Temples this year with my kids. It is part of my Mother's Educational Course that has been such an inspiration to me this year, and has tied in so nicely with all the little bursts of inspiration I was getting last fall but didn't know how to incorporate into my life.
A couple of days a week I have been reading to my kids from Chad Hawkins book The First 100 Temples (Hawkins, Chad S., The First 100 Temples. Deseret Book, 2001). It is a beautifully illustrated book with a page or two on the history of each temple and several faith promoting stories. Included in the illustrations of each temple is a hidden picture. The kids love to find the hidden picture after I finish reading to them.
We have also incorporated the Temple Cards that were published in the Friend in 2002. We use the cards find the locations on our large wall map as we review what we remember about that temple. The kids were very excited to find that the book mentioned the first donation to the Mesa Arizona Temple was by Helena Rosebery (one of our relatives).
Rebecca began taking notes about the temples the other day and it got me to thinking that we needed some way to document our tour through the Temples of the World, but I couldn't anything other than the temple cards, and the Temple to Dot the Earth Game (Friend November 2002). So I decided to create my own notebooking pages. I created several versions, since I have kids at various levels. I'm planning on creating a Family Temple Notebook and having a different scribe for the day, since 150 temples is a lot to get through in 52 weeks. I included longitude and latitude because we just learned about it this week, but also to aid in locating the cities on a map. I was surprised to find someone had already created a longitude and latitude list (which is way more accurate than mine was going to be) and not only that but I found 2 interactive temple tours one using Google Earth and one using Live Maps. I'm so thankful for the work that other people create and share with the world through the amazing power of the internet.
I found these Temple Trivia questions on about. Com, but I don't like sites with so many advertisements, especially for my kids, so I created my own Temple Trivia Crossword Puzzle based on The First 100 Temples. I think this will be a fun way for them to review what they have learned, and will be able to look through our notebook to find the answers. I'm looking forward to creating more puzzles after I see what they take notes on as we continue on our world tour.
Rebecca said that she would like a report page so she could do her own research on one of the temple sites that I had found. (It really is true, if you trust the process they do transistion into scholars.)
The House of the Lord – Official LDS Site on Temples
LDS Church Temples – wonderful, up to date page on all the temples, facts, wonderful maps, downloadable screensavers.
Temples to Dot the Earth – Mostly maps of the temples, some interesting statistics, and links to local temple websites.
I have only just begun to create this notebooking pages, it will take me a long time to do 150 also. I wanted to share this now, and see if anyone had any suggestions, or recommendations for particular ones that you would like to use right away. I also want to have something that talks about the importance of the temples, I guess I'll have to search the Friend for more Ideas. If you have any ideas, I'd love to hear them.
Nancy
Bibliography
I found the longitude and latitude of the temples as a download in an CSV file (can be opened in a spreadsheet program) from (GPS Coordinates CSV File) http://www.ldschurchtemples.com/downloads/
Trivia taken from stories in The First 100 Temples (Hawkins, Chad S., The First 100 Temples. Deseret Book, 2001)
The outline pictures of the temples was from the January 1986 Friend ( Pat Graham, "Sharing Time: The Spirit of God," Friend, Jan 1986, 46) but you can download the individual files from this about.com site. The colored temple cards can also be downloaded from about.com at (and can be located easily at this location in a modified format or this location which just links you to the church's site easier. Here are the links to the other months not already listed April 2005 and September 2007.
© Nancy Georgeson 2009 –becomingpeculiar.blogspot.com
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